Ethics: the study of right and wrong

Metaethics

Normative ethics

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Example questions

Positions

Example Questions

Applied ethics

Areas

Is ethics more about self-interest or about the
interests of others

Are some virtues more important than others?

Doing the “right thing” and doing the “best thing”

What is a duty?

Are consequences relevant for ethics?

What is a good person?

Plato

Do moral principles exist?

Positions

Aristotle

Egoism and altruism

Hume

Kant

Mill and Bentham

Nietzsche

Are moral principles universal or
relative to a particular situation or culture?

Is moral sense natural or cultural? Relative or
universal? Subjective or objective?

What is the significance of calling something
“right” or “wrong”?

Is moral behaviour found only in human beings?

What are the foundations for moral judgments?

Biomedical ethics

Environmental ethics

Distribution of wealth

Example questions

Poverty

Inequality

Ethical responsibilities
to humanity,

Taxation

Charity

Example questions

Cloning

Genetic engineering

Stem cell research

Euthanasia

Abortion

Example questions

Rights and interests of future generations

Anthropocentrism

Species extinction

Deep ecology

Animal rights

Food production

Animal testing

Deontological view

Virtue ethics

Utilitarianism

Eudaimonia

Golden mean

Virtues and vices

Practical reason

According to Aristotle a human being is:
a talking, rational animal
political, social animal

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Why are some people bad: akrasia, the lack of self-control

Human is the ideal state in a smaller form

Three parts of the soul
relate to the just divisions in the society

The idea of OBJECTIVE values

Justice and happiness are related

Some virtues and vices are natural, others, including justice, are artificial

Moral distinctions are not derived from reason, but from moral sentiments: feelings of approval (esteem, praise) and disapproval (blame) felt by spectators who contemplate a character trait or action.

He claims that the sentiments of moral approval and disapproval are caused by some of the operations of sympathy, which is not a feeling but rather a psychological mechanism that enables one person to receive by communication the sentiments of another (more or less what we would call empathy today).