User:Phlsph7/Ethics - Definition

Definition
Ethics, also referred to as moral philosophy, is the study of moral phenomena. It is one of the main branches of philosophy and investigates the nature of morality and the principles that govern moral evaluation of conduct, character traits, and institutions. It examines what obligations people have, what behavior is right and wrong, and how to lead a good life. Some of its key questions are "How should one live?" and "What gives meaning to life?".

The domain of morality is a normative field governing what people ought to do rather than what they actually do, what they want to do, or what social conventions require. As a rational and systematic field of inquiry, ethics studies practical reasons why people should act one way rather than another. Most ethical theories seek universal principles that express a general standpoint of what is objectively right and wrong. In a slightly different sense, the term "ethics" can also refer to individual ethical theories in the form of a rational system of moral principles, such as Aristotelian ethics, and to a moral code that certain societies, social groups, or professions follow, as in Protestant work ethic and medical ethics.

The terms "ethics" and "morality" are usually used interchangeably but some philosophers draw a distinction between the two. According to one view, morality is restricted to the question of what moral obligations people have while ethics is a wider term that takes additional considerations into account, such as what is good or how to lead a meaningful life. Another difference is that codes of conduct pertaining to specific areas, such as the business and environment, are usually termed "ethics" rather than morality, as in business ethics and environmental ethics.

As a philosophical discipline, ethics is usually divided into normative ethics, applied ethics, and meta-ethics. Normative ethics tries to find and justify universal principles of moral conduct. Applied ethics examines the consequences of those principles in specific domains of practical life. Meta-ethics is a metatheory that studies underlying assumptions and concepts, such as what the nature of morality is and whether moral judgments can be objectively true.

The English word ethics has its roots in the Ancient Greek word êthos (ἦθος) meaning "character, personal disposition". This word gave rise to the Ancient Greek word ēthikós (ἠθικός), which was translated into Latin as ethica and entered the English language in the 15th century through the Old French term éthique.