|
( Normative ethics)
Meta-ethics
Normative&_160;· Descriptive
Consequentialism
Deontology
Virtue ethics
Ethics of care
Good and evil&_160;· Morality Broadly speaking, normative ethics can be divided into the sub-disciplines of moral theory and applied ethics. In recent years the boundaries between these sub-disciplines have increasingly been dissolving as moral theorists become more interested in applied problems and applied ethics is becoming more profoundly philosophically informed. Traditional moral theories were concerned with finding moral principles which allow one to determine whether an action is right or wrong. Classical theories in this vein include utilitarianism, Kantianism, and some forms of contractarianism. These theories offered an overarching moral principle to which one could appeal in resolving difficult moral decisions. In the 20th century, moral theories have become more complex and are no longer concerned solely with rightness and wrongness, but are interested in many different kinds of moral status. This trend may have begun in 1930 with D. W. Ross in his book, The Right and the Good. Here Ross argues that moral theories cannot say in general whether an action is right or wrong but only whether it tends to be right or wrong according to a certain kind of moral duty such as beneficence, fidelity, or justice (he called this concept of partial rightness prima facie duty). Subsequently, philosophers have been questioned whether even prima facie duties can be articulated at a theoretical level, and some philosophers have urged a turn away from general theorizing altogether, while others have defended theory on the grounds that it need not be perfect in order to capture important moral insight.
|
Normative ethics Subcategories
Normative ethics Articles
|
| 
