NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Ethical system

For other uses, see Ethics (disambiguation) Ethics (from the Ancient Greek "ethikos", meaning "arising from habit"), a major branch of philosophy, is the study of value or quality. It covers the analysis and employment of concepts such as right, wrong, good, evil, and responsibility. It is divided into three primary areas: meta-ethics (the study of the concept of ethics), normative ethics (the study of how to determine ethical values), and applied ethics (the study of the use of ethical values). Note: This article contains special characters. ... Socrates (central bare-chested figure) about to drink hemlock as mandated by the court. ... Philosophical analysis is a general term for the techniques used by philosophers. ... A concept is an abstract idea or a mental symbol, typically associated with a corresponding representation in language or symbology, that denotes all of the objects in a given category or class of entities, interactions, phenomena, or relationships between them. ... A right is the power or privilege to which one is justly entitled or a thing to which one has a just claim. ... A wrong is a concept in law, ethics, and science. ... Good may mean: Look up good in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... In religion and ethics, Evil refers to the bad aspects of the behaviour and reasoning of human beings â€”those which are deliberately void of conscience, and show a wanton penchant for destruction. ... Almanac Â· Categories Â· Glossaries Â· Lists Â· Overviews Â· Portals Â· Questions Â· Site news Â· Index Art | Culture | Geography | Health | History | Mathematics | People | Philosophy | Science | Society | Technology Wikipedia is an encyclopedia written by its users in over 200 languages worldwide. ...

Meta-ethics

There are two main strands of thought attempting to explain what ethical values and claims are actually about. In philosophy, meta-ethics is the branch of ethics that seeks to understand the nature of ethical properties (if there are any), and ethical statements, attitudes, and judgments. ...

One strand are commonly termed 'non-realist', because they suggest moral values are creations, dependent on people's feelings and goals regarding themselves and others (emotivism or prescriptivism) or on their belief systems (cultural or individual relativism). Despite the name 'non-realist', such theories may see reality as important in shaping the human choice of ethical values (indirectly by, for example, the evolutionary or developmental shaping of human psychology, or directly through, for example, people assessing and debating the likely consequences of their actions).

Another group of 'realist' theories, by contrast, hold that moral value is somehow an intrinsic property of the world and that ethical principles are discovered or intuited. In this view, the ethical values held by people can at best reflect an independent Truth, by which their validity must be judged. These theories may be derived from theology or naturalism. Theology (Greek Î¸ÎµÎ¿Ï‚, theos, God, + Î»Î¿Î³Î¿Ï‚, logos, word or reason) means reasoned discourse concerning religion, spirituality and God. ... Naturalism refers to a number of different topics: Naturalism (philosophy) is any of several philosophical stances which do not claim that phenomena or hypotheses commonly labeled as supernatural necessarily do not exist or are wrong, but insist that they are not inherently different from natural phenomena or hypotheses, and that...

Normative ethics

Normative ethics bridges the gap between meta-ethics and applied ethics. It is the attempt to arrive at general moral standards that tell us how to judge right from wrong, or good from bad, and how to live moral lives. This may involve articulating the character or good habits that we should acquire, the duties that we should follow, or the consequences of our behavior on ourselves and others. There are three main approaches to normative ethics. Normative ethics is the branch of the philosophical study of ethics concerned with classifying actions as right and wrong, as opposed to descriptive ethics. ...

Normative ethicists who follow the first approach are often called virtue ethicists, and articulate the various virtues or good habits that should be acquired. Aristotle is a pioneer virtue ethicist. This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Aristotle (Greek: AristotÃ©lÄ“s) (384 BC â€“ March 7, 322 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. ...

Normative ethicists who follow the second approach are often called deontological ethicists. Immanuel Kant set out the large framework for a deontological normative ethical theory. In ethics, deontological ethics or deontology (Greek: Deon meaning obligation or duty) is a theory holding that decisions should be made solely or primarily by considering ones duties and the rights of others. ... Immanuel Kant (22 April 1724 â€“ 12 February 1804), was a German philosopher from KÃ¶nigsberg in East Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia). ...

Normative ethicists who follow the third approach are often called consequentialists or (specifically in regard to the theory of the greatest good for the greatest number) utilitarians, and John Stuart Mill set out a large framework for a utilitarian normative ethics. Consequentialism refers to those moral theories that hold that the consequences of a particular action form the basis for any valid moral judgement about that action. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... John Stuart Mill (May 20, 1806 â€“ May 8, 1873), an English philosopher and political economist, was an influential liberal thinker of the 19th century. ...

