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Ethics, the philosophical discipline concerned with what is morally good and bad and morally right and wrong. Its subject consists of fundamental issues of practical decision making, and its major concerns include the nature of ultimate value and the standards by which human actions can be morally evaluated.
ethics, Branch of philosophy that seeks to determine the correct application of moral notions such as good and bad and right and wrong or a theory of the application or nature of such notions. Ethics is traditionally subdivided into normative ethics, metaethics, and applied ethics.
Normative ethics, that branch of moral philosophy, or ethics, concerned with criteria of what is right and wrong. It includes the formulation of moral rules that have implications for what human actions, institutions, and ways of life should be like.
Applied ethics, the application of normative ethical theories—i.e., philosophical theories regarding criteria for determining what is morally right or wrong, good or bad—to practical problems. (Read Peter Singer’s Britannica entry on ethics.)
Deontological ethics holds that at least some acts are morally obligatory regardless of their consequences for human welfare. Descriptive of such ethics are such expressions as “Duty for duty’s sake,” “Virtue is its own reward,” and “Let justice be done though the heavens fall.”.
The first ethical precepts must have been passed down by word of mouth from parents and elders, but as societies learned to use the written word, they began to set down their ethical beliefs. These records constitute the first historical evidence of the origins of ethics.
Virtue ethics, Approach to ethics that takes the notion of virtue (often conceived as excellence) as fundamental. Virtue ethics is primarily concerned with traits of character that are essential to human flourishing, not with the enumeration of duties.
Ethics of care, feminist philosophical perspective that uses a relational and context-bound approach toward morality and decision making. The term ethics of care refers to ideas concerning both the nature of morality and normative ethical theory.
Many people think of morality as something that’s personal and normative, whereas ethics is the standards of “good and bad” distinguished by a certain community or social setting. For example, your local community may think adultery is immoral, and you personally may agree with that.
teleological ethics, (teleological from Greek telos, “end”; logos, “science”), theory of morality that derives duty or moral obligation from what is good or desirable as an end to be achieved.