First-year courses · Humanities

Intro ethics: moral theories and applied vocabulary

Intro ethics flashcards: metaethics, utilitarianism, Kantian ethics, virtue ethics, social contract, care ethics and key terms used in applied and bioethics.

40 cards5 topicsAbout 15 minutes a roundTypical first-year introduction to ethics or moral philosophy

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About this deck

This deck is for students in a first-year ethics or moral philosophy course, and for students in health, business or engineering programs that include an ethics unit. It sets out the major normative theories (consequentialism and utilitarianism, Kantian and other duty-based ethics, virtue ethics, social contract theory, care ethics, natural law and divine command theory), some questions of metaethics, and the working vocabulary of applied ethics and bioethics such as autonomy, beneficence, informed consent and moral status.

The cards describe each position and its standard objections neutrally. The aim is to help you state each view accurately and recognize how its defenders and critics argue, not to tell you which theory is right. Your course will expect you to explain views you disagree with as charitably as their best defenders would.

No background is needed beyond careful reading. A good way to study is to take one case, such as lying to protect a friend, and run it through every theory card: what would a utilitarian, a Kantian, a virtue ethicist and a care ethicist each focus on? Then try the standard objection to each answer. This pairs naturally with the argument skills in the critical thinking deck.

Common mistakes: equating utilitarianism with selfishness, when it counts everyone's well-being equally; reading Kant as banning ever using people as means, when the formula says never merely as means; and treating cultural relativism as the same thing as tolerance, when tolerance is a separate value that relativism on its own does not establish.

Before you start: None.

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Cover the definitions with a sheet of paper and test yourself, or use the study modes above.

Branches and metaethics

Normative ethics: The branch of moral philosophy that develops general accounts of what makes actions right or wrong and what makes a life or character good.Example: Utilitarianism and Kantian ethics are rival theories in this branch.
Metaethics: The study of the nature and status of morality itself: what moral claims mean, whether they can be true, and how we could know them.Example: Asking whether 'cruelty is wrong' states a fact or expresses an attitude.
Applied ethics: Moral reasoning about specific practical issues and professions, using theories and principles.Example: Debates over euthanasia, animal research or data privacy.
Moral realism: The view that some moral claims are objectively true, independent of what any person or culture believes.Example: A realist holds that slavery was wrong even in societies that approved of it.
Cultural relativism: The view that moral rightness is fixed by the norms of each culture, so no culture's code is objectively better.Example: Critics note it implies reformers who oppose their own culture's norms are always mistaken.
Emotivism: A non-cognitivist view that moral statements express the speaker's feelings of approval or disapproval rather than stating facts.Example: 'Stealing is wrong' functions roughly like 'Stealing: boo!'
Is-ought gap: The point, associated with David Hume, that conclusions about what should be done cannot be derived from purely factual premises alone.Example: 'This drug relieves pain' does not by itself establish 'doctors should prescribe it'.

Consequentialism

Consequentialism: The family of views holding that the rightness of an action depends only on the goodness of its outcomes.Example: Judging a policy entirely by its effects on well-being.
Utilitarianism: The outcome-based theory, developed by Bentham and Mill, that the right act produces the greatest total well-being, counting each person equally.Example: Choosing the option that helps 100 people modestly over one that helps 10 people slightly more each, if the total is larger.
Act utilitarianism: Each individual action is judged directly by whether it maximizes overall well-being in that situation.Example: Breaking a promise is right in this view whenever doing so produces more good than keeping it.
Rule utilitarianism: Actions are right when they follow the set of rules whose general acceptance would produce the most well-being.Example: Keep promises, because a practice of keeping them produces better results overall.
Higher and lower pleasures: Mill's claim that pleasures differ in quality as well as quantity, with intellectual and moral pleasures ranking above bodily ones.Example: His line that it is better to be a human dissatisfied than a pig satisfied.
Preference utilitarianism: A version that measures well-being by the satisfaction of people's preferences rather than by pleasure and pain.Example: Associated with R. M. Hare and, for much of his career, Peter Singer.
Demandingness objection: The criticism that maximizing theories require too much, leaving no room for personal projects or permissible self-interest.Example: If giving most of your income would do more good, the theory seems to require it.

