MATSEC SEC Ethics flashcards

33 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Normative ethics

The branch of ethics that seeks general standards for right action and good character, producing theories such as consequentialism, deontology and virtue ethics that guide what people ought to do.

Meta-ethics

The branch examining the nature of moral language, truth and knowledge, asking whether moral claims can be true and what 'good' means, rather than prescribing particular actions.

Applied ethics

The use of ethical theory to resolve concrete practical dilemmas in areas such as medicine, business, environment and technology, testing abstract principles against real cases.

Consequentialism

The family of theories holding that the moral rightness of an action depends entirely on its consequences, so the best act is the one producing the best overall outcome.

Utilitarianism

A consequentialist theory requiring the action that maximises overall welfare or happiness, associated with Bentham's hedonic calculus and Mill's greatest happiness principle.

Hedonic calculus

Bentham's method for measuring pleasure and pain by intensity, duration, certainty, proximity, fecundity, purity and extent, used to compare the welfare produced by actions.

Deontology

A duty-based approach judging actions by their conformity to moral rules and the agent's intention rather than by results, most associated with Kant's categorical imperative.

Categorical imperative

Kant's unconditional moral law, including the formula of universal law and the formula of humanity, which requires treating persons never merely as means but always as ends.

Hypothetical imperative

A command conditional on a desired end ('if you want X, do Y'); Kant contrasts it with the categorical imperative, which binds regardless of any desire or goal.

Virtue ethics

An approach centred on character and flourishing rather than acts or rules, holding that right action is what a person with habituated virtues such as courage and justice would do.

Eudaimonia

Aristotle's term for human flourishing or living well, achieved through the exercise of virtues in accordance with reason over a complete life rather than through pleasure or honour.

Golden mean

Aristotle's idea that each virtue lies between two vices, one of excess and one of deficiency, so courage sits between recklessness and cowardice and is found by practical wisdom.

Naturalistic fallacy

Moore's claim that it is a mistake to define 'good' in terms of any natural property such as pleasure, since such definitions confuse the property with what possesses it.

Is-ought gap

Hume's observation that purely descriptive premises cannot logically entail a prescriptive conclusion, so moral conclusions require at least one evaluative premise.

Cultural relativism

The view that moral truth depends on the norms of a particular culture, so the same act may be right in one society and wrong in another; criticised for blocking cross-cultural criticism.

Ethical egoism

The normative claim that each person ought to act so as to maximise their own self-interest; it is distinct from psychological egoism, which merely describes how people do act.

Psychological egoism

The descriptive claim that all human actions are ultimately motivated by self-interest, often criticised as unfalsifiable because apparently altruistic acts are reinterpreted as self-serving.

Altruism

Acting for the benefit of others as an end in itself, without expecting reciprocal advantage; debated by psychological egoists who argue such acts always conceal self-interest.

Harm principle

Mill's rule that liberty may be restricted only to prevent harm to others, not for a person's own good, protecting self-regarding conduct and most expression from paternalistic interference.

Act utilitarianism

The version of utilitarianism applying the greatest happiness test to each individual action, asking which available act in this situation produces the most welfare overall.

Rule utilitarianism

The version holding that an act is right if it conforms to a general rule whose widespread adoption would maximise welfare, offering greater stability than case-by-case calculation.

Trolley problem

A thought experiment contrasting switching a runaway trolley to kill one person with pushing someone to their death, probing the difference between harming as side-effect and using a person as means.

Doctrine of double effect

A principle permitting a foreseen harmful side-effect of a good act when the harm is not intended, not the means to the good, and proportionate to the benefit sought.

Moral luck

The phenomenon that blame and praise often depend on factors outside the agent's control, such as actual outcomes, which challenges theories locating moral worth purely in intention.

Moral dilemma

A situation in which an agent has a moral obligation to do each of two incompatible actions, so whatever is chosen some genuine obligation is breached and moral residue remains.

Moral absolutism

The view that some actions are always wrong regardless of circumstances or consequences, contrasting with relativism and with consequentialist reasoning that permits exceptions.

Moral subjectivism

The meta-ethical view that moral statements express the speaker's attitudes or feelings rather than report objective facts, so moral disagreement is disagreement in attitude.

Emotivism

Ayer and Stevenson's meta-ethical theory that moral utterances express emotions or attitudes and seek to influence others, and are therefore neither true nor false in a factual sense.

Justice as fairness

Rawls's theory deriving principles of justice from a hypothetical original position behind a veil of ignorance, yielding equal basic liberties and the difference principle.

Veil of ignorance

Rawls's device requiring parties choosing principles of justice to ignore their own talents, wealth and social position, ensuring impartiality and protecting the worst-off.

Difference principle

Rawls's rule that social and economic inequalities are justified only if they benefit the least advantaged members of society, combined with fair equality of opportunity.

Practical wisdom

Aristotle's phronesis, the intellectual virtue enabling a person to judge what the golden mean requires in particular circumstances, bridging general virtue with concrete situations.

Moral responsibility

The condition under which an agent is legitimately praised or blamed for an act, normally requiring that the agent knew what they were doing and acted freely.