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.
Ethics can be described as:
a branch of philosophy
Right vs. wrong
The following examples of questions that might be considered in each field illustrate the differences between the fields:
Descriptive ethics: What do people think is right?
Normative ethics (prescriptive): How should people act?
Applied ethics: How do we take moral knowledge and put it into practice?
Meta-ethics: What does "right" even mean?
Applied ethics – using philosophical methods, attempts to identify the morally correct course of action in various fields of human life.
Economics and business
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.
Development ethics (economic development)
Ethics in management
Ethics in pharmaceutical sales
Lifeboat ethics (economic metaphor)
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
Veterinary ethics
Neuroethics – ethics in neuroscience, but also the neuroscience of ethics
Utilitarian bioethics
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.Ten Commandments of Computer Ethics
Engineering ethics
Journalism ethics and standards
Research ethics
Internet research ethics
Legal ethics
Marketing ethics
Media ethics
Medical ethics (aka clinical ethics)
Evidence-based medical ethics
Military medical ethics
Nursing ethics
Ethics of technology
Technoethics – the ethics of technology in society
Ethics of terraforming
Cyberethics
Ethics of artificial intelligence
Machine ethics – the moral behavior of artificial moral agents
Roboethics – the moral behavior of humans as they design, construct, use and treat artificially intelligent beings
Internet ethics
Information ethics
Social ethics – ethics among nations and as one global unit.
Population ethics
Sexual ethics
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.
Environmental virtue ethics
Trail ethics
Ethics of eating meat
Public sector ethics
Government ethics
Ethics in public administration
International Ethics – in international relations
Regulatory ethics
Meta-ethics or moral epistemology– concerns the nature of moral statements, that is, it studies what ethical terms and theories actually refer to.
Moral nihilism – the meta-ethical view that nothing is intrinsically moral or immoral (see also nihilism)
Moral syncretism – the attempt to reconcile disparate or contradictory moral beliefs, often while melding the ethical
practices of various schools of thought.
Moral relativism and relativism
Fallibilism – the philosophical principle that human beings could be wrong about their beliefs, expectations, or their understanding of the world
Moral skepticism – a class of metaethical theories all members of which entail that no one has any moral knowledg
Particularism
Rationalism
Conventionalism
Axiology
Formal ethics
Rationality
Discourse ethics – discovering ethical values through argument
Ethics of justice
Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development
Evolutionary ethics
Neuroethics – ethics in neuroscience, but also the neuroscience of ethics
Situated ethics – a view of applied ethics in which abstract standards from a culture or theory are considered to be far less important than the ongoing processes in which one is personally and physically involved
Non-cognitivism
Emotivism
Prescriptivism
Cognitivism
Philosophical realism
Naturalism
Ethical subjectivism
Moral realism
Universalisability
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).
Utilitarianism
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 their circumstances 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
Eudaimonism – system of ethics that measures happiness in relation to morality.
Ethics of care – a normative ethical theory
Ethical egoism – the normative ethical position that moral agents ought to do what is in their own self-interest
Living Ethics
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
Situational ethics, a Christian ethical theory
Islamic ethics
Islamic bioethics
Jewish ethics
Jewish business ethics
Jewish medical ethics
Religious values
Playing God (ethics)
Spalding Professor of Eastern Religion and Ethics
Ethics and religious culture – a course taught in all elementary and high schools in Quebec
Religious views on business ethics
Ethics (Scientology)
Ethics of circumcision
Secular ethics
Biocentrism (ethics) – an ethical point of view which extends inherent value to non-human species,[1] ecosystems, and processes in nature
Altruism (ethics) – an ethical doctrine that holds that individuals have a moral obligation to help, serve, or benefit others, if necessary at the sacrifice of self-interest
Rights ethics (thought in the American and French Revolutions)
Feminist ethics
Descriptive ethics
Value theory
Philosophy of economics
Political philosophy
Philosophy of law
Deontic logic
Religious ethics
Action theory
Practical reasoning
Morality
Visual ethics
Ethics of belief
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
Contemporary ethics
Golden Rule
Silver Rule
Harm principle
Non-aggression principle
Autonomy
Egalitarianism
Rights and legal concepts
Natural and legal rights
Human rights
Justice
Rights
Political freedom
Just War
Consent
Rule according to higher law
Guidelines and basic concepts
Principle
Virtue
Norm (philosophy)
Universal code (ethics)
Value (ethics)
Extrinsic value or instrumental value
Intrinsic value (animal ethics)
Intrinsic value (ethics)
Ideal (ethics)
Commensurability (ethics)
Moral responsibility
Happiness
Suffering
Conscience
Free will
Dual loyalty (ethics)
Evasion (ethics)
Trust (social sciences)
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
List of ECHR cases concerning legal ethics
Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act
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
Toi Te Taiao: The Bioethics Council – New Zealand council on bioethnics, 2002-9
United States House Committee on Ethics
United States Office of Government Ethics
United States Senate Select Committee on Ethics
Nobel Peace Prize
Payne Award for Ethics in Journalism
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
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
Feminist Approaches to Bioethics
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
International Neuroethics Society
International Society for Environmental Ethics
Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics
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
Nuffield Council on Bioethics
School for Ethics and Global Leadership
Society for Business Ethics
Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics
Society of Jewish Ethics
St James Ethics Centre
Standard Ethics Aei – sustainability rating agency based in Brussels
The Soderquist Center for Leadership and Ethics
Sydney Bioethics Program
University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics
Confucius (551–479 BCE)
Socrates (469–399 BCE)
Plato (424/423–348/347 BCE)
Aristippus (c. 435–356 BCE)
Aristotle (384–322 BCE)
Mencius (c. 372–289 BCE)
Epicurus (341–270 BCE)
Jesus (7–2 BCE – 30–36 CE)
Epictetus (55–135 CE)
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)
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– )
Jonathan Dancy (1946– )
Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA
Ethics Bowl
Foucault–Habermas debate concerning power within society
Ethics in America – television series, 1988-9
Lindner Ethics Complaint of the 83rd Minnesota Legislative Session
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)
Life sciences, ethics and democracy
How to Observe Morals and Manners
Search for Destiny or the Twenty Seventh Theorem of Ethics – science fiction novel
The Ethics of Ambiguity
The Ethics of Liberty
The Methods of Ethics
Rationality and Power: Democracy in Practice
Genethics: The Clash between the New Genetics and Human Values
Practical Ethics
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
IRB: Ethics & Human Research
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
Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics
Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy
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