Duty-based ethics

Deontology: Moral theories holding that some actions are required or forbidden by their nature, whatever their consequences.Example: A ban on punishing an innocent person even if it would calm a riot.
Categorical imperative: universal law formula: Kant's test: act only on a maxim that you could consistently will to become a universal law for everyone.Example: A lying promise fails: if everyone made them, no one would accept promises.
Categorical imperative: humanity formula: Kant's principle to treat humanity, in yourself and others, always as an end and never merely as a means.Example: Hiring a cashier uses them as a means, but fair, honest dealing respects them as an end.
Hypothetical imperative: A conditional command that applies only if you have a certain goal.Example: 'If you want to pass, study.' It does not bind someone without that goal.
Perfect and imperfect duties: Kant's distinction between strict duties that allow no exceptions and wider duties that leave room for judgement about when and how to act.Example: Not lying is perfect; helping others in need is imperfect.
Prima facie duties: W. D. Ross's idea of several duties, such as fidelity, non-injury and gratitude, each binding unless outweighed by a stronger one in the situation.Example: A duty to keep a lunch date can be overridden by a duty to help an accident victim.
Doctrine of double effect: The principle that causing a serious harm can be permissible as a foreseen side effect of a good act, though not as an intended means.Example: Often discussed with pain relief that may shorten life, compared with deliberately ending life.

Virtue, contract and other theories

Virtue ethics: An approach, rooted in Aristotle, that centres moral evaluation on character and asks what a person of good character would do.Example: Asking 'what would an honest and kind person do?' instead of applying a rule.
Eudaimonia: Aristotle's term for the highest human good, often translated as flourishing or living well, achieved through virtuous activity.Example: A life of friendship, achievement and good character rather than mere pleasure.
Doctrine of the mean: Aristotle's view that each virtue lies between two vices, one of excess and one of deficiency.Example: Courage sits between cowardice and rashness.
Practical wisdom (phronesis): The intellectual virtue of perceiving what a situation calls for and deliberating well about how to act.Example: Knowing when honesty requires tact rather than bluntness.
Social contract theory: The view that moral or political obligations come from an agreement that rational people would make for mutual benefit; associated with Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau and Rawls.Example: Hobbes argued people would give up some freedom to escape a war of all against all.
Veil of ignorance: Rawls's device: choose principles of justice without knowing your own place in society, talents or values.Example: Not knowing whether you will be rich or poor pushes choices toward protecting the worst off.
Ethics of care: An approach, developed by Carol Gilligan, Nel Noddings and others, that centres relationships, dependency and responsiveness to particular people's needs.Example: It treats a parent's attention to a child as morally central rather than a private matter.
Divine command theory: The view that an action is right because God commands it.Example: The Euthyphro dilemma asks whether something is good because commanded, or commanded because good.
Natural law theory: The view, associated with Aquinas, that moral principles follow from human nature and its basic goods and can be known by reason.Example: Preserving life and seeking knowledge are counted as basic goods.
Ethical egoism: The normative view that each person ought to act in their own long-term self-interest.Example: Distinct from psychological egoism, the descriptive claim that people always do act selfishly.

Applied and bioethics vocabulary

Autonomy: Self-governance: a person's capacity and right to make informed decisions about their own life.Example: Respecting an adult's refusal of a recommended procedure after a full explanation.
Beneficence: The principle of acting for the benefit of others and promoting their well-being.Example: A researcher designing a study so that participants may gain from it.
Non-maleficence: The principle of not inflicting harm, often summarized as 'first, do no harm'.Example: Avoiding a test whose risks outweigh its likely benefit.
Distributive justice: Fair allocation of benefits and burdens across a group or society.Example: Debates over how to allocate scarce organs or vaccine doses.
Informed consent: Voluntary agreement given by a competent person who understands the nature, risks, benefits and alternatives of what is proposed.Example: Research ethics boards require it before most studies involving people.
Moral status: Having interests that matter morally for their own sake, so that others have obligations toward the being.Example: Debates over animals, fetuses and future AI systems turn on this.
Trolley problem: A thought experiment contrasting diverting a runaway trolley to kill one instead of five with pushing a person to stop it, used to probe intuitions about killing and letting die.Example: Many people accept diverting but reject pushing, though both save five.
Moral dilemma: A situation in which every available option involves violating some moral requirement.Example: A promise of confidentiality conflicts with preventing serious harm to another person.
Supererogatory act: An action that is morally good and praiseworthy but goes beyond what duty requires.Example: Donating a kidney to a stranger.