Basic Concepts

Core Concepts in Ethics

Moral Agency: The capacity to make moral judgments and be held morally responsible for one's actions. Moral agents must have sufficient rationality, self-control, and understanding of moral concepts.

Values: The principles or standards that individuals or societies regard as worthwhile or desirable. Values can be intrinsic (valuable in themselves) or instrumental (valuable as means to other ends).

Duties and Obligations: Actions that are morally required. Some philosophers distinguish between perfect duties (which must always be fulfilled) and imperfect duties (which allow some discretion in how and when they are fulfilled).

Rights: Justified claims that individuals can make upon others or society. Rights can be negative (rights against interference) or positive (rights to assistance or provision of goods).

Virtues and Vices: Character traits that are morally praiseworthy (virtues) or blameworthy (vices). Virtues include qualities like courage, honesty, and compassion, while vices include cowardice, dishonesty, and cruelty.

Three Major Ethical Frameworks

Consequentialism

Consequentialism holds that the moral rightness of an action depends entirely on its consequences. The most familiar form is utilitarianism, which judges actions by their tendency to promote overall happiness or well-being.

Key principles:

  • Actions are right insofar as they tend to promote good consequences
  • The ends can justify the means
  • Moral evaluation focuses on outcomes rather than intentions or inherent features of acts

Classical utilitarianism (Bentham, Mill) focuses on maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain, while modern versions may focus on preference satisfaction or objective well-being.

Deontological Ethics

Deontological (duty-based) ethics holds that certain actions are inherently right or wrong, regardless of their consequences. The most influential deontological thinker is Immanuel Kant.

Key principles:

  • Some acts are intrinsically right or wrong
  • Moral rules or duties constrain what we may do, even to achieve good outcomes
  • Respect for persons as rational agents is fundamental
  • The categorical imperative: Act only on principles you could will to be universal laws

Kantian ethics emphasizes treating people as ends in themselves, never merely as means, and acting from duty rather than inclination.

Virtue Ethics

Virtue ethics, tracing back to Aristotle, focuses on moral character rather than specific acts or consequences. It asks not "what should I do?" but "what kind of person should I be?"

Key principles:

  • Ethics is about cultivating virtuous character traits
  • The good life (eudaimonia) comes from exercising virtues
  • Practical wisdom (phronesis) helps us apply virtues appropriately
  • Virtues are acquired through practice and habituation

Modern virtue ethics emphasizes the importance of moral exemplars, narrative understanding, and the social context of ethical life.


Applied Ethics

Applied ethics examines specific moral problems and controversies in various domains:

  • Bioethics: Issues in medicine, healthcare, and biological research (informed consent, end-of-life care, genetic engineering)
  • Environmental Ethics: Our moral relationship with nature and future generations
  • Business Ethics: Moral issues in commerce and organizations
  • Technology Ethics: Ethical implications of artificial intelligence, privacy, and digital life


Metaethics

Metaethics steps back from normative questions to examine the nature of morality itself:

  • Moral Realism vs. Anti-Realism: Are there objective moral facts, or are moral judgments subjective?
  • Cognitivism vs. Non-Cognitivism: Do moral statements express beliefs that can be true or false, or are they expressions of attitudes?
  • Moral Motivation: How are moral judgments connected to action? Why be moral?