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The below is a concise introduction to philosophical ethics, written in accessible language for a general audience. Since many important subtleties are omitted in the name of simplicity and brevity, anyone interested in a more complete treatment of the ethical theories should follow the "Further Readings" links at the very bottom.

Ethics in a Nutshell

By Matt Deaton, M.A. (PhD ABD)

Ethics is the systematic, reason-guided study of what we morally ought to do. Four ethical theories dominate contemporary ethics: Kantianism, Consequentialism or Utilitarianism, Feminist Care Ethics, and Virtue Ethics. Even if we choose to defer to our religion or our culture’s values when deciding ethical questions, most of us can still learn a thing or two about asking the right questions, identifying morally relevant factors, and holding a consistent set of moral beliefs.

Oughts Based On Reason

There are lots of ways to answer moral questions. We can refer to religious texts or upbringing, reflect on our society’s values, or simply flip a coin. “Heads, and the death penalty is sometimes morally permissible – tails, and it’s never permissible.” The difference between philosophical ethics and other ways of deciding what we ought to do is that ethics entails the rigorous use of reason. Philosophers insist that we use reason to answer ethical questions because reasoning has proven itself useful in answering other sorts of questions. For example, scientists don’t take polls or defer to external authorities when trying to uncover the complexities of the natural world. If they did, we might still believe the world is flat! Rather, scientists gather evidence, examine reasons for and against hypotheses, and draw conclusions based on the logical force of those reasons.

Philosophers do the same thing. The difference between scientists and philosophers though is that scientists enjoy the luxury of producing testable data. They address empirical questions about physical things that can often be measured. Philosophers, on the other hand, deal with slippery questions for which conclusive answers are hard to pin down. This doesn’t make progress impossible, but it does make it more difficult. And it definitely makes determining which answer is correct tougher. But, since using our minds is the best we can do given the subject matter, we don’t just throw our hands in the air and give up, or conclude that everything is just a matter of mere opinion. Instead, we offer one another arguments in a collective effort to move closer to the truth, whatever it may be.

Religious persons sometimes find ethics intimidating. They’re sometimes afraid that thinking through ethical questions from any prospective other than their religious perspective is somehow disrespectful to their faith. However, this isn’t necessarily the case. For example, many professional philosophers are devoutly religious, and many religious professionals are well studied in philosophy. Some separate their personal religious convictions from their professional work, keeping the two realms distinct. “Reason leads me to conclude X,” they might say, “but my faith or holy book points to Y.” How such a person reconciles conflicts between their secular and religious lights is of course up to them. I personally use philosophy to inform my religious understanding and vice versa. Along with many other reflective religious persons, I figure if our creator gave us these big brains, he’d expect us to use them! Therefore it would perhaps be more of a dishonor, more disrespectful, if we didn’t use our intellectual abilities to think through life’s mysteries, including questions concerning what we ought to do. You’re of course free to use the philosophical approach however you like in your personal life. The point is simply that philosophy isn’t necessarily hostile to religion. In fact, many believe the two are complementary.

One benefit of being able to think through issues from a philosophical perspective is that it facilities conversation with virtually anyone, whereas only being able to think through issues from a religious perspective inhibits cooperative learning with those who don’t share your faith. For example, if in arguing for a position on the death penalty, my position rests on a key quote from the Bible, my argument isn’t likely to convince a Muslim, a Hindu or an Atheist. These persons may respect the Bible insofar as they acknowledge that it’s important to me, but from their perspective, it carries no authoritative force. Conversely, if someone were to respond to my argument by citing the Koran, their point would also fall on deaf ears, because I’m not Muslim. I recognize that they consider the book holy, but it doesn’t have nearly the same force to me.

Philosophers realize that since there are intelligent persons from every cultural and religious background, and since we need all the help we can get to try to figure out the difficult questions with which we deal with, we must appeal to reasons anyone can appreciate, regardless of their religious position. Using a common pool of reasons enables virtually anyone to join the philosophical conversation, and with more minds working cooperatively on the same problem, the hope is that we’ll be more likely to eventually figure those problems out. Also, since different cultures disagree over what’s moral, ethicists don’t defer to cultural traditions or opinion polls either. Even if 89% of Alabamans believed wearing jeans on Tuesday was immoral, that wouldn’t necessarily make it so in any objective sense. Maybe it’s been considered immoral for years, and maybe the vast majority agree, but that’s not reason enough to conclude that there’s something immoral about wearing jeans on Tuesday. Similarly, since our personal bias and emotions seem to cloud rather than assist our judgment, ethicists don’t defer to one another’s feelings either. Our emotional reactions may be an important component in figuring out moral questions, but it would be hasty to conclude that whatever we feel is right or wrong automatically is right or wrong. I’ve felt like my favorite football team was going to win a big game many times when they actually lost, so feelings aren’t an accurate indicator of truth either.

