Outline of ethics

See also: Index of ethics articles

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to ethics:

Ethics – major branch of philosophy, encompassing right conduct and good life. It is significantly broader than the common conception of analyzing right and wrong. A central aspect of ethics is "the good life", the life worth living or life that is simply satisfying, which is held by many philosophers to be more important than moral conduct.^[1]

Nature of ethics

Main article: Ethics

Ethics can be described as:

• a branch of philosophy

Essence of ethics

• Right vs. wrong
• Good vs. evil

Branches of ethics

Applied ethics

Applied ethics – using philosophical methods, attempts to identify the morally correct course of action in various fields of human life.

• Business ethics – concerns questions such as the limits on managers in the pursuit of profit, or the duty of 'whistleblowers' to the general public as opposed to their employers.
• Medical ethics (aka clinical ethics) – ethics to improve fulfillment of basic health needs.
  • Bioethics – concerned with identifying the correct approach to matters such as euthanasia, or the allocation of scarce health resources, or the use of human embryos in research.
    • Ethics of cloning –
• Decision ethics – ethical theories and ethical decision processes.
• Organizational ethics – ethics among organizations.
• Professional ethics –
  • Accounting ethics – study of moral values and judgments as they apply to accountancy.
  • Archaeological ethics –
  • Computer ethics – deals with how computing professionals should make decisions regarding professional and social conduct.^[2]
  • Research ethics –
  • Legal ethics –
• Social ethics – ethics among nations and as one global unit.
• Other
  • Bridge ethics – codes of ethics applied during play of the card game known as contact bridge.
  • Environmental ethics – concerned with issues such as the duties of humans towards landscapes and species.
    • Animal rights – also known as animal liberation, is the idea that the most basic interests of non-human animals should be afforded the same consideration as the similar interests of human beings.
    • Climate ethics – concerned with the ethical dimensions of climate change, and concepts such as climate justice.

Meta-ethics

• Meta-ethics – concerns the nature of moral statements, that is, it studies what ethical terms and theories actually refer to.

Non-cognitivism

Non-cognitivism –

• Emotivism –
• Prescriptivism –

Cognitivism

Cognitivism –

• Realism –
• Naturalism –
• Non-naturalism –

Moral epistemology

Moral epistemology –

• Moral skepticism –
• Nihilism –
• Particularism –
• Rationalism –
• Conventionalism –
• Relativism –

Metaphysics of morals

Metaphysics of morals –

• Value realism –
• Prescriptive realism –

Normative ethics

Normative ethics – concerns what people should believe to be right and wrong.

• Consequentialism – moral theories that hold that the consequences of one's conduct are the true basis for any judgement about the morality of that conduct. Thus, a morally right act (or omission) is one that will produce a good outcome (the end justifies the means).
• Deontological ethics – approach that judges the morality of an action based on the action's adherence to a rule or rules.
  • Moral absolutism – view that certain actions are absolutely right or wrong, regardless of other contexts such as their consequences or the intentions behind them. Thus stealing, for instance, might be considered to be always immoral, even if done to promote some other good (e.g., stealing food to feed a starving family), and even if it does in the end promote such a good.
  • Graded absolutism
• Pragmatic ethics –
• Virtue ethics – describes the character of a moral agent as a driving force for ethical behavior.
  • Aristotelian ethics – the beginning of ethics as a subject, in the form of a systematic study of how individuals should best live. Aristotle believed one's goal should be living well and "eudaimonia", a Greek word often translated as "well-being" or "happiness". This could be achieved by the acquisition of a virtuous character, or in other words having well-chosen excellent habits.
    • Nicomachean Ethics – most popular ethics treatise by Aristotle
    • Eudemian Ethics –
    • Magna Moralia –
• Religious ethics –
  • Divine command theory – claims that ethical sentences express the attitudes of God. Thus, the sentence "charity is good" means "God commands charity".
  • Ethics in the Bible –
  • Ayyavazhi ethics –
  • Buddhist ethics –
    • Buddhist ethics (discipline) –
  • Christian ethics –
  • Islamic ethics –
    • Islamic bioethics –
  • Jewish ethics –
    • Jewish business ethics –
    • Jewish medical ethics –