Descriptive ethics

Some philosophers rely on descriptive ethics and choices made and unchallenged by a society or culture to derive categories, which typically vary by context. This leads to situational ethics and situated ethics. These philosophers often view aesthetics, etiquette, and arbitration as more fundamental, percolating "bottom up" to imply, rather than explicitly state, theories of value or of conduct. In these views ethics is not derived from a top-down a priori "philosophy" (many would reject that word) but rather is strictly derived from observations of actual choices made in practice: Descriptive ethics deal with what the population actually believes to be right and wrong, and holds up as ideals or condemns or punishes in law or politics, as contrasted to normative ethics which deals with what the population should believe to be right and wrong, and such concepts as sin... Young people interacting within an ethnically diverse society. ... Culture (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning to cultivate), generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activity significance. ... Situational ethics (also known as Situationism) refers to a particular view of ethics,faggot that states: (J. Fletcher, Situation Ethics (Westminster, Philadelphia, 1966). ... Situated ethics, often confused with situational ethics, is a view of applied ethics in which abstract standards from a culture or theory are considered to be far less important than the ongoing processes in which one is personally and physically involved, e. ... The Parthenons facade showing an interpretation of golden rectangles in its proportions. ... Etiquette, also known as decorum, is the code that governs the expectations of social behavior, the conventional norm. ... Arbitration is a legal technique for the resolution of disputes outside the courts, wherein the parties to a dispute refer it to one or more persons (the arbitrators or arbitral tribunal), by whose decision (the award) they agree to be bound. ...

Those who embrace such descriptive approaches tend to reject overtly normative ones. There are exceptions, such as the movement to more moral purchasing. In the context of a code adopted by a profession or by a governmental or quasi-governmental organ to regulate that profession, an ethical code may be styled as a code of professional responsibility, which may dispense with difficult issues of what behavior is ethical. Some codes of ethics are... The moral core of an individual is the extent to which that person will apply his or her notions of morality. ... Etiquette, also known as decorum, is the code that governs the expectations of social behavior, the conventional norm. ... President George W. Bush and Laura Bush stand with 2005 National Humanities Medal recipient Judith Martin. ... Arbitration is a legal technique for the resolution of disputes outside the courts, wherein the parties to a dispute refer it to one or more persons (the arbitrators or arbitral tribunal), by whose decision (the award) they agree to be bound. ... // Balancing scales are symbolic of how law mediates peoples interests For other senses of this word, see Law (disambiguation). ... Voting is a method of decision making wherein a group such as a meeting or an electorate attempts to gauge its opinionâ€”usually as a final step following discussions or debates. ... Look up Trade in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Trade centers on the exchange of goods and/or services. ... Social interactions and their consequences are the subject of sociology. ... Political science is the field of the social sciences concerning the theory and practice of politics and the description and analysis of political systems and political behavior. ... Face-to-face trading interactions among on the New York Stock Exchange trading floor Economics or oeconomics is the study of human choice behaviour. ... Ethical consumerism is the practice of boycotting products which a consumer believes to be associated with unnecessary exploitation or other unethical behaviour. ...

Applied ethics

Applied ethics takes a theory of ethics, such as utilitarianism, social contract theory, or deontology, and applies its major principles to a particular set of circumstances and practices. ...

Ethics by cases

A common approach in applied ethics is to deal with individual issues on a case-by-case basis.

Casuistry is the application of case-based reasoning to applied ethics. Almost all American states have tried to discourage dishonest practices by their public employees and elected officials by establishing an Ethics Commission for their state. Casuistry (argument by cases) is an attempt to determine the correct response to a moral problem, often a moral dilemma, by drawing conclusions based on parallels with agreed responses to pure cases, also called paradigms. ... Case-based reasoning (CBR), broadly construed, is the process of solving new problems based on the solutions of similar past problems. ... In the United States, an Ethics Commission is a commission established by State law to to discourage dishonest practices by their public employees and elected officials. ...

Bernard Crick in 1982 offered a socially-centered view, that politics was the only applied ethics, that it was how cases were really resolved, and that "political virtues" were in fact necessary in all matters where human morality and interests were destined to clash. Sir Bernard Crick (born 16 December 1929) is a British political theorist whose views are often summarised as politics is ethics done in public. He seeks to arrive at a politics of action, as opposed to a politics of thought or of ideology. ... 1982 (MCMLXXXII) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Politics is the process by which groups make decisions. ... The political virtues were listed by Bernard Crick In Defense of Politics, 1982. ...

The lines of distinction between meta-ethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics are often blurry. For example, the issue of abortion is an applied ethical topic since it involves a specific type of controversial behavior. But it also depends on more general normative principles, such as the right of self-rule and the right to life, which are litmus tests for determining the morality of that procedure. The issue also rests on metaethical issues such as, "where do rights come from?" and "what kind of beings have rights?"