So, since ethicists don’t defer to religious authority, opinion polls, cultural tradition or their feelings when thinking through moral questions, what do they have left? Our reason, of course! It looks like all we can do is think really hard about moral questions and try our best to figure them out. Ethicists use arguments to do just that. Arguments are groups of statements that logically work together to support a conclusion. In ethical theory, where general theories are built, critiqued, revised and explained, the final conclusion is typically some general mandate, like only do things you could expect everyone else to do too (Kantianism) or behave in such a way that overall happiness is maximized (Utilitarianism). In applied ethics, where we apply abstract theory to the real world, the conclusion is which course of action should be taken. For example, after reflecting on the specifics, we might conclude that Suzy should steal the medicine her baby needs to survive or Johnny should not download pirated software. Applied ethics is mainly interested in the application phase. But before we can apply the theories well, we need to understand them.

Four ethical theories dominate contemporary philosophy: Kantianism, Consequentialism/Utilitarianism, Virtue Ethics and Feminist Care Ethics. If philosophers simply said, Here’s what you ought to do, because we said so, they would have no stronger claim on the moral truth than anyone else. Fortunately, philosophers argue for their ethical theories—they give us reasons why we should respect their approach to morality. Below I unpack the dominant four and supply abbreviated versions of their supporting background arguments—the reasons why we should take them seriously.

Kantianism

He’s been dead for 200 years, but philosophers remain in awe of the brilliance of Immanuel Kant. With lasting influence in all four corners of philosophy, his impact on ethics is perhaps most profound. Kant argued that what gives persons intrinsic, infinite value is their ability to reason. The capacity for higher reason facilitates most everything we do, distinguishes us from nonhuman animals, and gives us the freedom to live lives that are genuinely our own. Without reason we couldn’t value anything—we couldn’t make value judgments without the faculty of judgment itself—so if we value anything at all, we ought to value reason itself. Giving reason its due entails following two rules:

1) Only do things you could rationally endorse everyone else doing in similar circumstances.
2) Always treat others with respect, and never as mere tools.

The first rule, sometimes called the first formulation of the Categorical Imperative, precludes lying, stealing, murdering and the like, since if everyone else lied, stole and murdered, the advantage we seek when lying, stealing, or murdering would be undercut. For example, if people always lied when it was to their advantage, no one would trust you if you tried to lie to them. If everyone always stole when it was to their advantage, someone would steal from you whatever you managed to thieve from someone else. And if everyone always murdered when they felt like it, you’d soon be a murder victim yourself. In each case, the advantage you sought by committing the act under consideration would be nullified if everybody else took that same action too. Kant argues that since we’re all roughly equal as far as our ability to reason is concerned, if you couldn’t endorse everyone else doing something, it’s not fair for you to do it either.

The second rule, sometimes called the second formulation of the Categorical Imperative, has been interpreted to have different implications by different Kant scholars. Some argue that treating others with respect and never as mere tools just entails largely negative actions—like being honest and doing no harm. Others argue that it requires actively helping and looking out for others’ best interests—like volunteering information and doing others good. In business ethics, for example, some think that Kantian respect for employees simply involves being up front with them about working conditions and ensuring that they freely agree to their employment contracts. Others think that fully respecting employees requires providing a living wage, a safe working environment, and reasonably interesting work, or at least not mind numbing work.

Consequentialism/Utilitarianism

While Kantians argue that we should never lie or steal, Consequentialists argue that sometimes not only is lying and stealing morally permissible, but even morally obligatory. That is, not only may we lie or steal, but in some cases we morally should. When is that the case? Whenever lying or stealing would bring about the best consequences. For Consequentialists, ethics involves acting in ways that bring about the best future. A person’s actions aren’t judged based on their intentions, but instead solely on the consequences they produce.

Utilitarianism is probably the most respectable breed of Consequentialism. On what is their theory based? Utilitarians argue that the only thing valued for itself is pleasure. Everything else, they say, is only of secondary worth. That is, everything we cherish can be reduced to the pleasure or desire satisfaction it brings us. Our cell phones, our laptops, our football tickets, our chocolate ice cream—even our spouses—are all valued for the pleasure they bring us, nothing more. (Ask yourself why you value something. Do you value the thing itself, or to the pleasure it brings you?) Since there’s no reason to think that any one person’s pursuit of pleasure is more important than the next’s, the morally right course of action is the one that brings about the most pleasure overall.

It’s important to notice that this isn’t the same thing as maximizing your personal pleasure. Utilitarianism isn’t selfish hedonism. In fact, good Utilitarians will often sacrifice their own happiness for the sake of others, when doing so will bring about more pleasure overall. So if I’m a Utilitarian with a Snickers bar, and sharing it with you will bring about more pleasure overall than were I to eat it by myself, I have a moral obligation to share.

