Introduction to Ethics

• Ethics is explored in this lesson.

Branches of Ethics

• The main branches are meta-ethics, normative ethics, descriptive ethics, and applied ethics.

Meta-Ethics

• Meta-ethics studies the nature of ethics; it analyzes the meaning of words like good, bad, right, and wrong.
• Meta-ethics questions what it means for something to be right or wrong.

Normative Ethics

• Normative ethics studies ethical action and relies on what is considered morally right or wrong.
• Normative ethics are more practical and relevant to basic human behavior and actions.
• Question that it considers: Is it wrong to kill one person to save many lives?

Scenarios to Consider

• A doctor has five patients needing organ transplants and will die within a week without them, but a healthy person who is a perfect match walks in. Should the doctor take the healthy person's organs even though it will kill them?
• A doctor is treating a patient with a highly contagious and deadly disease under strict quarantine guidelines, but the doctor’s family member, who is also a doctor at the same hospital, needs a rare medication only available in the quarantined patient’s room. Should the quarantined room be entered risking spread of the disease, to save the family member?
• Should a teacher fail a student who plagiarized a major assignment, despite a strict school policy around plagiarism, when the student maintains perfect grade pressure from home and having one failure impact their college prospects and well-being.
• A highly skilled software engineer is offered two positions: A high-paying position at a large corporation, with excellent benefits and opportunities for career advancement, but the company's work involves developing software for surveillance technology that the engineer finds morally questionable and; A lower-paying position at a small, socially responsible startup that develops educational software.

Descriptive Ethics

• Descriptive ethics involves describing and explaining people’s moral attitudes as well as moral norms and practices of societies.
• This branch examines what people think about morality or how they actually behave based on morals.
• Descriptive ethics deals with what society thinks is generally good or bad.

Applied Ethics

• Applied ethics applies ethical principles and moral theories to real-life moral issues.
• It addresses ethical questions specific to practical fields.
• Questions that it considers: Is euthanasia ethical? and Will AI replace human jobs?

Importance of Ethics

• Ethics provides guidance for moral decision-making.
• Ethics promotes virtue and integrity.
• Ethics enhances professional conduct.
• Ethics helps to develop ethical leaders and institutions.
• Ethics promotes social justice and equity.
• Ethics promotes ethical reflection on emerging issues.

Second Activity

• How can understanding of philosophy help you appreciate ethics?
• Why do you need to study ethics?
• Write down your realizations from the discussion.

Explore the main branches of ethics: meta-ethics, normative ethics, descriptive ethics, and applied ethics. Meta-ethics studies the nature of ethics, while normative ethics studies ethical action. Consider scenarios like a doctor needing to make difficult choices