Another concept which blurs ethics is moral luck. A drunk driver may safely reach home without injuring anyone, or he might accidentally kill a child who runs out into the street while he is driving home. How bad the action of driving while drunk is in that case depends on chance. Moral luck is the phenomenon whereby a moral agent is assigned moral blame or moral praise for an action or its consequences even when it is clear that the agent in question did not have full control over either the action or its consequences. ...

The special virtue of casuistry over applied moral theory is that groups and individuals often disagree about theories, but may nonetheless have remarkably similar paradigms. Thus, they may be able to achieve substantial social agreement about actions, even though their theories are incompatible. This may be why casuistry is the foundation of many legal systems. Casuistry is essentially based on applying paradigms to individual cases on their own merits.

Specific questions

The ethical problems attacked by applied ethicists (of whatever sort) often bear directly on public policy. For example, the following would be questions of applied ethics: "Is getting an abortion ever moral?" "Is euthanasia ever moral?" "What are the ethical underpinnings of affirmative action policies?" "What are human rights, and how do we determine them?" and "Do 'other animals' have rights as well?" Euthanasia (from Greek: ÎµÏ…Î¸Î±Î½Î±ÏƒÎ¯Î± -ÎµÏ…, eu, good, Î¸Î±Î½Î±Ï„Î¿Ï‚, thanatos, death) is the practice of terminating the life of a person or an animal because they are perceived as living an intolerable life, in a painless or minimally painful way either by lethal injection, drug overdose, or by the withdrawal of life support. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Human rights are rights which some hold to be inalienable and belonging to all humans. ...

A more specific question could be: "If someone else can make better out of his/her life than I can, is it then moral to sacrifice myself for them if needed?"

Without these questions there is no clear fulcrum on which to balance law, politics, and the practice of arbitration—in fact, no common assumptions of all participants—so the ability to formulate the questions are prior to rights balancing. // Balancing scales are symbolic of how law mediates peoples interests For other senses of this word, see Law (disambiguation). ... Politics is the process by which groups make decisions. ... Arbitration is a legal technique for the resolution of disputes outside the courts, wherein the parties to a dispute refer it to one or more persons (the arbitrators or arbitral tribunal), by whose decision (the award) they agree to be bound. ...

But not all questions studied in applied ethics concern public policy. For example, making ethical judgments regarding questions such as, "Is lying always wrong?" and, "If not, when is it permissible?" is prior to any etiquette. A lie is a statement made by someone who believes or suspects it to be false, in the expectation that the hearers may believe it. ...

Ethics in politics and economics

Ethics has been applied to economics, politics and political science, leading to several distinct and unrelated fields of applied ethics, including business ethics and Marxism. American corporate scandals such as Enron and Global Crossing are illustrative of the interplay between ethics and business. Ethical inquiries into the fraud perpetrated by corporate senior executive officers (e.g., Enron's Kenneth Lay) are a growing trend and the situational ethics of employees, no matter how junior, who follow their unreasonable and/or illegal directives has also come to the fore. Face-to-face trading interactions among on the New York Stock Exchange trading floor Economics or oeconomics is the study of human choice behaviour. ... Politics is the process by which groups make decisions. ... Political science is the field of the social sciences concerning the theory and practice of politics and the description and analysis of political systems and political behavior. ... Business ethics is a form of applied ethics that examines ethical rules and principles within a commercial context, the various moral or ethical problems that can arise in a business setting, and any special duties or obligations that apply to persons who are engaged in commerce. ... Marxism refers to the philosophy and social theory based on Karl Marxs work on one hand, and to the political practice based on Marxist theory on the other hand (namely, parts of the First International during Marxs time, communist parties and later states). ... Enron Corporation was an American energy company based in Houston, Texas. ... Global Crossing Ltd. ... Kenneth Lee Ken Lay (April 15, 1942 â€“ July 5, 2006), was an American businessman, best known for his role in the widely-reported corruption scandal that led to the downfall of Enron Corporation. ...

Ethics has been applied to family structure, sexuality, and how society views the roles of individuals; leading to several distinct and unrelated fields of applied ethics, including feminism. Feminism is a collection of social theories, political movements and moral philosophies, largely motivated or concerned with the liberation of women. ...

Ethics has been applied to war, leading to the fields of pacifism and nonviolence. Pacifism is the opposition to war or violence as a means of settling disputes. ... Nonviolence (or non-violence) is a moral philosophy that rejects the use of violence in efforts to attain social or political change, and proclaims others means such as disobedience or the power of persuasion. ...

Often, such efforts take legal or political form before they are understood as works of normative ethics. The UN Declaration of Universal Human Rights of 1948 and the Global Green Charter of 2001 are two such examples. However, as war and the development of weapon technology continues, it seems clear that no nonviolent means of dispute resolution is accepted by all. Normative ethics is the branch of the philosophical study of ethics concerned with classifying actions as right and wrong, as opposed to descriptive ethics. ... The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (also UDHR) is a declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly (A/RES/217, December 10, 1948), outlining basic human rights. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... The Global Greens Charter is a document that 800 delegates from the Green parties of 70 countries decided upon a first gathering of the Global Greens in Canberra, Australia in April 2001. ... This article is about the year 2001. ... A war is a conflict between two or more groups that involve large numbers of individuals. ... The term technological escalation describes the fact that whenever two parties are in competition, each side tends to employ continuing technological improvements to defeat the other. ...

