Ethics is the conceptual and normative investigation of right and wrong, good and bad, and what should be

Contents

• Abortion
  • Supreme Court Abortion Decisions
  • Moral Status of Abortion
• Capital Punishment
  • How should the worst crimes be punished?
• Decision-Making
  • Bad Decision-Making
  • Decision Theory
  • Framework for Decision-Making
• Normative, Applied, and Meta Ethics
• Topics
  • What ought to be done, right and wrong, good and bad, duty and permissibility, moral reasoning and principles, moral responsibility, rights, and virtue

Normative, Applied, and Meta Ethics

• Ethics comprises Normative Ethics, Metaethics, and Applied Ethics
  • Normative Ethics is the investigation of normative theories of moral obligation.
    • Consequentialist theories derive obligation from the good and bad consequences of an act.
    • Deontological theories derive obligation from moral principles.
  • Metaethics is the investigation of the meaning, epistemology, objectivity, logic, and relativity of ethical terms, addressing questions such as:
    • Are moral judgments objective or subjective?
    • Are moral judgments true or false?
    • Are moral principles relative to one’s culture?
    • What does “killing is morally wrong” mean?
    • What does it mean to say that a person a moral right to X?
  • Applied Ethics is the investigation of moral rights and duties in particular cases, e.g. war, abortion, euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide, human cloning, equality, capital punishment, treatment of animals, world hunger.