1、元倫理學
Metaethics is concerned primarily with the meaning of ethical judgments and/or prescriptions and with the notion of which properties, if any, are responsible for the truth or validity thereof. Meta-ethics as a discipline gained attention with G.E. Moore’s famous work Principia Ethica from 1903in which Moore first addressed what he referred to as the naturalistic fallacy. Moore’s rebuttal of naturalistic ethics, his Open Question Argument sparked an interest within the analytic branch of western philosophy to concern oneself with second order questions about ethics; specifically the semantics, epistemology and ontology of ethics.
2、倫理認識論
Correspondingly, the epistemology of ethics divides into cognitivism and non-cognitivism, a distinction that is often perceived as equivalent to that between descriptivists and non-descriptivists. Non-cognitivism may be understood as the claim that ethical claims reach beyond the scope of human cognition or as the （weaker） claim that ethics is concerned with action rather than with knowledge. Cognitivism can then be seen as the claim that ethics is essentially concerned with judgments of the same kind as knowledge judgments; namely about matters of fact.
3、倫理存在論
The ontology of ethics is concerned with the idea of value-bearing properties, i.e. the kind of things or stuffs that would correspond to or be referred to by ethical propositions. Non-descriptivists and non-cognitivists will generally tend to argue that ethics do not require a specific ontology, since ethical propositions do not refer to objects in the same way that descriptive propositions do. Such a position may sometimes be called anti-realist. Realists on the other hand are left with having to explain what kind of entities, properties or states are relevant for ethics, and why they have the normative status characteristic of ethics.
4、描述型倫理學和非描述型倫理學
The semantics of ethics divides naturally into descriptivism and non-descriptivism. The former position advocates the idea that prescriptive language （including ethical commands and duties） is a subdivision of descriptive language and has meaning in virtue of the same kind of properties as descriptive propositions, whereas the latter contends that ethical propositions are irreducible in the sense that their meaning cannot be explicated sufficiently in terms of truth-conditions.
5、描述型倫理學及其四大關注焦點
Descriptive ethics is a value-free approach to ethics which examines ethics not from a top-down a priori perspective but rather observations of actual choices made by moral agents in practice. Some philosophers rely on descriptive ethics and choices made and unchallenged by a society or culture to derive categories, which typically vary by context. This can lead to situational ethics and situated ethics. These philosophers often view aesthetics, etiquette, and arbitration as more fundamental, percolating “bottom up” to imply the existence of, rather than explicitly prescribe, theories of value or of conduct. The study of descriptive ethics may include examinations of the following:
1.Ethical codes applied by various groups. Some consider aesthetics itself the basis of ethics—and a personal moral core developed through art and storytelling as very influential in one’s later ethical choices.
2.Informal theories of etiquette which tend to be less rigorous and more situational. Some consider etiquette a simple negative ethics, i.e. where can one evade an uncomfortable truth without doing wrong? One notable advocate of this view is Judith Martin （“Miss Manners”）. According to this view, ethics is more a summary of common sense social decisions.
3.Practices in arbitration and law, e.g. the claim that ethics itself is a matter of balancing “right versus right”, i.e. putting priorities on two things that are both right, but which must be traded off carefully in each situation.
4.Observed choices made by ordinary people, without expert aid or advice, who vote, buy, and decide what is worth valuing. This is a major concern of sociology, political science, and economics.
6、應用倫理學的概念
Applied ethics is a discipline of philosophy that attempts to apply “theoretical” ethics, such as utilitarianism, social contract theory, and deontology, to real world dilemmas. Topics falling within the discipline include medical ethics, legal ethics, environmental ethics, computer ethics, corporate social responsibility, or business ethics. Many considerations of applied ethics also come into play in human rights discussions.
Applied ethics seeks to engage formal ethics in attempts to solve actual dilemmas. In doing so, it illuminates the potential for disagreement over the way theories and principles should be applied. Strict, principle-based ethical approaches often result in solutions to specific problems that are not universally acceptable. Drawing on medical ethics for an example, a strict deontological approach would never permit the deception of a patient about their condition, whereas a utilitarian approach would involve consideration of the consequences of so doing, and might permit lying to a patient if the result of the deception was “good”. The example demonstrates that a deontologist can derive a different solution to a dilemma than a utilitarian.
7、國家政策與應用倫理學
Applied ethics is used in determining public policy. For example, the following would be questions of applied ethics: “Is getting an abortion immoral?” “Is euthanasia immoral?” “Is affirmative action right or wrong?” “What are human rights, and how do we determine them?” and “Do animals have rights as well?”
