Explain various theories of B.

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Descriptive ethics, also known as comparative ethics, is the study of people's beliefs about
morality. It contrasts with prescriptive or normative ethics, which is the study of ethical theories
that prescribe how people ought to act, and with meta-ethics, which is the study of what ethical
terms and theories actually refer to. The following examples of questions that might be
considered in each field illustrate the differences between the fields:

Descriptive ethics: What do people think is right?

Normative (prescriptive) ethics: How should people act?
Applied ethics: How do we take moral knowledge and put it into practice?
Meta-ethics: What does 'right' even mean?

What are descriptive ethics?

Descriptive ethics is a form of empirical research into the attitudes of individuals or groups of
people. Those working on descriptive ethics aim to uncover people's beliefs about such things
as values, which actions are right and wrong, and which characteristics of moral agents are
virtuous. Research into descriptive ethics may also investigate people's ethical ideals or what
actions societies condemn or punish in law or politics.

Because descriptive ethics involves empirical investigation, it is a field that is usually

investigated by those working in the fields of evolutionary biology, psychology, sociology or
anthropology. Information that comes from descriptive ethics is, however, also used in
philosophical arguments.

Value theory can be either normative or descriptive but is usually descriptive.

Lawrence Kohlberg: An example of descriptive ethics

Lawrence Kohlberg is one example of a psychologist working on descriptive ethics. In one
study, for example, Kohlberg questioned a group of boys about what would be a right or wrong
action for a man facing a moral dilemma: should he steal a drug to save his wife, or refrain
from theft even though that would lead to his wife's death?[1] Kohlberg's concern was not which
choice the boys made, but the moral reasoning that lay behind their decisions. After carrying
out a number of related studies, Kohlberg devised a theory about the development of human
moral reasoning that was intended to reflect the moral reasoning actually carried out by the
participants in his research. Kohlberg's research can be classed as descriptive ethics to the
extent that he describes human beings' actual moral development. If, in contrast, he had aimed
to describe how humans ought to develop morally, his theory would have involved prescriptive
ethics.

Normative ethics is the branch of philosophical ethics that investigates the set of questions
that arise when we think about the question “how ought one act, morally speaking?” Normative
ethics is distinct from meta-ethics because it examines standards for the rightness and
wrongness of actions, while meta-ethics studies the meaning of moral language and the
metaphysics of moral facts. Normative ethics is also distinct from descriptive ethics, as the
latter is an empirical investigation of people’s moral beliefs. To put it another way, descriptive
ethics would be concerned with determining what proportion of people believe that killing is
always wrong, while normative ethics is concerned with whether it is correct to hold such a
belief. Hence, normative ethics is sometimes said to be prescriptive, rather than descriptive.
However, on certain versions of the meta-ethical view called moral realism, moral facts are
both descriptive and prescriptive at the same time.

Broadly speaking, normative ethics can be divided into the sub-disciplines of moral theory and
applied ethics. In recent years the boundaries between these sub-disciplines have increasingly
been dissolving as moral theorists become more interested in applied problems and applied
ethics is becoming more profoundly philosophically informed.

Traditional moral theories were concerned with finding moral principles which allow one to
determine whether an action is right or wrong. Classical theories in this vein include
utilitarianism, Kantianism, and some forms of contractarianism. These theories offered an
overarching moral principle to which one could appeal in resolving difficult moral decisions.

In the 20th century, moral theories became more complex and were no longer concerned solely
with rightness and wrongness, but were interested in many different kinds of moral status.[citation
needed]
This trend may have begun in 1930 with W. D. Ross in his book, The Right and the Good.
Here Ross argues that moral theories cannot say in general whether an action is right or wrong
but only whether it tends to be right or wrong according to a certain kind of moral duty such as
beneficence, fidelity, or justice (he called this concept of partial rightness prima facie duty).
Subsequently, philosophers have questioned whether even prima facie duties can be articulated
at a theoretical level, and some philosophers have urged a turn away from general theorizing
altogether, while others have defended theory on the grounds that it need not be perfect in order
to capture important moral insight.

In the middle of the century there was a long hiatus in the development of normative ethics
during which philosophers largely turned away from normative questions towards meta-ethics.
Even those philosophers during this period who maintained an interest in prescriptive morality,
such as R. M. Hare, attempted to arrive at normative conclusions via meta-ethical reflection.
This focus on meta-ethics was in part caused by the intense linguistic turn in analytic
philosophy and in part by the pervasiveness of logical positivism. In 1971, John Rawls bucked
the trend against normative theory in publishing A Theory of Justice. This work was
revolutionary, in part because it paid almost no attention to meta-ethics and instead pursued
moral arguments directly. In the wake of A Theory of Justice and other major works of
normative theory published in the 1970s, the field has witnessed an extraordinary Renaissance
that continues to the present day.

What Is an Ethical Dilemma?

Ethical dilemmas, also known as moral dilemmas, have been a problem for ethical theorists
as far back as Plato. An ethical dilemma is a situation wherein moral precepts or ethical
obligations conflict in such a way as to make any possible resolution to the dilemma morally
intolerable. In other words, an ethical dilemma is any situation in which guiding moral
principles cannot determine which course of action is right or wrong.

Examples of Ethical Dilemmas

1. One well-known and frequently discussed example of an ethical dilemma is given by
Jean-Paul Sartre. Sartre asks us to imagine a young man who lives with his mother; he
is her only happiness in life. But the young man lives in occupied France during
World War II and feels obliged to fight in the war. What does the young man do?
Another dilemma is a situation where three family members are being held captive.
The captives give one the choice of which of the other two will die. If there is no
choice, they all will be killed. Obviously this is worse than choosing one person to
die, but how does one choose?

Moral Uncertainty
2. Some moral dilemmas are the result of uncertainty about what kinds of actions one
should take in order to reach the best outcome. This can be because the future results
of each decision are unknowable, or because uncertainty about facts that can influence
certain outcomes are not available. For example, if Sartre's young man knew he would
help turn the war effort around, and that he would survive it to return to his mother,
he'd be better equipped to make a decision. But he cannot know this, so his situation
remains uncertain.

Self-Imposed Dilemmas
3. Sartre's young man is the result of a self-imposed dilemma; he projects two
obligations upon himself that cannot be reconciled. Self-imposed moral dilemmas are
the result of two actions that one feels one must take, but which cannot be reconciled
to each other.

World-Imposed Dilemmas
4. World-imposed ethical dilemmas are of the type described in the second example,
where a family member must choose which of two other members must die. He is not
 instigating the decision, it is being forced upon him from the outside, and he is bound
by it to make a decision.

Prohibition Dilemmas
5. Ultimately, ethical dilemmas always require choices, and often in an ethical dilemma
refraining from action is itself a moral decision. Indeed, in some moral dilemmas one
must choose whether to disobey a particular prohibition, such as a law, when
compliance results in immoral consequences. In this case, not acting is obeying the
law, but the result is morally reprehensible.