Ethics, also called moral philosophy, the discipline concerned with what

is morally good and bad and morally right and wrong. The term is also applied to any
system or theory of moral values or principles.
Ethics deals with such questions at all levels. Its subject consists of the fundamental issues of
practical decision making, and its major concerns include the nature of ultimate value and the
standards by which human actions can be judged right or wrong.

The terms ethics and morality are closely related. It is now common to refer to ethical judgments
or to ethical principles where it once would have been more accurate to speak of moral
judgments or moral principles. These applications are an extension of the meaning of ethics. In
earlier usage, the term referred not to morality itself but to the field of study, or branch of
inquiry, that has morality as its subject matter. In this sense, ethics is equivalent to
moral philosophy.

Morality, the moral beliefs and practices of a culture, community, or religion or a code or system
of moral rules, principles, or values. The conceptual foundations and rational consistency of such
standards are the subject matter of the philosophical discipline of ethics, also known as
moral philosophy. In its contemporary usage, the term ethics is also applied to particular moral
codes or systems and to the empirical study of their historical development and their social,
economic, and geographic circumstances (see comparative ethics).
Empirical studies show that all societies have moral rules that prescribe or forbid certain classes
of action and that these rules are accompanied by sanctions to ensure their enforcement. It has
been observed, for example, that virtually every society has well-established norms dealing with
matters such as family organization and individual duties, sexual activity, property rights,
personal welfare, truth telling, and promise keeping. Among all societies some moral rules are
nearly universal—such as those forbidding murder, theft, infidelity or adultery, and incest—
while others vary between societies or exist in some societies but not in others—such as those
forbidding polygamy, parricide, and feticide (abortion).
Normative ethics, that branch of moral philosophy, or ethics, concerned with criteria of what is
morally right and wrong. It includes the formulation of moral rules that have
direct implications for what human actions, institutions, and ways of life should be like. It is
typically contrasted with theoretical ethics, or meta-ethics, which is concerned with the nature
rather than the content of ethical theories and moral judgments.
Normative ethics is one of three main component areas of inquiry of philosophical ethics, the
two others being meta-ethics and applied ethics. Normative ethics, also known as normative
theory, or moral theory, intends to find out which actions are right and wrong, or which character
traits are good and bad. In contrast, meta-ethics, as the term suggests, is a study of the nature of
ethics.
Normative ethics is concerned with moral norms. A moral norm is a norm in the sense of being a
standard with which moral agents ought to comply. "Thou shall not murder" is an example of a
moral norm: It is meant to guide our actions, and to the extent that people do not comply, we
may be judged morally—that is, morally blamed. This is then the meaning of a moral norm.

Meta-ethics is concerned with determining the nature of judgments of moral right or wrong,
good and bad. It is not concerned with finding out which actions or things are right and wrong, or
which states are good and bad, but with understanding the nature and meaning of concepts of
right and wrong, good and bad. Meta-ethics does not ask whether lying is always wrong. Rather,
it tries to ascertain whether there really is difference between right and wrong, or tries to clarify
what it means to say that an action is right or wrong.

Meta-ethics is concerned with determining the nature of judgments of moral right or wrong,
good and bad. It is not concerned with finding out which actions or things are right and wrong, or
which states are good and bad, but with understanding the nature and meaning of concepts of
right and wrong, good and bad. Meta-ethics does not ask whether lying is always wrong. Rather,
it tries to ascertain whether there really is difference between right and wrong, or tries to clarify
what it means to say that an action is right or wrong. A meta-ethical inquiry may ask: What, if
anything, makes a judgment that lying is always wrong, true (or false)?