The need to redefine and align politics away from ideology and towards dispute resolution was a motive for Bernard Crick's list of political virtues. Sir Bernard Crick (born 16 December 1929) is a British political theorist whose views are often summarised as politics is ethics done in public. He seeks to arrive at a politics of action, as opposed to a politics of thought or of ideology. ... The political virtues were listed by Bernard Crick In Defense of Politics, 1982. ...

Environmental ethics

Ethics has been applied to analyze human use of Earth's limited resources. This has led to the study of environmental ethics and social ecology. A growing trend has been to combine the study of both ecology and economics to help provide a basis for sustainable decisions on environmental use. This has led to the theories of ecological footprint and bioregional autonomy. Political and social movements based on such ideas include eco-feminism, eco-anarchism, deep ecology, the green movement, and ideas about their possible integration into Gaia philosophy. Environmental ethics --or more properly designated, environmental philosophy-- considers the ethical relationship between human beings and the natural environment. ... Social ecology is, in the words of its leading exponents, a coherent radical critique of current social, political, and anti-ecological trends as well as a reconstructive, ecological, communitarian, and ethical approach to society. Social Ecology is a radical view of ecology and of social/political systems. ... Ecofeminism is a biocentric environmental movement with cultural and social concerns. ... Eco-anarchism argues that small eco-villages (of no more than a few hundred people) are a scale of human living preferable to civilization, and that infrastructure and political systems should be re-organized to ensure that these are created. ... Deep ecology is a recent branch of ecological philosophy (ecosophy) that considers humankind as an integral part of its environment. ... The Green movement encompasses the Green parties of various countries, and relies on the ideals of the larger ecology movement, peace movement, conservation movement, environmental movement and general trend towards environmentalism. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

Ethics in the professions

There are several sub-branches of applied ethics examining the ethical problems of different professions, such as business ethics, medical ethics, journalism ethics, engineering ethics and legal ethics, while technology assessment and environmental assessment study the effects and implications of new technologies or projects on nature and society. Business ethics is a form of applied ethics that examines ethical rules and principles within a commercial context, the various moral or ethical problems that can arise in a business setting, and any special duties or obligations that apply to persons who are engaged in commerce. ... Medical ethics is the discipline of evaluating the merits, risks, and social concerns of activities in the field of medicine. ... Journalism ethics or journalistic ethics refers to a set of rules or morals adopted by news organizations or members of the news media. ... Engineering ethics is the field of ethics describing the obligations of those who are professional engineers to their clients or employers, and their obligations to society as a whole. ... Legal ethics refers to an ethical code governing those in the practice of law. ... Technology assessment (TA, German TechnikfolgenabschÃ¤tzung) is the study and evaluation of new technologies. ... An Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is an assessment of the likely human environmental health impact, risk to ecological health, and changes to natures services that a project may have. ...

Each branch characterizes common issues and problems that arise in the ethical codes of the professions, and defines their common responsibility to the public, e.g. to preserve its natural capital, or to obey some social expectations of honest dealings and disclosure. In the context of a code adopted by a profession or by a governmental or quasi-governmental organ to regulate that profession, an ethical code may be styled as a code of professional responsibility, which may dispense with difficult issues of what behavior is ethical. Some codes of ethics are...

