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.
Sir Bernard Arthur Owen Williams, FBA was an English moral philosopher. His publications include Problems of the Self (1973), Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (1985), Shame and Necessity (1993), and Truth and Truthfulness (2002). He was knighted in 1999.
The ethics of care is a normative ethical theory that holds that moral action centers on interpersonal relationships and care or benevolence as a virtue. EoC is one of a cluster of normative ethical theories that were developed by some feminists and environmentalists since the 1980s. While consequentialist and deontological ethical theories emphasize generalizable standards and impartiality, ethics of care emphasize the importance of response to the individual. The distinction between the general and the individual is reflected in their different moral questions: "what is just?" versus "how to respond?" Carol Gilligan, who is considered the originator of the ethics of care, criticized the application of generalized standards as "morally problematic, since it breeds moral blindness or indifference".
Iris Marion Young was an American political theorist and socialist feminist who focused on the nature of justice and social difference. She served as Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago and was affiliated with the Center for Gender Studies and the Human Rights program there. Her research covered contemporary political theory, feminist social theory, and normative analysis of public policy. She believed in the importance of political activism and encouraged her students to involve themselves in their communities.
Feminist philosophy is an approach to philosophy from a feminist perspective and also the employment of philosophical methods to feminist topics and questions. Feminist philosophy involves both reinterpreting philosophical texts and methods in order to supplement the feminist movement and attempts to criticise or re-evaluate the ideas of traditional philosophy from within a feminist framework.
Miranda Fricker, FBA FAAS is a British philosopher who is Professor of Philosophy at New York University, co-director of the New York Institute of Philosophy, and honorary professor at the University of Sheffield. Fricker coined the term epistemic injustice.
Brian Leiter is an American philosopher and legal scholar who is Karl N. Llewellyn Professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Chicago Law School and founder and Director of Chicago's Center for Law, Philosophy & Human Values. A review in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews described Leiter as "one of the most influential legal philosophers of our time", while a review in The Journal of Nietzsche Studies described Leiter's book Nietzsche on Morality (2002) as "arguably the most important book on Nietzsche's philosophy in the past twenty years."
Feminist ethics is an approach to ethics that builds on the belief that traditionally ethical theorizing has undervalued and/or underappreciated women's moral experience, which is largely male-dominated, and it therefore chooses to reimagine ethics through a holistic feminist approach to transform it.
Hilde Lindemann is an American philosophy professor and bioethicist and emerita professor at Michigan State University. Lindemann earned her B.A. in German language and literature in 1969 at the University of Georgia. Lindemann also earned her M.A. in theatre history and dramatic literature, in 1972, at the University of Georgia. Lindemann began her career as a copyeditor for several universities. She then moved on to a job at the Hastings Center in New York City, an institute focused on bioethics research, and co-authored book The Patient in the Family, with James Lindemann Nelson, before deciding to earn a Ph.D. in philosophy at Fordham University in 2000. Previously, she taught at the University of Tennessee and Vassar College and served as the associate editor of the Hastings Center Report (1990–95). Lindemann usually teaches courses on feminist philosophy, identity and agency, naturalized bioethics, and narrative approaches to bioethics at Michigan State University.
Pragmatic ethics is a theory of normative philosophical ethics and meta-ethics. Ethical pragmatists such as John Dewey believe that some societies have progressed morally in much the way they have attained progress in science. Scientists can pursue inquiry into the truth of a hypothesis and accept the hypothesis, in the sense that they act as though the hypothesis were true; nonetheless, they think that future generations can advance science, and thus future generations can refine or replace their accepted hypotheses. Similarly, ethical pragmatists think that norms, principles, and moral criteria are likely to be improved as a result of inquiry.
Alice Crary is an American philosopher who currently holds the positions of University Distinguished Professor at the Graduate Faculty, The New School for Social Research in New York City and Visiting Fellow at Regent's Park College, University of Oxford, U.K..
Political ethics is the practice of making moral judgments about political action and political agents. It covers two areas: the ethics of process, which covers public officials and their methods, and the ethics of policy, which concerns judgments surrounding policies and laws.
Marilyn Ann Friedman is an American philosopher. She holds the W. Alton Jones Chair of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University.
Margaret Urban Walker is an American philosopher and academic who is the Donald J. Schuenke Chair Emerita in Philosophy at Marquette University. Before her appointment at Marquette, she was the Lincoln Professor of Ethics at Arizona State University, and before that she was at Fordham University. She has also previously held visiting appointments at Washington University in St. Louis, University of South Florida, and Catholic University of Leuven.
Alison Mary Jaggar is an American feminist philosopher born in England. She is College Professor of Distinction in the Philosophy and Women and Gender Studies departments at the University of Colorado, Boulder and Distinguished Research Professor at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom. She was one of the first people to introduce feminist concerns in to philosophy.
Ann E. Cudd is an American academic. She is the president of Portland State University as of August 1, 2023. She was previously the provost and senior vice chancellor and professor of philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh and dean of the college and graduate school of arts and sciences at Boston University.
Diana Meyers is a philosopher working in the philosophy of action and in the philosophy of feminism. Meyers is professor emerita of philosophy at the University of Connecticut.
Eva Feder Kittay is an American philosopher. She is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy (Emerita) at Stony Brook University. Her primary interests include feminist philosophy, ethics, social and political theory, metaphor, and the application of these disciplines to disability studies. Kittay has also attempted to bring philosophical concerns into the public spotlight, including leading The Women's Committee of One Hundred in 1995, an organization that opposed the perceived punitive nature of the social welfare reforms taking place in the United States at the time.
Joan Claire Tronto, is professor of political science at the University of Minnesota, and was previously professor of women's studies and political science at Hunter College and the Graduate School, City University of New York.
Carol C. Gould is an American philosopher and feminist theorist. Since 2009, she has taught at City University of New York, where she is currently Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Hunter College, and in the Doctoral Programs of Philosophy and Political Science at the CUNY Graduate Center, where she is Director of the Center for Global Ethics and Politics at the Ralph Bunche Institute. Gould is also editor-in-chief of the Journal of Social Philosophy. Her 2004 book Globalizing Democracy and Human Rights received the 2009 David Easton Award which is given by the American Political Science Association "for a book that broadens the horizons of contemporary political science." Her 2014 book Interactive Democracy: The Social Roots of Global Justice received the 2015 Joseph B. Gittler Award from the American Philosophical Association for "an outstanding scholarly contribution in the field of the philosophy of one or more of the social sciences."
