Guide to Ethics & Morality
Principles, Problems, and Questions
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What are ethics? What is morality? How can one behave in a moral manner? These are among the most difficult and most interesting questions which face people of any age. Today, however, with advancing technology, difficult moral situations come upon us faster than we can even create the questions, much less find the answers. This FAQ will address both general issues and specific questions in the area of moral philosophy.
Introduction to Ethics
Just what are ethics and morality - and what is the difference between the two? How do our values
impact our ethical decisions and moral standards? And why does the study of ethics and morality
even matter - don't we already and inherently understand how to reason about morals and arrive
at ethical decisions?
Highlights:
• What are Ethics and Morality?
• Ethics, Morals, and Values
• Who Cares?
How To Think About Ethics
The field of ethics is usually broken down into three different ways of thinking about
ethics: descriptive, normative and analytic. It isn't unusual for disagreements in debates
over ethics to arise because people are approaching the topic from a different one of these
three categories. Thus, learning what they are and how to recognize them might save you
some grief later.
Highlights:
• Descriptive Ethics
• Normative Ethics
• Analytic Ethics (Metaethics)
Normative Ethical Systems
Normative ethical systems can generally be broken down into three categories:
deontological, teleological and virtue ethics. The first two are considered deontic or
action-based theories of morality because they focus entirely upon the actions which a
person performs. The third, virtue ethics, focuses upon what sort of person one wants to be.
Highlights:
• Deontology and Ethics
• Teleology and Ethics
• Virtue Ethics
Ethical Dilemmas and Problems
Very often, the best way to learn how to reason through ethical dilemmas is by doing it -
it's not a skill that can be completely taught in the abstract. You do need to understand
the different types of ethical systems and how they work, but once that is complete you
simply have to work through various ideas and positions to see what is logical and what
isn't. Here you will find a large number of articles which exemplify how one can reason
through ethical problems from a secular, atheistic, and humanistic perspective.
Highlights:
• Bioethics
• War and Morality
• Modern Culture & Ethics
• Privacy and Personal Autonomy
• Affirmative Action
Biographies
Below are links to biographies of philosophers who have played an important role in the development of ethical philosophy through the centuries.
-->Aristotle
Bentham, Jeremy
Camus, Albert
Clifford, William K.
Dewey, John
Hook, Sidney
Kant, Immanuel
Kierkegaard, Soren
Machiavelli, Niccolo
Milgram, Stanley
Mill, John Stuart
Moore, G.E,
Nagel, Ernest
Nietzsche, Friedrich
Plato
Rawls, John
Russell, Bertrand
Sartre, Jean-Paul
Schopenhauer, Arthur
Socrates