Ethics in health care

One of the major areas where ethicists practice is in the field of health care. This includes medicine, nursing, pharmacy, genetics, and other allied health professions. Example issues are euthanasia, animal testing, abortion, medical research, vaccine trials, stem cell research, informed consent, truth telling, patient rights and autonomy, rationing of health care (such as triage). Bioethics is the ethics of biological science and medicine. ... Medical ethics is the discipline of evaluating the merits, risks, and social concerns of activities in the field of medicine. ... Health care or healthcare is the prevention, treatment, and management of illness and the preservation of mental and physical well-being through the services offered by the medical, nursing, and allied health professions. ... Medicine is a branch of health science and the sector of public life concerned with maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, treatment and possible prevention of disease and injury. ... // Nursing ethics is the discipline of evaluating the merits, risks, and social concerns of activities in the field of nursing. ... Bowl of Hygeia Pharmacy (from the Greek Ï†Î¬ÏÎ¼Î±ÎºÎ¿Î½ = drug) is a transitional field between health sciences and chemical sciences and a profession charged with ensuring the safe use of medication. ... Genetics (from the Greek genno Î³ÎµÎ½Î½ÏŽ= give birth) is the science of genes, heredity, and the variation of organisms. ... The Allied health professions are those clinical healthcare professions distinct from the medical profession and nursing profession. ... Euthanasia (from Greek: ÎµÏ…Î¸Î±Î½Î±ÏƒÎ¯Î± -ÎµÏ…, eu, good, Î¸Î±Î½Î±Ï„Î¿Ï‚, thanatos, death) is the practice of terminating the life of a person or an animal because they are perceived as living an intolerable life, in a painless or minimally painful way either by lethal injection, drug overdose, or by the withdrawal of life support. ... Enos the space chimp before insertion into the Mercury-Atlas 5 capsule in 1961. ... Medical research (or experimental medicine) is basic research and applied research conducted to aid the body of knowledge in the field of medicine. ... A vaccine trial is a scientific experiment that uses one or more groups of test subjects to statistically judge the efficacy of a vaccine. ... Mouse embryonic stem cells. ... Informed consent is a legal condition whereby a person can be said to have given consent based upon an appreciation and understanding of the facts and implications of an action. ... Common dictionary definitions of truth mention some form of accord with fact or reality. ... Human rights are rights which some hold to be inalienable and belonging to all humans. ... Rationing is the controlled distribution of resources and scarce goods or services: it restricts how much people are allowed to buy or consume. ... The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view. ...

Ethics in psychology

By the 1960s there was increased interest in moral reasoning. Psychologists such as Lawrence Kohlberg developed theories which are based on the idea that moral behavior is made possible by moral reasoning. Their theories subdivided moral reasoning into so-called stages, which refer to the set of principles or methods that a person uses for ethical judgment. The first and most famous theory of this type was Kohlberg's theory of moral development. The 1960s decade refers to the years from January 1, 1960 to December 31, 1969, inclusive. ... Moral reasoning is a study in psychology that overlaps with moral philosophy. ... Psychology is an academic and applied field involving the scientific study of mental processes and behavior. ... Lawrence Kohlberg (October 25, 1927 â€“ January 19, 1987) was born in Bronxville, New York. ... Kohlbergs stages of moral development are planes of moral adequacy conceived by Lawrence Kohlberg to explain the development of moral reasoning. ...

Carol Gilligan, a student of Kohlberg's, argued that women tend to develop through a different set of stages from men. Her studies inspired work on an ethic of care, which particularly defines itself against Rawlsian-type justice- and contract-based approaches. Carol Gilligan (1936â€“ ) is an American feminist, ethicist, and psychologist best known for her work with and against Lawrence Kohlberg on ethical community and ethical relationships, and certain subject-object problems in ethics. ... The ethics of care movement is a movement in twentieth century normative ethical theory that is largely inspired by the work of psychologist Carol Gilligan. ...

Another group of influential psychological theories with ethical implications is the humanistic psychology movement. One of the most famous humanistic theories is Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Maslow argued that the highest human need is self-actualization, which can be described as fulfilling one's potential, and trying to fix what is wrong in the world. Carl Rogers's work was based on similar assumptions. He thought that in order to be a 'fully functioning person', one has to be creative and accept one's own feelings and needs. He also emphasized the value of self-actualization. A similar theory was proposed by Fritz Perls, who assumed that taking responsibility of one's own life is an important value. Humanistic psychology is a school of psychology that emerged in the 1950s in reaction to both behaviorism and psychoanalysis. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Maslows Hierarchy of Needs is a theory in psychology that Abraham Maslow proposed in his 1943 paper A Theory of Human Motivation, which he subsequently extended. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Maslows hierarchy of needs. ... Carl Ransom Rogers (January 8, 1902 â€“ February 4, 1987) was an influential American psychologist, who, along with Abraham Maslow, was the founder of the humanist approach to psychology. ... Friedrich (Frederick) Salomon Perls (July 8 1893, Berlin - March 14, 1970, Chicago), better known as Fritz Perls, was a noted German-born psychiatrist and psychotherapist of Jewish descent. ...

R.D. Laing developed a broad range of thought on interpersonal psychology. This deals with interactions between people, which he considered important, for an ethical action always occurs between one person and another. In books such as The Politics of Experience, he dealt with issues concerning how we should relate to persons labeled by the psychiatric establishment as "schizophrenic". He came to be seen as a champion for the rights of those considered mentally ill. He spoke out against (and wrote about) practices of psychiatrists which he considered inhumane or barbaric, such as electric shock treatment. Like Wittgenstein, he was frequently concerned with clarifying the use of language in the field -- so, for example, he suggested that the effects of psychiatric drugs (some of which are very deleterious, such as tardive diskensia) be called just that: "effects", and not be referred to by the preferred euphemisms of the drug companies, who prefer to call them "side effects". Laing also did work in establishing true asylums as places of refuge for those who feel disturbed and want a safe place to go through whatever it is they want to explore in themselves, and with others. R.D.Laing. ...