Other

• Eudaimonism – system of ethics that measures happiness in relation to morality.
• Utilitarianism –
• Cyberethics –
• Descriptive ethics –
• Development ethics –
• Discourse ethics –
• Engineering ethics –
• Environmental virtue ethics –
• Ethics in management –
• Ethics in pharmaceutical sales –
• Ethics in public administration –
• Ethics of artificial intelligence –
  • Machine ethics –
• Ethics of belief –
• Ethics of care –
• Ethics of circumcision –
• Ethics of eating meat –
• Ethics of justice –
• Ethics of technology –
• Ethics of terraforming –
• Eudemian Ethics –
• Evidence-based medical ethics –
• Evolutionary ethics –
• Feminist ethics –
• Formal ethics –
• Genethics –
• Government ethics –
• Information ethics –
• International Ethics –
• Internet ethics –
  • Internet research ethics –
• Legal ethics –
• Lifeboat ethics –
• Living Ethics –
• Marketing ethics –
• Media ethics –
• Military medical ethics –
• Neuroethics –
• Nursing ethics –
• Phonethics –
• Population ethics –
• Practical Ethics –
• Public sector ethics –
• Regulatory ethics –
• Research ethics –
• Rights Ethics –
• Roboethics –
• Secular ethics –
• Sexual ethics –
• Situated ethics –
• Situational ethics –
• Technoethics –
• Trail ethics –
• Utilitarian bioethics –
• Veterinary ethics –
• Viper Ethics –
• Visual ethics –

• Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act –

Related areas

• Value theory
• Philosophy of economics
• Political philosophy
• Philosophy of law
• Deontic logic
• Religious ethics
• Action theory
• Practical reasoning

History of ethics

Main article: History of ethics

• History of ethics in Ancient Greece
• History of business ethics
  • Compliance and ethics program
• History of animal rights
  • History of animal testing
• History of medical ethics
• History of computer ethics

General ethics concepts

• The Golden Rule –
• Silver Rule –
• Harm principle –
• Non-aggression principle –
• Morality –
• Political freedom
• Autonomy –
• Rights –
• Conscience –
• Responsibility –
• Care –
• Justice –
• Principle –
• Virtue –
• Happiness –
• Norm –
• Suffering or Pain –
• Equality –
• Trust –
• Free will –
• Consent –
• Moral right –
• Human rights –
• Just War –
• Axiology –
• Consequentialism –
• Deontology –
• Buddhist ethics (discipline) –
• Ethical egoism –
• Ethical subjectivism –
• Fallibilism –
• Foucault–Habermas debate –
• Journalism ethics and standards –
• Moral absolutism –
• Moral nihilism –
• Moral relativism –
• Moral skepticism –
• Moral syncretism –
• Religious values –
• Rationality –
• Rationality and power –
• Rule According to Higher Law –

• Abolitionism (bioethics) –
• Altruism –
• Biocentrism –
• Business Ethics (The Office) –
• Cognitivism –
• Commensurability –
• Dual loyalty –

• Ethics (Scientology) –
• Ethics (Star Trek: The Next Generation) –
• Ethics (disambiguation) –
• Ethics Bowl –
• Ethics in America –
• Ethicspoint –
• Evasion –
• Extrinsic value –
• Ethics and religious culture –
• Feminist Approaches to Bioethics –
• IRB: Ethics & Human Research –
• Ideal –
• International Society for Environmental Ethics –
• Intrinsic value (animal ethics) –
• Intrinsic value –
• Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics –

