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| The unreflective sense we sometimes have that certain actions are either right or wrong, or that certain people are morally praiseworthy or blameworthy. |
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| Rules intended to provide us with an objective standard for determining whether a particular action is morally right or wrong. |
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| The belief that there are no objectively valid moral values, and that morality is relative either to the beliefs and preferences or each individual (Ethical Subjectivism), or to the ethical codes of different cultures (Cultural Relativism). |
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| A type of ethical relativism that says morality is relative to the beliefs and values of each individual person. |
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| A type of ethical relativism that says morality is relative to the beliefs and values that are prevalent among different social groups in different times and places. |
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| The belief that there are objectively valid moral standards that apply to all people in all times and places. |
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| A version of ethical objectivism that identifies the will of God as the standard of right and wrong. Actions are right if they are commanded by God, and wrong if they are forbidden by God. |
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| A moral theory according to which it is the consequences of an action that determine whether the action is right or wrong, and that evaluates the consequences of actions according to the principle of utility. |
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| The principle which says that actions are right insofar as they tend to increase the overall happiness and/or decrease the overall unhappiness of everyone affected by them. |
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| A philosophical theory that equates happiness with pleasure, and maintains that pleasure and freedom from pain are the only things worth seeking for their own sake. Classical Utilitarians like Bentham and Mill were hedonists in this sense (but not egoists!). |
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| A method proposed by the Utilitarian philosopher, Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), for estimating the total amount of pleasure or pain that is likely to result from a particular action or policy. |
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| From the Greek word, deontos, which means duty, deontology is a moral theory associated with the German philosopher, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), who argued that our moral duties are defined by the categorical imperative. |
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| A moral standard according to which actions are wrong if they violate the dignity of (i.e. freedom) rational beings, each of whom must be treated as an “end in himself [or herself]” and never as a means (i.e. a mere instrument used to achieve someone else’s purposes). |
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| A fundamental moral value in Kant’s deontological ethics, which regards the community of rational beings as the collective authors of a moral law to which they voluntary submit themselves because it is the expression of their own will. |
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| A moral theory that downplays the importance of moral principles, and instead identifies moral goodness with qualities of character like honesty, courage, compassion, and loyalty. |
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