Talk:Normative ethics

broken links
I'm not sure it's true that normative ethics doesn't care why something is wrong. Most normative ethical theories are along the lines of "things of the following sort are wrong: ...; this thing is of that sort; therefore, this thing is wrong." {A normative ethical theory that failed to provide any reasons for its pronouncements wouldn't be taken very seriously (even religion-based normative ethics provide "God so decreed it" as a "why"). -Delirium 07:18, Sep 11, 2003 (UTC)

Also the further reading link doesn't work.


 * Um, really old complaint that was never fixed- I'm changing it.

I also added a "Moral Theories Section" if anyone has additions- please add. Jsn4 08:17, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Dead link removed...
The following link was removed because the page no longer exsists.
 * Introduction to Normative Ethics

The button is now
I don't know if I've put this in the right place, but I don't see a button for starting a new comment.

Norm, Normal, Normalcy and some related words should include a couple of concepts. One is the statistical definition of normal, meaning "typical" or "modal," or in the greatest number (a plurality or majority.)

It should include a sociological concept relating to the most common practices or beliefs. Commonly, a thing is ethical or unethical in relation to the beliefs and preferences of the greatest number of people (in a region.) Strongly-held attitudes may be opposed by attitudes of other groups, having other standards which they consider normal.

Thus, heterosexuality is often called "normal" because it is the condition or practice or belief of the greatest number. Once a majority believe that homosexuality is not deviant or evil, then it would become "normal" in that sense. Similar statements could be made in regard to racial segregation vs. integration.

It is also statistically normal that people should die or age, because those are universal conditions.

Normal can also refer to perfection, as in a "normal kidney," meaning a kidney without defect. If most 50-year olds have defective vision, that would be statistically normal for them, and the 50-year-old with perfect vision would be statistically deviant, though his vision would also be "normal" with respect to the perfection definition.

Common speech may refer to norms as socially agreed standards, such that it is the norm to accept a certain practice. There is a command element involved, but a greater suggestion of agreement by the greatest number.


 * The word "norm" has at least two distinct meanings. You're talking about norms in sociology, whereas this article is referring to norms in philosophy. Steohawk (talk) 23:24, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Self-referential or infinitely regressive?
Isn't "Descriptive ethics deal with what the population believes to be right and wrong, while normative ethics deal with what the population should believe to be right and wrong" a self-referential statement? The judgment of what should be believed to be right or wrong will have to be based on what is believed to be right or wrong. Unless the implication is that the person making the judgment of what the population should believe is removed, not a part of, that population. So say a philosopher looks at a certain society, and decides what they should believe is right or wrong. The philosopher bases this decision on their own belief of what is right or wrong. Then should some other philosopher, perhaps, decide what the society of which the philosopher is a member should believe is right or wrong? Isn't there, in this reading, a sort of infinite regression?--Thomaswoof 21:54, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Slang Term
Removed "new 'it'" from the introductory sentence, as the term seemed too informal for encyclopedia prose.

Normative ethics needs a better definition
The first sentence was: "Normative ethics is the branch of philosophical ethics concerned with classifying actions as right and wrong." This definition actually belongs to consequentialism. I'm removing it. The second paragraph also began describing consequentialism. Now the first sentence begins "Normative ethics is the branch of philosophical ethics concerned with what people should believe to be right and wrong.." Still a mess, but at least it's more accurate. Chira (talk) 21:45, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

False Dilemma
This article presents a false dilemma. Most people believe that certain character traits, actions, and consequences may contain intrinsic value. However, this article seems to be written with the assumption that all ethical theories focus on only one of those three categories. Furthermore, no explanation is provided as to why this assumption is made. Steohawk (talk) 23:37, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Consequentialist libertarianism
The Article previously stated under consequentialist theories "Consequentialist libertarianism - which holds that liberty should be maximized."

