Fact Check: Ethics

Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior." The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns matters of value; these things comprise the branch of philosophy called axiology (the philosophical study of value).

Ethics seeks to resolve questions of human morality by defining concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime. As a field of intellectual inquiry, moral philospphy is related to the fields of moral psychology, descriptive ethics, and value theory.

Three major areas of study within ethics recognized today are:

1. Meta-ethics, concerning the theoretical meaning and reference of moral propositions, and how their truth values (if any) can be determined;
2. Normative ethics, concerning the practical means of determining a moral course of action;
3. Applied ethics, concerning what a person is obligated (or permitted) to do in a specific situation or a particular domain of action.

The English word ethics is derived from the Ancient Greek word "ethikos," meaning "relating to one's character," which itself comes from the root word "ethos," meaning "character, moral nature." This word was transferred into Latin as "ethica" and then into French as "ethique," from which it was transferred into English.

Rushworth Kidder states that "standard definitions of ethics have typically included such phrases as 'the science of the ideal human character' or the 'science of moral duty.'" Richard William Paul and Linda Elder define ethics as "a set of concepts and principles that guide us in determining what behavior helps or harms sentient creatures." The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy states that the word "ethics" is "commonly used interchangeably with 'morality' ... and sometimes it is used more narrowly to mean the moral principles of a particular tradition, group, or individual." Paul and Elder state that most people confuse ethics with behaving in accordance with social conventions, religious beliefs, the law, and do not treat ethics as a stand-alone concept.

The word ethics in English refers to several things. It can refer to philosophical ethics or moral philosophy--a project that attempts to use reason to answer various kinds of ethical questions. As the English moral philosopher Bernard Williams writes, attempting to explain moral philosophy: "What makes an inquiry a philosophical one is reflective generality and a style of argument that claims to be rationally persuasive." Williams describes the content of this area of inquiry as addressing the very broad question, "How one should live?" Ethics can also refer to a common human ability to think about ethical problems that is not particular philosophy. As bioethicist Larry Churchill has written, "Ethics, understood as the capacity to think critically about moral values and direct our actions in terms of such values, is a generic human capacity."

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