The Snickers example is pretty easy, but how can we tell for sure which action will produce the most net pleasure when things are more complex? Perhaps we can never tell for sure, since things sometimes turn out differently than we expect. Also, any judgment we make about the pleasure or pain someone else experiences is necessarily uncertain, since we can’t ‘get inside’ anyone else’s head. But setting those worries aside, we can still make rough judgments with the information we have available. Anytime we’re presented with an ethical dilemma, Utilitarianism says we should articulate our options, list all the people potentially affected, the different potential effects on them depending on the course of action we take, calculate the pleasure each option is likely to produce, and choose whichever action will maximize net pleasure. For example, consider the following dilemma.

On your way to class you pass an apparent stab victim. The person is bleeding pretty badly, no one is stopping to help him, and you know first aid. You know your instructor will give a quiz at the beginning of class, and you know he doesn’t allow make-ups. Should you continue to class or stop and help?

In deciding what to do, recognize that at least three parties will potentially be affected: you, the stab victim, and the stab victim’s mother. There are of course others, and everyone’s pleasure and pain counts equally—we’re just simplifying the equation to explain the method. To further simplify things we’ll quantify each person’s pleasure/pain depending on what you do based on a 20-point scale from -10 to 10, with -10 being unbearable, excruciating, long-lasting pain, and 10 being wonderful, long-lasting ecstasy.

For you, if you go on to class, you’ll take the quiz, do well if you studied, and you won’t get your favorite shirt bloody. If you stop, you’ll miss the quiz and ruin your favorite shirt, but the satisfaction you’ll get from saving a life might more than outweigh those pains. (Keep in mind though that that’s not necessarily the case. If a quiz and a shirt mean more to you than saving a life, these numbers would be different. I’m just assuming you’re not incredibly selfish—not more worried about your shirt and a quiz than someone’s life!) For the stab victim, if you go on to class, assuming everyone keeps their distance, they’re at the very least going to continue to bleed and be horrified that nobody stopped to help sooner, which will probably do long-term psychological damage—maybe even more than the stabbing itself. If you stop and help, you’ll at least restore their faith in mankind, prevent lasting damage from extreme blood loss, and might even save their life. For the stab victim’s mother, if you don’t stop, she may lose a child, or if he lives but looses a lot of blood, she may be burdened with a vegetable for the rest of her life. If you do stop, she’ll still be upset her baby was stabbed, but she’ll be eternally grateful that somebody cared enough to save him. The above considerations can be represented in the below “Utilitarian Calculus” which lists the projected effect on each party depending on the course of action you take :

Options: Go to Class Stop & Help

You 2 5

Stab Victim -7 -2

Stab Victim’s Mom -5 -2

Net Pleasure -10 1

According to our assumptions, it looks like Utilitarianism would say that you should stop and help. Hopefully that’s what seemed right according to your common sense moral judgment anyway! We assumed above that you’re a decent person. But notice that the math would come differently if you were incredibly selfish—if you cared a whole lot more about your shirt and the quiz than the stab victim’s life. Change the numbers and see for yourself!
And last, notice that the above process would definitely prove itself tedious if we had to do it for every action we took. But luckily many Utilitarians recommend that we follow general rules of thumb that tend to maximize net pleasure, such as don’t lie, don’t steal, don’t murder and other commonly accepted ethical norms.

Care Ethics

Feminist Care Ethics developed as a response to what feminists considered the cold, calculating male dominated approach to morality. Care Ethicists argue that our relational ties to family and friends are of obvious moral importance—it’s just an irrefutable truth about the human experience that relationships matter. Any ethical theory that doesn’t take relationships seriously and for their own sake (for example, all the rest) is eternally flawed. A Utilitarian might prioritize the interests of his mother because doing so maximizes net pleasure, but while a Care Ethicist might endorse the disposition, they would reject the reason behind it. “You should prioritize the interests of your mother because she’s your mother, not because doing so happens to bring about more pleasure than doing otherwise,” they’d say.

Apart from our relationships just seeming intuitively important to ethics, Care Ethicists argue for the primacy of relational considerations because we’re fundamentally interdependent creatures. Though we like to entertain the fantasy that we’re independent islands, nobody comes into this world, is successfully reared, flourishes or even survives without the help and cooperation of lots of other people. Even mail-order work-from-home hermits depend on the cooperation of the UPS man to bring them their stuff, which is produced in an economy employing thousands, who are all working and living and creating based on knowledge learned from previous generations, and from one another. Even language itself is socially determined—you would know very, very little without language, which other people collectively created and shared with you. So since we’re all in this together, Care Ethicists argue, to the extent that we’re emotionally attached and indebted to a person, their concerns should have special priority in our ethical decisions.