• Journalism ethics and standards –
• Life sciences, ethics and democracy –
• Lindner Ethics Complaint of the 83rd Minnesota Legislative Session –
• List of ECHR cases concerning legal ethics –
• Maximization –
• Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics –
• Nicomachean Ethics –
• Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy –
• Nuffield Council on Bioethics –
• Playing God –
• Reconciling Poetics and Ethics in Architecture Conference 2007 –
• Religious views on business ethics –
• Resources for clinical ethics consultation –
• Search for Designation or Twenty Seventh Theorem of Ethics –
• Spalding Professor of Eastern Religion and Ethics –
• Standard Ethics Aei –
• Surrism-Phonoethics –
• Sydney Bioethics Program –
• Ten Commandments of Computer Ethics –
• Toi Te Taiao: The Bioethics Council –
• Universal code –
• Value –

Ethical issues

Problem Areas in Archaeological Ethics

• Human Remains
• Responsibility of the Archaeologist vis-a-vis local traditions and cultures
• Responsibility of the Archaeologist vis-a-vis the architectural remains that have been uncovered during an excavation
• Responsibility of the Archaeologist vis-a-vis dissemination of the material uncovered, not only in academic circles but also to a broader public, both in the area of the excavation and from where the Sponsors come
• Balancing World, National and regional claims to various parts of the archaeological record
• protecting Archaeological sites and objects from illegal trade

Law

• Communist Party of China 52 code of ethics –
• Enron Code of Ethics –
• Ethics in Government Act –
• Medical Code of Ethics –
• UN Principles of Medical Ethics –

Government agencies

• Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics –
• Commission on Federal Ethics Law Reform –
• Committee on Publication Ethics –
• District of Columbia Board of Elections and Ethics –
• Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission –
• Ethics Commission –
• Ethics Commissioner (Canada) –
• Ethics Committee (European Union) –
• Ethics committee (disambiguation) –
• Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology –
• International Bioethics Committee –
• International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants –
• Jeffersonville Ethics Commission –
• Nevada Commission on Ethics –
• Office of Congressional Ethics –
• Oklahoma Ethics Commission –
• Pennsylvania State Ethics Commission –
• San Francisco Ethics Commission –
• Texas Ethics Commission –
• The President's Council on Bioethics –
• United States House Committee on Ethics –
• United States Office of Government Ethics –
• United States Senate Select Committee on Ethics –

Awards

• Nobel Peace Prize –
• Payne Award for Ethics in Journalism –

Organizations

• Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs –
• Center for Ethics at Yeshiva University –
• Center for International Media Ethics –
• Center for Religion, Ethics and Social Policy –
• Center for bioethics and medical humanities –
• Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions –
• Centre for Applied Ethics –
• Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics –
• Centre for Human Bioethics –
• Centre for Values, Ethics and the Law in Medicine –
• Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington –
• Computer Ethics Institute –
• Cumberland School of Law's Center for Biotechnology, Law, and Ethics –
• Ethics AdviceLine for Journalists –
• Ethics Resource Center –
• Ethics and Democracy Network –
• Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation –
• Ethics and Public Policy Center –
• Foundation for Thought and Ethics –
• Institute for Business and Professional Ethics –
• Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies –
• Institute for Global Ethics –
• Institute for Science, Ethics and Innovation –
• Institute of Business Ethics –
• Kenan Institute for Ethics –
• Kennedy Institute of Ethics –
• Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal –
• Kirby Laing Institute for Christian Ethics –
• Maguire Center for Ethics –
• Markkula Center for Applied Ethics –
• National Catholic Bioethics Center –
• National Core for Neuroethics –
• National Tribunal of Journalistic Ethics –
• Nihon Ethics of Video Association –
• School for Ethics and Global Leadership –
• Society for Business Ethics –
• Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics –
• Society of Jewish Ethics –
• St James Ethics Centre –
• The Soderquist Center for Leadership and Ethics –
• University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics –

