Ethics is the philosophical study of moral phenomena. Also called moral philosophy, it investigates normative questions about what people ought to do or which behavior is morally right. Its main branches include normative ethics, applied ethics, and metaethics.
Jurisprudence, also known as theory of law or philosophy of law, is the examination in a general perspective of what law is and what it ought to be. It investigates issues such as the definition of law; legal validity; legal norms and values; as well as the relationship between law and other fields of study, including economics, ethics, history, sociology, and political philosophy.
In metaphilosophy and ethics, metaethics is the study of the nature, scope, and meaning of moral judgment. It is one of the three branches of ethics generally studied by philosophers, the others being normative ethics and applied ethics.
In metaethics, the naturalistic fallacy is the claim that it is possible to define good in terms of merely described entities, properties, or processes such as pleasant, desirable, or fitness. The term was introduced by British philosopher G. E. Moore in his 1903 book Principia Ethica.
Moral relativism or ethical relativism is used to describe several philosophical positions concerned with the differences in moral judgments across different peoples and cultures. An advocate of such ideas is often referred to as a relativist.
Rationality is the quality of being guided by or based on reason. In this regard, a person acts rationally if they have a good reason for what they do, or a belief is rational if it is based on strong evidence. This quality can apply to an ability, as in a rational animal, to a psychological process, like reasoning, to mental states, such as beliefs and intentions, or to persons who possess these other forms of rationality. A thing that lacks rationality is either arational, if it is outside the domain of rational evaluation, or irrational, if it belongs to this domain but does not fulfill its standards.
Cognitivism is the meta-ethical view that ethical sentences express propositions and can therefore be true or false, which noncognitivists deny. Cognitivism is so broad a thesis that it encompasses moral realism, ethical subjectivism, and error theory.
A prescriptive or normative statement is one that evaluates certain kinds of words, decisions, or actions as either correct or incorrect, or one that sets out guidelines for what a person "should" do.
Applied philosophy is a branch of philosophy that studies philosophical problems of practical concern. The topic covers a broad spectrum of issues in environment, medicine, science, engineering, policy, law, politics, economics and education. The term was popularised in 1982 by the founding of the Society for Applied Philosophy by Brenda Almond, and its subsequent journal publication Journal of Applied Philosophy edited by Elizabeth Brake. Methods of applied philosophy are similar to other philosophical methods including questioning, dialectic, critical discussion, rational argument, systematic presentation, thought experiments and logical argumentation.
Norm, the Norm or NORM may refer to:
Norms are concepts (sentences) of practical import, oriented to affecting an action, rather than conceptual abstractions that describe, explain, and express. Normative sentences imply "ought-to" types of statements and assertions, in distinction to sentences that provide "is" types of statements and assertions. Common normative sentences include commands, permissions, and prohibitions; common normative abstract concepts include sincerity, justification, and honesty. A popular account of norms describes them as reasons to take action, to believe, and to feel.
Deontic logic is the field of philosophical logic that is concerned with obligation, permission, and related concepts. Alternatively, a deontic logic is a formal system that attempts to capture the essential logical features of these concepts. It can be used to formalize imperative logic, or directive modality in natural languages. Typically, a deontic logic uses OA to mean it is obligatory that A, and PA to mean it is permitted that A, which is defined as .
The fact–value distinction is a fundamental epistemological distinction described between:
- Statements of fact, which are based upon reason and observation, and examined via the empirical method.
- Statements of value, which encompass ethics and aesthetics, and are studied via axiology.
Philosophy and economics studies topics such as public economics, behavioural economics, rationality, justice, history of economic thought, rational choice, the appraisal of economic outcomes, institutions and processes, the status of highly idealized economic models, the ontology of economic phenomena and the possibilities of acquiring knowledge of them.
Positive economics is the study of the facts in economics and normative economics is the study of the values in economics. In the philosophy of economics, economics is often divided into positive and normative economics. Positive economics focuses on the description, quantification and explanation of economic phenomena; normative economics often takes the form of discussions about fairness and what the outcome of the economy or goals of public policy ought to be, as well as prescriptions regarding rational choice.
Metaepistemology is the branch of epistemology and metaphilosophy that studies the underlying assumptions made in debates in epistemology, including those concerning the existence and authority of epistemic facts and reasons, the nature and aim of epistemology, and the methodology of epistemology.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to ethics.
Cristina Bicchieri is an Italian–American philosopher. She is the S.J.P. Harvie Professor of Social Thought and Comparative Ethics in the Philosophy and Psychology Departments at the University of Pennsylvania, professor of Legal Studies in the Wharton School, and director of the Master in Behavioral Decision Sciences program and the Philosophy, Politics and Economics program. She has worked on problems in the philosophy of social science, rational choice and game theory. More recently, her work has focused on the nature and evolution of social norms, and the design of behavioral experiments to test under which conditions norms will be followed. She is a leader in the field of behavioral ethics and is the director of the Center for Social Norms and Behavioral Dynamics at the University of Pennsylvania.
A legal norm is a binding rule or principle, or norm, that organisations of sovereign power promulgate and enforce in order to regulate social relations. Legal norms determine the rights and duties of individuals who are the subjects of legal relations within the governing jurisdiction at a given point in time. Competent state authorities issue and publish basic aspects of legal norms through a collection of laws that individuals under that government must abide by, which is further guaranteed by state coercion. There are two categories of legal norms: normativity, which regulates the conduct of people, and generality, which is binding on an indefinite number of people and cases. Diplomatic and legislative immunity refers to instances where legal norms are constructed to be targeted towards a minority and are specifically only binding on them, such as soldiers and public officials.
Economic ethics is the combination of economics and ethics, incorporating both disciplines to predict, analyze, and model economic phenomena.
