Professional Documents
Culture Documents
2 - Ethical Concepts
2 - Ethical Concepts
ethics
• Also known as moral philosophy is a branch
of philosophy that involves systematizing,
defending, and recommending
concepts of right and wrong conduct.
• Ethics seeks to resolve questions of
human morality by defining concepts such
as good and evil, right
and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime.
• The English word "ethics" is derived from the Ancient
Greek word ēthikós (ἠθικός), meaning "relating to one's
character“.
Ethics: Major branches
• Three major areas of study within ethics recognized today are:
– Meta-ethics, concerning
the theoretical meaning
and reference of moral
propositions, and how
their truth values (if any)
can be determined.
– Normative ethics, concerning the practical means of determining a
moral course of action
– Applied ethics, concerning what a person is obligated (or permitted)
to do in a specific situation or a particular domain of action
Ethics: Meta-Ethics
• Meta-ethics is the
branch of philosophical
ethics that asks how we
understand, know about,
and what we mean when
we talk about what is
right and what is wrong.
– For example:
"Is it ever possible to have secure knowledge of what is
right and wrong?" is a meta-ethical question.
Ethics: Meta-Ethics
Ethics: Normative ethics
• Normative ethics is the
branch of ethics that
investigates the set of
questions that arise
when considering how one
ought to act, morally
speaking.
– Normative ethics is distinct from meta-ethics because normative ethics
examines standards for the rightness and wrongness of actions, while
meta-ethics studies the meaning of moral language and the
metaphysics of moral facts.
Ethics: Applied ethics
• Applied Ethics refers to the practical application of moral considerations.
• It is ethics with respect to real-
world actions and their moral
considerations in the areas of
private and public life, the
professions, health, technology, law,
and leadership.
– For example, the bioethics
community is concerned with
identifying the correct approach to moral issues in the life sciences,
such as euthanasia, the allocation of scarce health resources, or the
use of human embryos in research.
Ethical position
• the ethical school that a given individual may be inclined
towards in comportment and behaviour.