Ethics

Ethics Study Guide

©2018 Achieve Page 6 of 116 , meaning “character.” Ethics is a branch of philosophy that seeks to address questions about morality. These questions include how moral values should be determined (normative ethics), what moral values people actually abide by (descriptive ethics), how to use ethics in “real-life situations” (applied ethics), and the meaning of ethical terms, judgments, and arguments (meta-ethics). Ethics is a topic that transcends gender, race, monetary statue, or any other symbol to help determine the nature of people and the purpose of their actions and thought processes. Do ethics follow law, religious beliefs, or societal norms? Many have come before and many will come after asking, “ Why ?” For this reason, it is imperative to question, ponder, and then, answer this question, in order to understand the structure of the lives we choose to live. There are two main approaches for studying ethics: normative ethics (ethical theory and applied ethics) and non-normative ethics (descriptive/meta-ethics). 1.3 Normative Ethics The term normative reflects the ordinary view that some things are better than others. It is used when making judgments that involve basic values and is based on cultural norms. Normative ethics has three branches: virtue ethics, deontological ethics, and teleological ethics. Chapter 1: Ethics and Ethical Reasoning Objectives After reading this chapter, you should be able to: 1. Differentiate between ethics and morality. 2. Define deontological ethics, teleological ethics, and virtue ethics. 3. Differentiate between normative ethics and non-normative ethics. 4. Differentiate between moral judgments and non-moral judgments. 5. Identify the components of a valid argument and logical fallacies. 1.1 What is Morality? The word morality comes from the Latin root mos and ethics are often used interchangeably, and both words are broadly defined as having to do with right and wrong. However, there is a difference: morality is used to refer to moral standards and moral conduct, while ethics is used to refer to the formal study of those standards and conduct. For this reason, the study of ethics is also known as “moral philosophy.” 1.2 What is Ethics? The word ethics comes from the Greek root ethos , meaning “custom.” The terms moralit y