This is an improper place to list consequentialist libertarianism, as a consequentialist libertarian is someone who believes we should maximize liberty because it brings about the best results, or rather libertarianism maximizes utility. It is a justification of libertarianism, a political theory, justified with consequentialism(ie. utilitarianism), a normative theory. The normative theory is still just plain old consequentialism.

Moreover the definition doesn't seem to grasp this. It actually sounds a lot more like deontological libertarianism, which is the idea that maximizing liberty is the only thing that is morally correct, and that the consequences of maximizing liberty are irrelevant.

Dark567 (talk) 16:53, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

The outline of normative theories
From what source is the outline of normative theories adopted? Having read several authors in the field I've found no general consensus concerning this particular categorization. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.253.153.210 (talk) 22:32, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Image problems
thumb|100pxHow do I link to http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Shame.jpg? When I type in File:Shame.jpg it gives me the image on the right instead of the one from wikimedia commons.

Binding Force
Before addressing this issue, I should note that I made a few revisions to various segments. I'm not sure the degree to which they help. But the article overall stinks like a monkey, so I don't feel I could hurt it much either.

I'm concerned about the section on binding force, which seems to be nothing more than a description of challenges to the notion that morality has it. It looks to me as if several of the quotations listed could be removed. Certainly one by Foot and one by Mill seems to be enough. If there seems to be consensus on it, I'll trim down the existing section and add in something by Kant or someone else who argues that morality has binding force, even if we can't explain why it does. (I take this to in fact be the majority position among philosophers, even if they disagree about why. But I take it that's something for another time...)71.173.176.104 (talk) 00:56, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

A bit more on this: Tesseract or others, you may want to revert some of what I've done. If so, the most recent is probably the only one that may be dubious in terms of content. I realize that I need to reread Foot's argument for this, because I've become increasingly unclear about which sense she has in mind for "bindingness": either (A) that people in fact act in the appropriate way morality demands, or (B) that people are in fact bound to act morally whether they like it or not. These are radically different possibilities, and my most recent edit may frame the matter too much as position (B), when her real target is position (A). (Though I think it's a B view she's taking. in arguing against "oughts from nowhere".) 71.173.176.104 (talk) 03:32, 8 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Me again (above), under a name instead of an IP address. The section on Mill here is wrong.  I was pretty sure it was, but on rereading the text it's clear the quotation is taken out of context.  (Mill doesn't attribute conscience only to society; he says distinctly that he has no position on whether conscience is innate or learned.)  Since I don't have time to revise this, and no one else seems interested in the article, I'm going to remove much of the text on Mill within a few days unless someone votes different.  It seems better to have nothing in this section of the text than to have something incorrect.Massivereptile (talk) 03:33, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your work and interest. Can you provide me the text of Mill making the claims you say? It seems clear to me that he acknowledges (a) some innate desire to be good, and (b) that society is also a factor and needs to do some teaching.

I believe Foot is focussed on what you are calling argument B. I don't know that many philosophers would ever argue that people always do what is moral. Also, the additions of Kant that you suggest seem like a very good idea.- Tesseract2 (talk) 17:58, 6 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks for pushing me on this. I admit I thought I was mostly talking to myself, and so didn't put enough thought into the statement about Mill to be clear.  It's the first quote that I think is taken out of context.  Anscombe and Foot argue against the notion of categorical imperatives, suggesting that the very idea that reason commands a particular act is wrong.  Their objection isn't only about in-fact motivation, but about logical motivation: claims about categorical imperatives are indefensible, because (they believe) there is nothing possible in which to ground them.


 * It's right that Mill acknowledged as innate desire to be good, but in the first quotation he's not taking a position on whether conscience corresponds to something about the objective force of moral principles or not. He's simply saying that, at the end of the day, our subjective feelings are what restrain us or don't restrain us.  That's perfectly compatible with there being categorical imperatives that conscience is usually aware of, or with conscience being purely a product of hypothetical imperatives (our interests and social learning), despite the fact that those imperatives in fact exist.  In this section, Mill goes out of his way not to take a position on what conscience in fact corresponds to.


