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Defining Ethics: Ethics or Moral Philosophy Is A Branch

This document provides an overview of ethics as a branch of philosophy. It discusses three major areas of ethics: meta-ethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics. Meta-ethics examines the meaning and reference of moral propositions. Normative ethics concerns determining a moral course of action. Applied ethics examines obligations in specific situations. The document also traces the origins of the word "ethics" and discusses different perspectives in meta-ethics such as cognitivism versus non-cognitivism and ethical realism versus anti-realism.

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Vanellope Vonschweettz
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34 views2 pages

Defining Ethics: Ethics or Moral Philosophy Is A Branch

This document provides an overview of ethics as a branch of philosophy. It discusses three major areas of ethics: meta-ethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics. Meta-ethics examines the meaning and reference of moral propositions. Normative ethics concerns determining a moral course of action. Applied ethics examines obligations in specific situations. The document also traces the origins of the word "ethics" and discusses different perspectives in meta-ethics such as cognitivism versus non-cognitivism and ethical realism versus anti-realism.

Uploaded by

Vanellope Vonschweettz
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Ethics 

or moral philosophy is a branch[1] of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and


recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".[2] The field of ethics, along with aesthetics,
concerns matters of value, and thus comprises the branch of philosophy called axiology.[3]
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. As a field of intellectual inquiry, moral philosophy
also is related to the fields of moral psychology, descriptive ethics, and value theory.
Three major areas of study within ethics recognized today are:[2]

1. Meta-ethics, concerning the theoretical meaning and reference of moral propositions, and
how their truth values (if any) can be determined
2. Normative ethics, concerning the practical means of determining a moral course of action
3. Applied ethics, concerning what a person is obligated (or permitted) to do in a specific
situation or a particular domain of action.[2]

Defining ethics[edit]
The English word ethics is derived from the Ancient Greek word ēthikós (ἠθικός), meaning "relating
to one's character", which itself comes from the root word êthos (ἦθος) meaning "character, moral
nature".[4] This word was transferred into Latin as ethica and then into French as éthique, from which
it was transferred into English.
Rushworth Kidder states that "standard definitions of ethics have typically included such phrases as
'the science of the ideal human character' or 'the science of moral duty'".[5] Richard William Paul
and Linda Elder define ethics as "a set of concepts and principles that guide us in determining what
behavior helps or harms sentient creatures".[6] The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy states that
the word "ethics" is "commonly used interchangeably with 'morality' ... and sometimes it is used
more narrowly to mean the moral principles of a particular tradition, group or individual."[7] Paul and
Elder state that most people confuse ethics with behaving in accordance with social conventions,
religious beliefs, the law, and don't treat ethics as a stand-alone concept.[8]
The word ethics in English refers to several things.[9] It can refer to philosophical ethics or moral
philosophy—a project that attempts to use reason to answer various kinds of ethical questions. As
the English moral philosopher Bernard Williams writes, attempting to explain moral philosophy:
"What makes an inquiry a philosophical one is reflective generality and a style of argument that
claims to be rationally persuasive."[10] Williams describes the content of this area of inquiry as
addressing the very broad question, "how one should live".[11] Ethics can also refer to a common
human ability to think about ethical problems that is not particular to philosophy. As bioethicist Larry
Churchill has written: "Ethics, understood as the capacity to think critically about moral values and
direct our actions in terms of such values, is a generic human capacity."[12] Ethics can also be used to
describe a particular person's own idiosyncratic principles or habits.[13] For example: "Joe has strange
ethics."

Meta-ethics[edit]
Main article: 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.[14] An ethical question pertaining
to a particular practical situation—such as, "Should I eat this particular piece of chocolate cake?"—
cannot be a meta-ethical question (rather, this is an applied ethical question). A meta-ethical
question is abstract and relates to a wide range of more specific practical questions. For example,
"Is it ever possible to have a secure knowledge of what is right and wrong?" is a meta-ethical
question.
Meta-ethics has always accompanied philosophical ethics. For example, Aristotle implies that less
precise knowledge is possible in ethics than in other spheres of inquiry, and he regards ethical
knowledge as depending upon habit and acculturation in a way that makes it distinctive from other
kinds of knowledge. Meta-ethics is also important in G.E. Moore's Principia Ethica from 1903. In it he
first wrote about what he called the naturalistic fallacy. Moore was seen to reject naturalism in ethics,
in his open-question argument. This made thinkers look again at second order questions about
ethics. Earlier, the Scottish philosopher David Hume had put forward a similar view on the difference
between facts and values.
Studies of how we know in ethics divide into cognitivism and non-cognitivism; this is quite akin to the
thing called descriptive and non-descriptive. Non-cognitivism is the view that when we judge
something as morally right or wrong, this is neither true nor false. We may, for example, be only
expressing our emotional feelings about these things.[15] Cognitivism can then be seen as the claim
that when we talk about right and wrong, we are talking about matters of fact.
The ontology of ethics is about value-bearing things or properties, i.e. the kind of things or stuff
referred to by ethical propositions. Non-descriptivists and non-cognitivists believe that ethics does
not need a specific ontology since ethical propositions do not refer. This is known as an anti-realist
position. Realists, on the other hand, must explain what kind of entities, properties or states are
relevant for ethics, how they have value, and why they guide and motivate our actions.[16]

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