A third group of psychological theories that have implications for the nature of ethics are based on evolutionary psychology. These theories are based on the assumption that the behavior that ethics prescribe can sometimes be seen as an evolutionary adaptation. For instance, altruism towards members of one's own family promotes one's inclusive fitness. Evolutionary psychology (abbreviated ev-psych or EP) is a theoretical approach to psychology that attempts to explain certain mental and psychological traitsâ€”such as memory, perception, or languageâ€”as evolved adaptations, i. ... Inclusive fitness encompasses conventional Darwinian fitness with the addition of behaviors that contribute to an organismâ€™s individual fitness through altruism. ...

Legal ethics

Ethics has been applied to criminology leading to the field of criminal justice. Legal ethics refers to an ethical code governing those in the practice of law. ... Template:Criminologies Criminology is the scientific study of crime as an individual and social phenomenon. ... Criminal justice refers to the system used by government to maintain social control, enforce laws, and administer justice. ...

Choices Vs. Consequences Consequences of personal choies may impact on other people and any associated reponsiblities may extend into a wider society. They are major factos in life, as they determine one's relationships with him/herself and with others.

See also

Image File history File links Wikiversity-logo-Snorky. ... Wikiversity is a Wikimedia Foundation project, hosted in Wikibooks. ... Aristotelianism is a tradition of philosophy that takes its defining inspiration from the work of Aristotle. ... The Desseks are characters in a fictional universe created by Dutch Science Fiction/Fantasy writer Tais Teng. ... For the fictional character, see Empath (comics). ... Moral absolutism is the belief that there are absolute standards against which moral questions can be judged, and that certain actions are right or wrong, devoid of the context of the act. ... Consequentialism refers to those moral theories that hold that the consequences of a particular action form the basis for any valid moral judgement about that action. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... In moral philosophy, deontology is the view that morality either forbids or permits actions, which is done through moral norms. ... The categorical imperative is the central philosophical concept of the moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant, and to modern deontological ethics. ... The divine command theory is the metaethical theory that morality (e. ... A philosophy of modified Kantianism, originated by R. M. Hare, who believes that our moral judgments should be of the form I ought to do X in Y situation, whenever all of the relevant, universal properties of the facts that obtain in any similar situation are the same. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... W. D. Ross was a philosopher, known for work in ethics. ... Moral relativism is the position that moral propositions do not reflect absolute or universal truths. ... Situational ethics (also known as Situationism) refers to a particular view of ethics,faggot that states: (J. Fletcher, Situation Ethics (Westminster, Philadelphia, 1966). ... This article is in need of attention. ... Nihilism is a philosophical position, often associated with Friedrich Nietzsche. ... In meta-ethics, moral skepticism is a theory which maintains either that ethical claims are generally false, or else that we cannot sufficiently justify any ethical claims, and must therefore maintain doubt about whether they are true or false. ... Ethics is a general term for what is often described as the science (study) of morality. In philosophy, ethical behavior is that which is good or right. ... Humanism is a broad category of active ethical philosophies that affirm the dignity and worth of all people, based on the ability to determine right and wrong by appeal to universal human qualitiesâ€”particularly rationalism. ... Secular humanism is a humanist philosophy that upholds reason, ethics, and justice and specifically rejects rituals and ceremonies as a means to affirm a life stance. ... Founded in Amsterdam in 1952, International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) is the sole world umbrella organisation [1] embracing Humanist, atheist, rationalist, secular, skeptic, Ethical Culture, freethought and similar organisations world-wide. ... Religious humanism, is an integration of religious rituals with humanistic philosophy that centers on human needs, interests, and abilities. ... Altruism is an ethical doctrine that holds that individuals have an ethical obligation to help, serve, or benefit others. ... Altruism is a well-documented animal behaviour, which appears most obviously in kin relationships but may also be evident amongst wider social groups. ... Ethical egoism is belief that one ought to do what is in ones own self-interest, although a distinction should be made between what is really in ones self-interest and what is only apparently so (see psychological egoism). ... The Objectivist ethics is a subset of the Objectivist philosophy formulated by Ayn Rand. ... Social contract theory (or contractarianism) is a concept used in philosophy, political science, and sociology to denote an implicit agreement within a state regarding the rights and responsibilities of the state and its citizens, or more generally a similar concord between a group and its members, or between individuals. ... Evolutionary psychology studies how our behavior evolved. ... Bioethics is the ethics of biological science and medicine. ... This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ... Human rights are rights which some hold to be inalienable and belonging to all humans. ... In meta-ethics, the is-ought problem was raised by David Hume (Scottish philosopher and historian, 1711-1776), who noted that many writers make claims about what ought to be on the basis of statements about what is. ... Kohlbergs stages of moral development are planes of moral adequacy conceived by Lawrence Kohlberg to explain the development of moral reasoning. ... List of ethicists including religious or political figures recognized by those outside their tradition as having made major contributions to ideas about ethics, or raised major controversies by taking strong positions on previously unexplored problems. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... In philosophy, meta-ethics is the branch of ethics that seeks to understand the nature of ethical properties (if there are any), and ethical statements, attitudes, and judgments. ... Morality refers to the concept of human ethics which pertains to matters of good and evil â€”also referred to as right or wrong, used within three contexts: individual conscience; systems of principles and judgments â€” sometimes called moral values â€”shared within a cultural, religious, secular, Humanist, or philosophical community; and codes... George Edward Moore The naturalistic fallacy is an alleged logical fallacy, delineated by British philosopher G. E. Moore in his seminal Principia Ethica (1903). ... Perfection is, broadly, a state of completeness and flawlessness. ... The ethic of reciprocity or The Golden Rule is a fundamental moral principle found in virtually all major religions and cultures, which simply means It is arguably the most essential basis for the modern concept of human rights. ...