A more specific question could be: “If someone else can make better out of his/her life than I can, is it then moral to sacrifice myself for them if needed?” Without these questions there is no clear fulcrum on which to balance law, politics, and the practice of arbitration—in fact, no common assumptions of all participants—so the ability to formulate the questions are prior to rights balancing. But not all questions studied in applied ethics concern public policy. For example, making ethical judgments regarding questions such as “Is lying always wrong?” and “If not, when is it permissible?” is prior to any etiquette.
Often, questions of applied ethics take legal or political form before they are interpreted in frameworks of normative ethics. The UN Declaration of Universal Human Rights of 1948and the Global Green Charter of 2001are two such examples.
8、道德風尚的概念
Mores are norms or customs. Mores derive from the established practices of a society rather than its written laws. They consist of shared understandings about the kinds of behavior likely to evoke approval, disapproval, toleration or sanction, within particular contexts.
However, mores, does not, as is commonly supposed necessarily carry connotations of morality. Rather, morality can be seen as a subset of mores, held to be of central importance in view of their content, and often formalized in some kind of moral code, e.g. commandments. Taboos, for example, forbid a society’s most outrageous behaviors, such as incest and murder.
Examples of mores are the differences between a man and woman walking down the street topless. While the man might receive mild disapproval a woman would receive harsh sanctions for the same act. Another example might be someone picking his or her nose in the Western world; which, although harmless, is widely considered as disgusting to the general populace and goes against the norm.
9、道德風尚的內在化
The question of how members of a society come to internalize its mores is thus of central importance to the wider question of how socialization occurs. Most sociologists reject the thesis that formal instruction matters as much as informal social responses, for example, disgust and the ostracism of offenders. However, constant exposure to social mores is thought by some to lead to development of an individual moral core, which is pre-rational and consists of a set of inhibitions that cannot be easily characterized except as potential inhibitions against taking opportunities that the family or society does not consider desirable. These in turn cannot be easily separated from individual opinions or fears of getting caught.
10、倫理道德在社會中的作用
The moral rules which forbid mankind to hurt one another （in which we must never forget to include wrongful interference with each other’s freedom） are more vital to human well-being than any maxims, however important, which only point out the best mode of managing some department of human affairs. They have also the peculiarity, that they are the main element in determining the whole of the social feelings of mankind. It is their observance which alone preserves peace among human beings:if obedience to them was not the rule, and disobedience the exception, every one would see in every one else an enemy, against whom he must be perpetually guarding himself.
What is hardly less important, these are the precepts which mankind has the strongest and the most direct inducements for impressing upon one another. By merely giving to each other prudential instruction or exhortation, they may gain, or think they gain, nothing; in inculcating on each other the duty of positive beneficence they have an unmistakable interest, but far less in degree: a person may possibly not need the benefits of others; but he always needs that they should not do him hurt. Thus the moralities which protect every individual from being harmed by others, either directly or by being hindered in his freedom of pursuing his own good, are at once those which he himself has most at heart, and those which he has the strongest interest in publishing and enforcing by word and deed.
It is by a person’s observance of these that his fitness to exist as one of the fellowships of human beings is tested and decided; for on that depends his being a nuisance or not to those with whom he is in contact. Now it is these moralities primarily which compose the obligations of justice. The most marked cases of injustice, and those which give the tone to the feeling of repugnance which characterizes the sentiment, are acts of wrongful aggression, or wrongful exercise of power over some one; the next are those which consist in wrongfully withholding from him something which is his due; in both cases, inflicting on him a positive hurt, either in the form of direct suffering, or of the privation of some good which he had reasonable ground, either of a physical or of a social kind, for counting upon.
11、道德內在驅動論vs.道德外在驅動論
In contemporary moral philosophy, motivational internalism is the view that moral beliefs （or judgments） are intrinsically motivating—they don’t require a separate desire to motivate the agent making the moral judgment. That is, the motivational internalist believes that there is an internal, necessary connection between one’s belief that X ought to be done and one’s motivation to do X. Conversely, the motivational externalist claims that there is no necessary, internal connection between moral beliefs （or judgments） and moral motives. That is, there is no necessary connection between the belief that X is wrong and the desire not to do X.
These views in moral psychology have various implications. In particular, if motivational internalism is true, then an amoralist is unintelligible （and metaphysically impossible）. An amoralist is not simply someone who is immoral, rather it is someone who knows what the moral things to do are, yet is not motivated to do them. Such an agent is unintelligible to the motivational internalist, because moral judgments about the right thing to do have built into them corresponding motivations to do those things that are judged by the agent to be the moral things to do. On the other hand, an amoralist is entirely intelligible to the motivational externalist, because the motivational externalist thinks that moral judgments about the right thing to do not necessitate some motivation to do those things that are judged to be the right thing to do; rather, an independent desire—such as the desire to do the right thing—is required.