 * Conscience is a fuzzy concept, and can mean anything from (1) the voice of God within to (2) transcendent reason to (3) the correct ranking of one's own non-moral interests, often carried out through non-rational processes. I think both Foot and Anscombe want to insist that only (3) is possibly defensible.


 * In general Mill doesn't seem to want to bite this bullet, but he does hedge several times, and switches his position back and forth a bit. I suppose it makes sense to leave the second quotation in, since he is largely describing (3) in that section, with morality as a purely a hypothetical imperative stemming from our desire for social interaction.  He doesn't consistently stick to this position, since as the text now somewhat-confusingly says, he believes we should often change our actions to conform to what reason demands, which seems to require something stronger than (3).  But the second quotation does show a strong leaning toward this deflationary position.


 * Perhaps part of the ambiguity here is about the notion of "forces" (in the sense of something forcing us), rather than "bindingness" (since one can be morally bound without actually knowing it)?Massivereptile (talk) 05:19, 7 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Sometimes our interest doesn't time with others'. I happen to be in this talk page these days, but others will surely comment on this section as time goes on.
 * Actually I think the binding force section needs a fair bit of work. You're ideas have made me realize there are a few ambiguities. I will try to clarify more. I also hope you will indeed find some contributions from Kant's side of things.- Tesseract2 (talk) 19:28, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Normative ethics and value pluralism
The following paragraph was removed by someone:

Normative ethics and value pluralism

Normative ethics claims that a certain moral theory is "good", or desirable. This can be interpreted in two ways.


 * Normative ethics claims, implicitly or explicitly, that the moral theory at hand is the only moral theory possible, and that any other choice is unwarranted or "evil". This can be called moral absolutism. Or,
 * Normative ethics makes no claim that the moral theory embraced is the only correct moral theory. Other theories, as described by descriptive ethics, may or may not be warranted, or "good", as well.

The first position holds normative ethics to be in competition with descriptive ethics, whereas the second holds it as complementary to descriptive ethics. In sum, although normative ethics assumes moral universalism, it may or may not assume a degree of (although not full) value pluralism, and it may or may not assume moral absolutism or value monism.

''This is an inversion of a similar distinction at the descriptive ethics article. Is it "not exactly true" as the one who removed it claims, and if so, how?'' Narssarssuaq (talk) 08:25, 26 June 2012 (UTC)


 * First of all normative ethics itself doesn't claim that a moral theory is good or desirable; a normative ethical theory claims that something is good or desirable, and normative ethics is the study of such theories. As such, normative ethics as a whole doesn't (although some particular normative ethical theories may) make any stand on any metaethical issues such as universalism vs relativism or monism vs pluralism, and is always complementary to descriptive ethics, not in competition with it, because they address completely different issues; one asks what really is good/bad/right/wrong/etc, one asks what do people believe is good/bad/right/wrong/etc (although it's possible one's answer to one question may defer to the answer to the other question). You seem to be conflating normativity, universalism, and monism in one camp, and description, relativity, and pluralism in another camp. There is such a thing as normative moral relativism, which is distinct from both meta-ethical and descriptive moral relativism. Normative moral relativism is a normative ethical theory, which stands in competition with universalist normative ethical theories; but descriptive moral relativism is not a normative ethical theory and so is not in competition with any normative ethical theory as it address a different question entirely. Also, "moral absolutism" is a poorly-defined term so I'm not sure what at all you're saying about it in regard to normative ethics here. --Pfhorrest (talk) 09:04, 26 June 2012 (UTC)