References

Simon Blackburn (born 1944) is a British academic philosopher also known for his efforts to popularise philosophy. ...

External links

Categories: Ethics | Social philosophy | Branches of philosophy Takis Fotopoulos (born October 14, 1940) is a Greek political philosopher and academic. ... Democracy & Nature Democracy & Nature was a theoretical journal founded in 1992 by Takis Fotopoulos. ... Socrates (central bare-chested figure) about to drink hemlock as mandated by the court. ... This does not cite its references or sources. ... Western philosophy is a modern claim that there is a line of related philosophical thinking, beginning in ancient Greece (Greek philosophy) and the ancient Near East (the Abrahamic religions), that continues to this day. ... The history of philosophy is the study of philosophical ideas and concepts through time. ... This page lists some links to ancient philosophy, although for Western thinkers prior to Socrates, see Pre-Socratic philosophy. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... 17th-century philosophy in the West is generally regarded as seeing the start of modern philosophy, and the shaking off of the mediÃ¦val approach, especially scholasticism. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Philosophy is a broad field of knowledge in which the definition of knowledge itself is one of the subjects investigated. ... This page aims to list articles on Wikipedia that are related to philosophy, beginning with the letters A through C. This is so that those interested in the subject can monitor changes to the pages by clicking on Related changes in the sidebar. ... The alphabetical list of philosophers is so large it had to be broken up into several pages. ... Philosophies: particular schools of thought, styles of philosophy, or discriptions of philosophical ideas attributed to a particular group or culture - listed in alphabetical order. ... This is a list of topics relating to philosophy that end in -ism. ... A philosophical movement is either the appearance or increased popularity of a specific school of philosophy, or a fairly broad but identifiable sea-change in philosophical thought on a particular subject. ... This is a list of important publications in philosophy, organized by field. ... This is a list of philosophical lists. ... The Parthenons facade showing an interpretation of golden rectangles in its proportions. ... According to Plato, Knowledge is what is both true and believed, though not all that is both true and believed counts as knowledge. ... Logic, from Classical Greek Î»ÏŒÎ³Î¿Ï‚ (logos), originally meaning the word, or what is spoken, (but coming to mean thought or reason) is the study of criteria for the evaluation of arguments, although the exact definition of logic is a matter of controversy among philosophers. ... Plato and Aristotle (right), by Raphael (Stanza della Segnatura, Rome). ... The Politics series Politics Portal This box: Political philosophy is the study of fundamental questions about the state, government, politics, liberty, justice, property, rights, law and the enforcement of a legal code by authority: what they are, why (or even if) they are needed, what makes a government legitimate, what... Philosophy of History is an area of philosophy concerning the eventual significance, if any, of human history, and speculation as to a possible teleological end to its development. ... Philosophical anthropology is the discipline that seeks to unify the several empirical investigations of human nature in an effort to understand individuals as both creatures of their environment and creators of their own values. ... Philosophy of law is a branch of philosophy and jurisprudence which studies basic questions about law and legal systems, such as what is the law?, what are the criteria for legal validity?, what is the relationship between law and morality?, and many other similar questions. ... Philosophy and literature is the literary treatment of philosophers and philosophical themes. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... A Phrenological mapping of the brain. ... Meta-philosophy (philosophy of philosophy) is the study of the subject, matter, methods and aims of philosophy. ... Philosophy of physics is the study of the fundamental, philosophical questions underlying modern physics, the study of matter and energy and how they interact. ... Philosophy of psychology typically refers to a set of issues at the theoretical foundations of modern psychology. ... Philosophy of science is the branch of philosophy that studies the philosophical assumptions, foundations, and implications of science, including the formal sciences, natural sciences, and social sciences. ... Philosophy of social science is the scholarly elucidation and debate of accounts of the nature of the social sciences, their relations to each other, and their relations to the natural sciences (see natural science). ... The Philosophy of technology is a philosophical field dedicated to studying the nature of technology and its social effects. ... The Philosophy of war examines war beyond the typical questions of weaponry and strategy, inquiring into the meaning and etiology of war, what war means for humanity and human nature as well as the ethics of war. ... Analytic philosophy is the dominant philosophical movement in University philosophy departments in English-speaking