PHLB09H3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Formal System, Normative Ethics, Practical Action
Document Summary
Morality: formal system meant to generate co-operative behaviour and regulate interpersonal social through practical action guidance and conflict resolution. Ethics: systematic study of morality; the study of the concepts and theoretical justification involved in practical reasoning or reasoning meant to be applied to govern individual behaviour. Ethicists: philosophers who specialize in studying morality and its practical application. Metaethics: the identification, explication, and critical evaluation of morality as a concept, abstracted from specific content or specific statements of behaviour. Normative ethics: statements, often in the form of principles or rules, that tell people what to do or how to behave to live a moral life. Applied ethics: the study of the theoretical and practical moral issues involved in specific contexts, such as medicine, business, or engineering. Morality is a formal system of rules obligating and prohibiting particular actions within a society for the purposes of: generating co-operative behaviour, and, regulating interpersonal relations in such a way as to achieve that purpose.