 * Agreed. I think that was an illuminating response. Thank you. Narssarssuaq (talk) 10:09, 26 June 2012 (UTC)
 * The distinctions between descriptive ethics, normative ethics and meta-ethics are difficult to pinpoint, so I provide some definitions from literature: "Normative ethics research is involved in determining standards of right and wrong, whereas descriptive ethics research is concerned with describing and explaining what exists, most notably ethical and unethical behavior." [Robertson DC (1993) Empiricism in business ethics: Suggested research directions. Journal of Business Ethics 12(8)]. Moreover: "The first sort of ethical inquiry is most commonly called normative ethics and is held to consist in the investigation into what actions are right, are our duty, or ought to be done, what motives are good or praiseworthy, what characters are virtuous, etc., and especially into the most general principles obtainable concerning these matters. The second sort of endeavor open to the moral philosopher is usually known as metaethics, and it is allegedly constituted, at least in part, by questions of the meanings of the various ethical terms and the functions of ethical utterances." [Sumner LW (1967) Normative Ethics and Metaethics. Ethics 77(2)] I still have difficulties grasping how normative ethics as a whole can be seen as "value-free". Does that mean that there is some sort of standardized methodology available in normative ethics as a whole? Narssarssuaq (talk) 07:43, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Beyond the normal philosophical methodology of appeal to reason and reason alone, there's no special methodology in normative ethics that I'm aware of. As for "value-free", particular normative ethical theories are of course far from value-free, but the field as a whole does not put forth any particular values because the field is defined by the question of what to value, not by any answers to that question. If there was some kind of broad consensus on the answer to that question, you might be able to say that the field put forth some particular values, much like the physical sciences collectively put forth various facts as a result of consensus on the answers to the questions which define them. But like most branches of philosophy there is never such consensus. Saying that normative ethics as a field asserts some sort of values is like saying that ontology as a field asserts something about being; that is what the field is about, but positions within the field diverge greatly so as a whole it doesn't assert anything, it just asks the question, to which there are various contentious answers. --Pfhorrest (talk) 07:58, 28 June 2012 (UTC)


 * the field is defined by the question of what to value, not by any answers to that question -- I think you have some profound insights here. It would absolutely help the article if this particular issue was included. Narssarssuaq (talk) 09:32, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Following your logic, descriptive ethics describes moral theories which are actually held by a particular group, whereas normative ethics describes moral theories without connecting them to a particular group. The starting point for inquiry in descriptive ethics is thus a group, whereas the starting point in normative ethics is principles, but apart from this distinction both may end up describing the same matter, except that descriptive ethics is less focused on describing the principles themselves and more interested in the relationship between the principles and the group. Descriptive ethics is thus more connected to social anthropology than to "pure ethics". Or am I mistaken again? Narssarssuaq (talk) 10:56, 3 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Descriptive ethics is appearing in the lede, and yet it (judged by the article alone) seems to be on the periphery of discourse in ethical philosophy. Meanwhile Applied ethics are not constrasted which itself is a huge area of discourse in ethics. Without getting involved in the business of the legitimacy of descriptive ethics, I am going to address it's apparent import. cf. for a RS. (20040302 (talk) 09:46, 4 June 2018 (UTC))

avoiding the issue?
a two-page article on ethics that pretends religion doesn’t exist may not have a neutral point of view. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.212.58.117 (talk) 03:43, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

"Normative ethics" misleading term, "Prescriptive ethics" better
Normative ethics suggests ethics that are normal, which suggests a meta-ethical narrative of moral relativism. Prescriptive ethics suggests "giving people prescriptions: telling them what to do" which is more accurate and does not betray any a priori commitment to any specific meta-ethical view. I recommend renaming the page "Prescriptive ethics" --BenMcLean (talk) 21:10, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
 * "Normative ethics" is the phrase used by experts in the field, and we would do well to track their usage and not invent our own terms. Besides, you've got your sense-transferral backwards: the sense of "normal" meaning common, typical, or average derives from the assumption that what is common, typical, or average is correct (i.e. metaethical relativism, as you say); the older sense of "normal" was to mean "correct", and "normative" preserves that sense still, "having to do with what is correct". Calling whatever is common, typical, or average "normal" (i.e. correct) is the assumptive usage (in assuming that because it is common, typical, or average, it must be correct), not calling something having to do with what is or isn't correct "normative". --Pfhorrest (talk) 03:03, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
 * My understanding is that "prescriptive ethics" is also used by experts in the field. That is what I have usually heard this referred to as in what I have read. Admittedly, I am not as widely read as I should be - my interest is amateurish. --BenMcLean (talk) 15:58, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

