Key Terms
- act utilitarianism
- a utilitarian approach that proposes that people should apply the greatest happiness principle on a case-by-case basis
- applied ethics
- a branch of ethics that focuses on the application of moral norms to determine the permissibility of specific actions
- care ethics
- an approach to ethics that emphasizes the importance of subjective factors, specifics of concrete situations, and the relationships of individuals
- categorical imperative
- a moral law that individuals have a duty to follow and that is rationally devised through Kant’s four formulations
- Confucianism
- a normative moral theory that arose in ancient China during the Warring States period that proposes the development of individual character is key to the achievement of an ethical and harmonious society
- consequentialism
- a moral theory that looks at an action’s outcome or consequences to determine whether it is morally right
- dao
- in Confucianism, ethical principles or path by which to live life; in Daoism, the natural way of the universe and all things
- Daoism
- a belief system developed in ancient China that encourages the practice of living in accordance with the dao, the natural way of the universe and all things
- deontology
- a moral theory that focuses on duties or rules to determine the rightness of an action
- essentialism
- a view that a set of characteristics makes something what it is
- ethics
- the field of philosophy that investigates morality
- eudaimonia
- the flourishing life, which ancient Greek philosophers (e.g., Aristotle, the Stoics, and Epicurus) set as the aim of life
- femininity
- a social construct that categorizes specific traits as female and establishes society’s expectation of women
- feminism
- a political and philosophical movement that aims to end sexism and promote social justice for women
- gender binarism
- the view that each person can be categorized by one of two genders (male or female)
- good will
- the capacity to be a good person
- greatest happiness principle
- a principle that holds that actions are right when they produce the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people
- higher pleasures
- pleasures associated with the exercise of a person’s higher faculties (e.g., the use of higher cognitive faculties and/or participation in social/cultural life)
- humanity formulation
- a rational method of devising moral laws that specifies that each person be treated as an end, never merely as a means
- hypothetical imperative
- a rule that needs to be followed in order to achieve some (proposed) end
- incidental friendship
- casual relationships that are based on utility or pleasure
- intersectionality
- different aspects of identity (e.g., gender, race, sexuality, and class) that intersect in a person’s identity and define or influence their lived experience
- junzi
- in Confucianism, a person who is an exemplary ethical figure and lives according to the dao
- Li
- ritual and practice that develop a person’s ethical character as they interact with others
- lower pleasures
- pleasures associated with the exercise of a person’s lower faculties (e.g., basic sensory pleasures)
- metaethics
- a branch of ethics that focuses on foundational questions and moral reasoning
- Mohism
- a type of consequentialism established in ancient China by Mozi (ca. 430 BCE) during the Warring States period
- naturalism
- a belief that ethical claims can be derived from nonethical ones
- normative ethics
- a branch of ethics that focuses on establishing norms and standards of moral conduct
- perfect friendship
- relationships that foster individual virtue as they are based on love and the wish that another flourishes rather than the expectation of personal gain
- pluralism
- an approach to normative ethical theory that suggests a more complex, complete account of morality that provides for conflicting rules
- prima facie duties
- duties that are obligatory, other things being equal, or so long as other factors and circumstances remain the same
- principle of utility
- a principle that holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote pleasure and diminish pain
- ren
- a central concept in Confucianism that is used to mean either someone with complete virtue or to refer to specific virtues
- rule utilitarianism
- a utilitarian approach that proposes that people should use the greatest happiness principle to test possible moral rules to determine whether a given rule would produce greater happiness if it were followed
- skepticism
- a philosophical position that claims people do not know things they ordinarily think they know
- trolley problems
- classic thought experiments that use difficult ethical dilemmas to examine moral reasoning and deliberation
- universal law formulation
- a rational method of devising moral laws that proposes that a moral law must be applied universally to the whole of society
- utilitarianism
- a type of consequentialism introduced by Jeremy Bentham and developed by John Stuart Mill
- virtue ethics
- an approach to normative ethics that focuses on character
- Warring States period
- a period of widespread conflict, suffering, and social unrest in Chinese history that gave rise to highly influential philosophical approaches, including Mohism, Confucianism, and Daoism
- wu wei
- a natural way of acting—also called nonaction—that is spontaneous or immediate, one in which a person’s actions are in harmony with the flow of nature or existence