Normative Ethics

Normative ethics

•examines
standards for the
rightness and
wrongness of
actions

•investigates the
set of questions
that arise when
we think about
the question “how
 ought one act
morally
speaking?”

3 things that might

be thought to be
morally interesting:

1.the agent
- person
performing the
act

2.the act itself

3.the consequences
of the act
Types of normative
ethical theory

•virtue
•deontological
•consequentialist

Virtue Ethics /
virtue theory
•concentrates on
the moral
character of the
agent

•providing an
account of the
virtues.

•primarily about
agents, not
actions. Being
good is thus seen
as primarily a
matter of
character rather
than of deeds.
 •In general terms,
virtues are
character traits,
dispositions to act
in certain ways,
that it is good to
possess.

Deontology/
deontological
theories
•concentrate on
the act being
performed.

•certain types of
act are
intrinsically good
or bad, i.e. good
or bad in
themselves.

• holds that the

moral status of an
act is determined
 entirely by its
consequences .

Consequentialism
•moral status of an
act is determined
by its
consequences.
“Consequentialism
thus rejects both the
virtue ethicist’s view
that the moral
status of an act is
determined by the
moral character of
the agent
performing it, and
the deontologist’s
view that the moral
status of an act is
determined by the
type of act that it is.
According to
consequentialism,
each of these
factors is morally
irrelevant. All that
matters is what
consequences an act
leads to.”
Application:

Ex. suppose that a

man bravely
intervenes to
prevent a youth
from being
assaulted.

•virtue theorist will

be most interested
in the bravery that
the man exhibits;
this suggests that
he has a good
character.

•deontologist will be
more interested in
what the man did;
he stood up for
someone in need of
protection, and that
kind of behaviour is
intrinsically good.

•consequentialist
will care only about
the consequences
of the man’s
actions; what he
did was good,
according to the
consequentialist,
because he
prevented the
youth from
suffering injury.