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Well, this is so profound...I don't know that much about this type of content, but I've learnt a lot since I've found the discussions about the topic. And I still had used and evaluated a lot of different positions in the field, because, some authors specially in politics and e conomics, or, as I preffer, authors who write about individual notions of politics, are masters on redesigning it. Take for example, Mr. Robert Greene, who had a BA in Classical Culture, wrote a book which axiomatizes about power and it's relations, specially in the individual level. and I was just a simple boy when I read it, I lived in a almost empty place even being from a big city, and I didn't thought about anything, didn't judged about anything, but, suddenly, I've started to change things, I've choosen a place where to go, and acted as a sociopath to reach what I wanted, than I built some businesses and found out it was time to control my sociopathy (which means I wasn't a pathological sociopath), then, I've chosen a field to enroll in college, totally different area, picked-up some social values, and started working on one more major, while, I suddenly found about the structural body of ethics I've developed until there...It was amazing, then, as the scientist I was starting to be, I've infered (Sorry if anything, because I'm not a English native speaker), so, I've infered from it some strings of thought, which led me to authors with such ethics far closer to mine body of ethics (like A. N. Whitehead and his mode's of thought, and then subsequent authors and researchers), even though the principles that Mr. Greene used where officially declared as taken from war strategists, what I've done was to use my human nature and then find a pattern which naturally other human beigns had for sure already done, or formed, before me.... The results were, gain, amazing. While, my second major is to be engineering related, I always thought about doing it to help my social studies, I'ev learnet about a lot of interesting topics until here. Some fields which could be evaluated scientifically when I reach some advanced math understanding, like a behavioral science related strict study, which measures people's particular traits and divides their under-specific qualities (which is a rare type of research, if there are any so full of qualities), and which is an amazing and was outstandingly useful for me, as a social articulator, as a auto-identified, measured, controled and "deactivated" sociopath, I could not only measure my own problems, but could measure other people's problems, and identify and deal specifically with other sociopaths with different types of habitual methods (which I aufered with simple key string-lines, and then dealt with, with a few minor errors and precise system-known corrections). and I think that this system is related to a lot of other fields, and it actually is, I've measured and dealt with it's help before, some safe and validity-tested data. I've taken other fields to evaluate since then, I've learn't a lot about politics, a field at which I could already identify, identify by some strings which lingers since Mr. Greene's book and my own research and other books, and axiomatical data I've started considering (and I found out that physics deals and creates ways to deal with most of these fields, I'm really in love with physics, even more because of this, and because of boolean-related part of it, which means pure axiomatic forms of laws, embedded in physics oriented systems)...Well, as, politics when I talk, I talk about a lot of fields, sub-fields, positions and quantitative-specific related topics, and sub-topics. Because, politics is a complex field, multi-demensionally oriented, you could think about an individual, and you could think about a collective,which is distinct from other collectives but related to sub-areas from other collecitves. And, you could divide politics as a social part, and as of economical part, than you could aufere from it a lot of fields and social sciences, quantitative sciences related fields and it's correlated situations.

Well, since I have a speciffic individual-based, but not limited to, system taht measures behavioral data and classify it thus showing it's possible yealds with simple ways to correct and validity-test its' errors, I could structure this in a single-string oriented project. Only problem is that it lacks some data, I already have to validate a lot of my own systems for larger scales, and measure and validity test it, because it is simple and testable, but it need's to be done in a broader range, in order to give it a more purposeful and scientifically reliable use. I know about some institutions which have used this system with a braoder range, but I need to do it in my own institutional bases.