Persons influential in the field of ethics

Main article: List of ethicists

• Confucius (551 BC – 479 BC) –
• Socrates (469 BC – 399 BC) –
• Plato () –
• Aristippus (c. 435-c. 356 BCE) –
• Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) –
• Mencius (c. 372 – c. 289 BCE) –
• Epicurus (341 BCE – 270 BCE) –
• Jesus (7-2 BC/BCE — 30-36 AD/CE) –
• Epictetus (AD 55 – AD 135) –
• Augustine of Hippo (354 – 430) –
• Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) –
• Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) –
• David Hume (1711–1776) –
• Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) –
• Georg W. F. Hegel (1770–1831) –
• Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) –
• Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) –
• Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) –
• John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) –
• Henry Sidgwick (1838–1900) –
• Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) –
• Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) –
• William James (1842–1910) –
• Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869–1948) –
• John Dewey (1859–1952) –
• G. E. Moore (1873–1958) –
• Paul Tillich (1886–1965) –
• Karl Barth (1886–1968) –
• J. L. Mackie (1917–1981) –
• G.E.M. Anscombe (1919–2001) –
• John Rawls (1921–2002) –
• Bernard Williams (1929–2003) –
• Philippa Foot (1920–2010) –
• Alasdair MacIntyre (1929 - ) –
• Thomas Nagel (1937 - ) –
• Derek Parfit (1942 - ) –
• Peter Singer (1946 - ) –

Publications

Books

• Nicomachean Ethics – most popular ethics treatise by Aristotle
• Eudemian Ethics –
• Magna Moralia –
• Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics –
• Encyclopedia of Ethics –
• Ethics, Institutions, and the Right to Philosophy –
• Ethics (book) –
• How to Observe Morals and Manners –
• The Ethics of Ambiguity –
• The Ethics of Liberty –
• The Methods of Ethics –

Journals

• American Journal of Bioethics –
• Bioethics –
• Business Ethics Quarterly –
• Business and Professional Ethics Journal –
• Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics –
• Environmental Ethics –
• Ethics & International Affairs –
• Ethics (journal) –
• Ethics and Language –
• Experiments in Ethics –
• Journal of Business Ethics –
• Journal of Business Ethics Education –
• Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics –
• Journal of Ethics & Social Philosophy –
• Journal of Information Ethics –
• Journal of Medical Ethics –
• Legal Trends in Bioethics –
• Professional Ethics –
• Religion & Ethics Newsweekly –
• Teaching Ethics –
• The Economics and Ethics of Private Property –
• The Freedom Paradox: Towards a Post-Secular Ethics –
• The Journal of Ethics –

See also

Ethics portal

• Index of business ethics, political economy, and philosophy of business articles
• Index of ethics articles
• List of topics in sexual ethics
• Outline of philosophy

References

1. ^ Singer, P. (1993) Practical Ethics, 2nd edition (p.10), Cambrdige: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ Bynum, Terrell Ward. "A Very Shory History of Computer Ethics". Southern Connecticut State University. Archived from the original on 2008-04-18. http://web.archive.org/web/20080418122849/http://www.southernct.edu/organizations/rccs/resources/research/introduction/bynum_shrt_hist.html. Retrieved 2011-01-05. 

External links

• An Introduction to Ethics by Paul Newall, aimed at beginners.
• Ethics, 2d ed., 1973. by William Frankena
• Ethics Bites Open University podcast series podcast exploring ethical dilemmas in everyday life.
• University of San Diego - Ethics glossary Useful terms in ethics discussions
• National Reference Center for Bioethics Literature World's largest library for ethical issues in medicine and biomedical research
• Ethics entry in Encyclopædia Britannica by Peter Singer
• The Philosophy of Ethics on Philosophy Archive
• Ethics updates Provides resources and updates on current literature, both popular and professional, that relate to ethics.
• Kirby Laing Institute for Christian Ethics Resources, events, and research on a range of ethical subjects from a Christian perspective.