100 cards
Utilitarianism is a consequentialist ethical theory holding that the best action is the one that maximizes overall utility, typically understood as happiness, well-being, or the satisfaction of preferences for the greatest number of people. Classical utilitarianism was founded by Jeremy Bentham in his work An Introduct...
Deontology is the ethical tradition that judges the morality of actions based on their adherence to rules, duties, or obligations rather than their consequences. Its most prominent philosopher is Immanuel Kant, whose Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785) established the foundations of modern duty-based ethics....
Virtue ethics is a tradition that emphasizes the role of character and the virtues in moral philosophy, focusing on what kind of person one should be rather than on rules or consequences. Its founding figure is Aristotle, who developed the approach in his Nicomachean Ethics. For Aristotle, the highest human good is eud...
Meta-ethics investigates the foundations, status, and meaning of moral claims, asking whether moral statements express objective truths, subjective feelings, or something else entirely. One major position is moral realism, the view that there are objective moral facts that exist independently of human beliefs, attitude...
Social contract theory holds that moral and political rules are justified by an agreement, real or hypothetical, among individuals to form a society and accept certain obligations in exchange for social benefits. Thomas Hobbes offered one of the earliest versions, arguing that in the state of nature life is "solitary,...
Applied ethics examines specific practical moral issues arising in fields such as medicine, business, and technology. A classic entry into this domain is the trolley problem, introduced by Philippa Foot in 1967 and expanded by Judith Jarvis Thomson. The scenario asks whether one should divert a runaway trolley to kill...
Environmental ethics examines the moral relationship between humans and the natural environment, including duties toward ecosystems, species, and future generations. The dominant historical position has been anthropocentrism, the view that human beings are the central or most important entities and that the environment...