- For the book of the same name, see Ethics (book); for the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, see Ethics (TNG Episode).
Ethics (from Greek ἦθος meaning "custom") is the branch of axiology, one of the four major branches of philosophy, which attempts to understand the nature of morality; to define that which is right from that which is wrong. The Western tradition of ethics is sometimes called moral philosophy.
The first social science
Assumptions about ethical underpinnings of human behavior are reflected in every social science, including: anthropology because of the complexities involved in relating one culture to another, economics because of its role in the distribution of scarce resources, political science because of its role in allocating power, sociology because of its roots in the dynamics of groups, law because of its role in codifying ethical constructs like mercy and punishment, criminology because of its role in rewarding ethical behavior and discouraging unethical behavior, and psychology because of its role in defining, understanding, and treating unethical behavior.
Ethics has also been extended to the hard sciences, such as biology (as bioethics) and ecology (as environmental ethics). As these fields become more complex and deal with more situations, the application of ethics in those fields can also become more complex.
In analytic philosophy, ethics is traditionally divided into three fields: Meta-ethics, Normative ethics (including value theory and the theory of conduct) and applied ethics – which is seen to be derived, top-down, from normative and thus meta-ethics.
Meta-ethics
- Main article: Meta-ethics
Meta-ethics is the investigation of the nature of ethical statements. It involves such questions as: Are ethical claims truth-apt, i.e., capable of being true or false, or are they, for example, expressions of emotion (see cognitivism and non-cognitivism)? If they are truth-apt, are they ever true? If they are ever true, what is the nature of the facts that they express? And are they ever true absolutely (see moral absolutism), or always only relative to some individual, society, or culture? (See moral relativism, cultural relativism.)
Meta-ethics studies the nature of ethical sentences and attitudes. This includes such questions as what "good" and "right" mean, whether and how we know what is right and good, whether moral values are objective, and how ethical attitudes motivate us. Often this is derived from some list of moral absolutes, e.g. a religious moral code, whether explicit or not. Some would view aesthetics as itself a form of meta-ethics. Some philosophers, such as Kierkegaard viewed meta-ethics as a pursuit that could only be understood in terms of the religious. His Christian derived ethics is seen most clearly in the concept of a 'teleological suspension of the ethical' - a moment when ethical reality is superseded by religious reality, such as Abraham's sacrifice of his son Isaac on Mt. Moriah and its prefiguration of God the father's sacrifice of Christ.
Meta-ethics also investigates where our ethical principles come from, and what they mean. Are they merely social inventions? Do they involve more than expressions of our individual emotions? Meta-ethical answers to these questions focus on the issues of universal truths, the will of God, the role of reason in ethical judgments, and the meaning of ethical terms themselves.
Normative ethics
- Main article: Normative ethics
Normative ethics bridges the gap between meta-ethics and applied ethics. It is the attempt to arrive at practical moral standards that tell us right from wrong, and how to live moral lives. This may involve articulating the good habits that we should acquire, the duties that we should follow, or the consequences of our behavior on others.
- One branch of normative ethics is theory of conduct; this is the study of right and wrong, of obligation and permissions, of duty, of what is above and beyond the call of duty, and of what is so wrong as to be evil. Theories of conduct propose standards of morality, or moral codes or rules. For example, the following would be the sort of rules that a theory of conduct would discuss (though different theories will differ on the merit of each of these particular rules): "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"; "The right action is the action which produces the greatest happiness for the greatest number"; "Stealing is wrong". Theories of moral conduct can be distinguished from etiquette by their concern with finding guidelines for action that are not dependent entirely on social convention. For example, it may not be a breach of etiquette to fail to give money to help those in poverty, but it could still be a failure to act morally.
