What is Moral Philosophy?

The main question of Plato's Euthyphro

"Are Actions right because God commands them, or does God command them because they are right?"

Cultural Relativism

Cultural relativism is the principle of regarding the beliefs, values, and practices of a culture from the viewpoint of that culture itself. Originating in the work of Franz Boas in the early 20th century, cultural relativism has greatly influenced social science

Applied Ethics

Deals with difficult moral questions and controversial moral issues that people actually face in their lives Examples: the moral issues regarding... abortion euthanasia giving to the poor sex before marriage the death penalty gay/lesbian marriage (or other rights) war tactics censorship so-called "white lies"

Metaethics

It doesn't ask what acts, or what kind of acts are good or bad, right or wrong; rather, it asks about the nature of goodness and badness, what it is to be morally right or wrong.

Descriptive Ethics

involves describing how people behave and/or what sorts of moral standards they claim to follow.

Ethics/Moral Philosophy

involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior.

Egalitarianism

is a school of thought that prioritizes equality for all people. Egalitarian doctrines maintain that all humans are equal in fundamental worth or social status

Moral Absolutism

is an ethical view that particular actions are intrinsically right or wrong. Stealing, for instance, might be considered to be always immoral, even if done for the well-being of others

Normative Ethics

is the attempt to provide a general theory that tells us how we ought to do or should do.

Moral Nihilism

is the meta-ethical view that nothing is intrinsically moral or immoral. For example, killing someone, for whatever reason, is neither inherently right nor inherently wrong.

Utilitarianism

is the moral theory that an action is morally right if and only if it is productive of the most utility (happiness, pleasure) for the greatest number of persons.

Moral Relativism

is the position that moral or ethical propositions do not reflect objective and/or universal moral truths, but instead make claims relative to social, cultural, historical or personal circumstances

Subjective Relativism

is the view that an action is morally right if one approves of it. A person's approval makes the action right. This doctrine (as well as cultural relativism) is in stark contrast to moral objectivism, the view that some moral principles are valid for everyone.

Antirealists

moral facts are not out there in the world until we put them there, that the facts about morality are determined by facts about us. On this view, morality is not something that we discover so much as something that we invent.

Moral realists

moral facts are objective facts that are out there in the world. Things are good or bad independent of us, and then we come along and discover morality.

Moral Realism

that there exist such things as moral facts and moral values, and that these are objective and independent of our perception of them or our beliefs, feelings or other attitudes towards them.

Divine Command Theory

things are morally good or bad, or morally obligatory, permissible, or prohibited, solely because of God's will or commands.