countries and in Scandinavia, although one of its founders, Gottlob Frege, was German, and many of its leading proponents, such as Ludwig Wittgenstein, Rudolf Carnap, Kurt GÃ¶del, Karl Popper, Hans Reichenbach, Herbert Feigl, Otto Neurath... Aristotelianism is a tradition of philosophy that takes its defining inspiration from the work of Aristotle. ... Continental philosophy is a term used in philosophy to designate one of two major traditions of modern Western philosophy. ... Critical theory, in sociology and philosophy, is shorthand for critical theory of society or critical social theory, a label used by the Frankfurt School, i. ... In contemporary philosophy and social sciences, the term deconstruction denotes a process by which the texts and languages of (particularly) Western philosophy appear to shift and complicate in meaning when read in light of the assumptions they suggest about and absences they reveal within themselves. ... In ethics, deontological ethics or deontology (Greek: Deon meaning obligation or duty) is a theory holding that decisions should be made solely or primarily by considering ones duties and the rights of others. ... It has been suggested that Marxist philosophy of nature be merged into this article or section. ... It has been suggested that Combative dualism be merged into this article or section. ... In philosophy generally, empiricism is a theory of knowledge emphasizing the role of experience. ... Epicureanism is a system of philosophy based upon the teachings of Epicurus (c. ... Existentialism is a philosophical movement that deals with human freedom. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Hermeneutics may be described as the development and study of theories of the interpretation and understanding of texts. ... Humanism is a broad category of active ethical philosophies that affirm the dignity and worth of all people, based on the ability to determine right and wrong by appeal to universal human qualitiesâ€”particularly rationalism. ... Idealism is an approach to philosophical enquiry that asserts that everything we experience is of a mental nature. ... Logical positivism (later referred to as logical empiricism, rational empiricism, or neo-positivism) is a school of philosophy that combines positivismâ€”which states that the only authentic knowledge is scientific knowledgeâ€”with a version of apriorismâ€”the notion that some propositional knowledge can be had without, or prior to, experience. ... Marxism refers to the philosophy and social theory based on Karl Marxs work on one hand, and to the political practice based on Marxist theory on the other hand (namely, parts of the First International during Marxs time, communist parties and later states). ... In philosophy, materialism is that form of physicalism which holds that the only thing that can truly be said to exist is matter; that fundamentally, all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article may require cleanup. ... Neoplatonism (also Neo-Platonism) is the modern term for a school of philosophy that took shape in the 3rd century AD, based on the teachings of Plato and earlier Platonists. ... Nihilism is a philosophical position, often associated with Friedrich Nietzsche. ... Ordinary language philosophy is less a philosophical doctrine or school than it is a loose network of approaches to traditional philosophical problems. ... Look up Phenomenology in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Platonic idealism is the theory that the substantive reality around us is only a reflection of a higher truth. ... Positivism is a philosophy developed by Auguste Comte (widely regarded as the first true sociologist) at the beginning of the 19th century that stated that the only authentic knowledge is scientific knowledge, and that such knowledge can only come from positive affirmation of theories through strict scientific method. ... Postmodern philosophy is an eclectic and elusive movement characterized by its criticism of Western philosophy. ... Post-structuralism is a body of work that followed in the wake of structuralism, and sought to understand the Western world as a network of structures, as in structuralism, but in which such structures are ordered primarily by local, shifting differences (as in deconstruction) rather than grand binary oppositions and... Pragmatism, as a school of philosophy, is a collection of many different ways of thinking. ... The Pre-Socratic philosophers were active before Socrates or contemporaneously, but expounding knowledge developed earlier. ... The factual accuracy of this article is disputed. ... Realism is commonly defined as a concern for fact or reality and a rejection of the impractical and visionary. ... Reformational philosophy is a movement pioneered by Herman Dooyeweerd and D. H. Th. ... Compare Moral relativism, Aesthetic relativism and Cultural relativism. ... Scholasticism comes from the Latin word scholasticus, which means that [which] belongs to the school, and is the school of philosophy taught by the academics (or schoolmen) of medieval universities circa 1100â€“1500. ... This article or section may contain original research or unverified claims. ... A restored Stoa in Athens. ... Structuralism is best known as a theory in the humanities. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

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