Normative ethics
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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 ethics regards ethics as a set of norms related to actions.
Descriptive ethics deal with what the population believes to be right and wrong, while normative ethics deal with what the population should believe to be right and wrong.
Moreover, because it examines standards for the rightness and wrongness of actions, normative ethics is distinct from meta-ethics, which studies the nature of moral statements, and from applied ethics, which places normative rules in practical contexts.
[edit] Normative ethics theories
- Consequentialism argues that the morality of an action is contingent on the action's outcome or result. Some consequentialist theories include:
- Utilitarianism, which holds that an action is right if it leads to the most pleasure (and least pain) for the greatest number of people.
- Egoism, the belief that the moral person is the self-interested person.
- Deontological. Examples of deontology include:
- Kant's Categorical Imperative, which roots morality in humanity's rational capacity and creates certain inviolable moral laws.
- The Contractarianism of John Rawls or Thomas Hobbes holds that the moral acts are those that we would all agree to if we were unbiased.
- Philosophers such as John Locke who believe that humans have absolute rights are also considered deontologists.
- Aristotle argues for virtue ethics which focuses on the inherent character of a person, as opposed to the specific actions they may take. There has been a significant revival in virtue theory over the last three decades, through the work of philosophers such as G. E. M. Anscombe, Philippa Foot, and Rosalind Hursthouse
