Ethics

Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality — that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.

Major branches of ethics include:

• • Meta ethics, about the theoretical meaning and reference of moral propositions and how their truth values (if any) may be determined;

  • Normative ethics, about the practical means of determining a moral course of action;

  • Applied ethics, about how moral outcomes can be achieved in specific situations;

  • Moral psychology, about how moral capacity or moral agency develops and what its nature is;

  • Descriptive ethics, about what moral values people actually abide by.

Within each of these branches are many different schools of thought and still further sub-fields of study.