Professional Ethics

Week 3, 4Spring 2015

Ethics

• Descriptive

• Normative

• Analytic (Meta-ethics)

Descriptive Ethics

• Describing how people behave and/or

• What moral standards do they follow?

• Incorporates anthropological, psychological, sociological and historical research

Normative Ethics (prescriptive)

• What people should do or • Whether their current moral behavior

is reasonable

• Involvement of moral philosophy

Analytic Ethics (Meta-ethics)

• Most complex of all forms• Abstract way of thinking

philosophically about morality

Examples: Is morality more a matter of taste than truth?How do we learn about the moral facts, if there are any?

Examples

Descriptive: Different societies have different moral standards.

Normative: This action is wrong in this society, but it is right in another.

Analytic: Morality is relative.

Values

• Principle promoting well being or preventing harm.

• Our standard about what is acceptable.

• Values are scales we use to weigh our choices for our actions.

• Moral judgments express values.

Types of Values

• Preference

• Instrumental

• Intrinsic