Philosophers often distinguish three kinds of thinking ethics:

1. Descriptive ethics — describes what people actually do, how people think or have thought about morality, e.g., anthropology, history, psychology. Since philosophers are interested in reasons for ethical conclusions, and in the application of these conclusions to the problems of life, descriptive ethics is not ethics in the philosophical sense; you would not necessarily take guidance for your own moral decision-making from your knowledge of what others have thought or done. Naturally, though, philosophers are interested in descriptive ethical data.

2. Normative ethics — tries to figure out what people should do. Normative ethics is ethics construed as action-guiding, or prescriptive. Philosophers have traditionally been interested in normative ethics. Historically, much of moral philosophy has been concerned with developing systems of normative ethics. A system of normative ethics usually consists of some implicit rule or set of rules or decision procedures, such that when you are faced with an ethical decision, you can apply the rule or decision procedure, and thereby get an answer about what to do.

Normative ethics tries to come up with well-reasoned judgments about:

·          Moral obligation (what is “right” or “wrong”).

·          Moral value (what is “good” or “evil”).

3. Metaethics — analytical, critical thinking about the presuppositions of normative ethics. Metaethics asks questions like “What do normative theories mean by ‘good’ and ‘right’?”; “How can moral judgments be proved?”; “Why be moral at all?”, etc. A number of metaethical questions constitute significant challenges to the very enterprise of normative ethics; for example,

Ethics in philosophy is mainly normative ethics or metaethics. In the last few weeks, we have been exploring meta-ethical issues. Now, and for the rest of the term, we will turn our attention to normative ethical systems.

Normative ethical systems have differed historically in their areas of emphasis. Some have emphasized actions, or consequences of actions. Such theories are called deontic. Deontic systems explore what actions are morally right or wrong. They ask “What should I do?” For deontic theories, a good person is one who performs the good acts and refrains from the bad acts. The Ten Commandments are deontic, in that they specify acts which one is obligated to perform (honor your parents) or refrain from performing (don't kill).

There are two types of deontic theories: deontological (also called "duty-based" or "non-consequentialist") and consequentialist.

Normative systems that emphasize the intrinsic rightness or wrongness of specific actions (such as charity, murder, lying, stealing, etc.) are called deontological systems. Kant's ethical system is deontological, or duty-based. Deontological systems are called non-consequentialist because the consequences of action or inaction are not considered important in the determination of moral rightness or wrongness. Deontological moralists say some acts (positive duties) are intrinsically good, and therefore must be done, and some acts are intrinsically bad (negative duties) and must be avoided, regardless of consequences.

Normative systems that base their moral evaluation of an act on the consequences of that act — good consequences make an act morally acceptable, bad consequences make an action morally wrong —are called consequentialist or teleological ethical systems. Bentham and Mill's system — utilitarianism (“greatest good of the greatest number”) — is consequentialist.

Another large class of normative theories have emphasized character. Normative systems that focus on character — not on “What should I do?” but on “What sort of person should I be?” — are called aretaic or virtue-based systems. Aretaic systems assume that few if any acts are by their very nature automatically right or wrong; rather, circumstances count. But consequences alone do not determine morality either. The best way to approach ethics, according to aretaic theorists such as Aristotle, is to begin by asking what makes a person a good person — what qualities of character distinguish good people from others. Once this question is answered, the question of which acts are good is also answered; the good acts are those that the good person would perform.

You may have seen those bracelets that say "WWJD" ("What Would Jesus Do?"). The WWJD movement represents an aretaic approach to Christian living. WWJD'ers take for granted that the "rules" can sometimes be broken; Jesus himself broke rules (e.g., chasing the money lenders out of the temple, talking to the woman at the well). Instead of following the rules to the letter, the agent chooses Jesus as a character role-model and trusts that if he acts like Jesus, his acts (whatever they are) will be morally okay.

Review Questions

1.      What is the difference between consequentialism and non-consequentialism in ethics?

2.      What is the difference between deontic and aretaic ethical theories?

3.      What is the difference between normative and descriptive ethics?

4.      What is metaethics?