I'm also starting to study in the field of Finance, I know that there are fields on it which can relate to my whole system, and it makes a precious piece of it, because, economics, accounting, management (which are related to the basis of the ethics, mecanics and metaphysics of my system), are, actually corrected by the financial side, which is the more purposeful and powerful part of this, including, it relates and balances the situation as for the political environment, and is often an outter part of this, thus commonly being neglected (ask about it for libertarians, if you want an exemple, specially those who argue against state existence). because finance in it self is the perfected part of what the state does, and it is pure, muchlike my own system of ethics, it doesn't takes outsider rules before theirs, but it does control the gravitational center of it's whole body of actions, it evaluates other actors body of actions, and they do the control they could do on whatever it needs and is able to control.

Well, this whole body of things, could be resumed and structured on two things, the first as we are human beings, linger from the philosophical part called ethics, often times translated and identified as normative ethics, the second part is thus represented by quantitative science, specially physics with the strings of ethics enbedded in the axiomatizated parts of it's system.

Thus, you could pick any of those topics in normative ethics, see where they come from who did them, and structure the personal basis of it, and measure statistically the nearest ideal collective who formed or needed it (or do it directly to the individual, the system oftentimes mark perfectly even with the words that the individual is used to think, I love this part)... then, you could calculate the adequate enviroment it requires, you could then resolve a lot of social problems. I have made a personal effort to try to not coerce people with this system, because most of the systems I've put into study are indifferent to it, but some aren't indifferent or do not miss the point(and some could even calculate for the part of the indifferent studies already), but it may also (and it could fail, even with validity tests), it could also, be used to judge on manipulative people, a part which could be used for direct corrections (as for the law, hegelian dialectics and etcetera), or could be used for indirect corrections (which also serves as validity tests, and acts in the whiteheadian dialectics), or even to outside corrections (libertarians put it as boycott, but it is not limited to it)..

So, I like my system, and in the way to promote it, if I could reach something meaningful in Finance and other fields, I will need to put something in the middle of this list for normative ethics...May be multi-dimentional ethics, I don't know exactly.

But I've loved this list, so meaningful, so useful.

I'm not a pure person and I could find about some topics and it's interests, but, it could lay the world in your hands to see things this way, it's a precious content, more people need to know about it.

I guess that a time like today, with Isis out there making terror, people would gain a lot of understanding on judging and perceiving muslims in general, because scrutinizing and relating real problems with muslims is not for simple people, even though I consider that the "whiteheadian dialectics" is already embedded in everyone's minds, it needs to be put in pratice.

Yet, people who will need to be discovered by the great public are the Menchevik and Gramsci-related socialist/communist people, it have became a big issue, and the freedom of thought now needs to be related to content of thought, it will shock with socialists effort, and if the result yealded be not bad for the socialists, it will probably be bad for the innocent and descent people, those who don't deserve to be punished, because they did not wanted to be ignorant about this situation.

Anyway, someday I'll put my piece of work in this page (I don't dream about books, they are needed, academic work may be needed, but I care about science, and I know that if the science be private, it could yeald higher results, look at, for example, coaching, if you go to a psicologist, he will give you middle-class advices for a mediocre life, but if you go to a coach, you probably are someone, and you have a possibility to speak directly with someone who made more than billions of people on earth, you just can't compare some situations, there are no metrics, specially for the poor, not that I be that rich though) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 177.159.137.225 (talk) 04:10, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Removed some names from "virtue ethics" subsection
While adding citations to the article, I removed Mortimer J. Adler, Jacques Maritain, and Yves Simon from the “Virtue ethics” subsection as I couldn’t find reliable sources explicitly tying these individuals to virtue ethics, specifically. This was in contrast to the ease of finding references for the other scholars listed here, which led me to remove the text rather than add a citation-needed tag. However, I’m not an expert in this field—so I invite anyone with relevant knowledge to add these back with references. Thanks! Magpie7533 (talk) 07:01, 12 March 2024 (UTC)