To see the clear contrast with Utilitarianism, imagine that aliens have abducted you, your mother the corporate lawyer, and a hotshot oncologist (cancer doctor). Demented as aliens are, they insist that either your mother or the doctor must die, and force you to choose. From the Utilitarian perspective, unless your mom does something socially beneficial on the side, you should pick her to die and the oncologist to live. The oncologist can go on to heal lots of cancer patients and produce lots of pleasure (or at least alleviate lots of pain), but your mom, the corporate lawyer, actually maximizes net pain with her evil lawyering trickery! (Note: While lawyers are the natural enemy of philosophers, not all lawyers are evil ) But Care Ethicists would object that your relationship with your mother should override any potential benefits saving the oncologist might bring about. Beyond the fact that she brought you into this world, nurtured you, and continues to give you unconditional love—beyond simply owing her for all that—your mother/son bond is granted special moral status for its own sake, and should be the determining factor in deciding—despite her choice of profession.

Virtue Ethics

We’re all familiar with the virtues of honesty, courage, humility, chastity, thrift and the like. As well as the vices of sloth, greed, gluttony, cowardice, vanity, etc. Virtue Ethicists say that we should do our best to internalize and practice the former and avoid the latter—that ethics is all about developing good character.

Why should we care about character? Because doing so will allow us to lead a good life. Cowardly, gluttonous, lazy people are usually dissatisfied with themselves. They’re not leading good human lives—not living up to their potential. They know it, everyone else knows it—their experience is just less fulfilling than it could be. On the other hand, brave, ambitious people who practice all things in moderation tend to be happier. They lead more satisfying existences more in line with what humans are capable of becoming. They push the boundaries of what they’re personally capable of accomplishing, and look back on their lives with a smile, rather than disgust, as a result. “If you want to live a good life,” Virtue Ethicists say, “then you should adhere to the time tested virtues and avoid the time tested vices.” Do that, or simply ask yourself how a moral exemplar—some really virtues model would handle a given situation—and follow their lead.

Knowing which virtue to apply and to what degree is a matter of judgment. Similarly, knowing which virtue to follow when they seemingly conflict is also a matter of judgment. Consequently, Virtue Ethics is sometimes criticized because it can seem imprecise. Wisdom is perhaps the most important virtue, because being wise allows a person to recognize the fine line between being brave and foolhardy, thrifty and miserly, confident and arrogant. Perhaps all we can do is look to people who seem to be living genuinely good, satisfying lives, and follow their example.
Last, notice that the argument underlying virtue ethics seems selfish. “Ethics is about acting virtuously, and acting virtuously is important because it will enable you to live a better life, which will make you a happier, more satisfied, more complete person,” Virtue Ethicists say. This isn’t necessarily reason to reject Virtue Ethics, but it is distinguishing feature of the theory, since the others don’t explicitly claim to benefit us personally, but instead give us other-regarding—or in the case of Kant, reason-regarding—reasons to accept and practice them.

The Balancing Act

Though some people are what we might call hardcore comprehensive Kantians, Utilitarians, Care Ethicists or Virtue Ethicists, the majority familiar with the above theories don’t prioritize one to the detriment of the others. That is, few people defer completely to one of the above theories to decide all their moral dilemmas. Instead, they balance their influence when appropriate. This is because all four seem to make good points, but all four also seem to have their flaws. Oversimplified, the four theories would seem to express ethical maxims already belonging to common sense: a) we should treat persons with respect, b) we should promote good consequences, c) those close to us usually deserve special attention, and d) it’s better to have a good character than a bad character. So maybe they’re best seen as technical and satisfying explanations of what we already know is true.

But while it may be clear that all four theories promote valid moral norms, it’s often unclear which should guide our action when they seemingly conflict. One thing we can do is balance the influence of the theories. When presented with a moral dilemma and following this method, we must first identify which sorts of considerations are at play—respecting persons, promoting good consequences, paying attention to relationships, or developing good character. Once we’re clear on which theories are relevant to the dilemma (maybe no loved ones are involved, so Care Ethics would have little to say), it's a matter of weighing the importance of each consideration within its own realm against the importance of the other considerations within their realms. That is, a really strong Kantian consideration would give us reason to disregard a really weak Utilitarian consideration, and vice versa.

For example, were I to see one of my students bleeding to death in my neighbor's yard (freaky example!), I would have some weak obligation to respect my neighbor’s property rights and not trespass on her lawn, which is a Kantian respect for persons consideration. However, were I to consider the other ethical theories, and more deeply reflect on my Kantian obligations, it would become clear that I should I should set aside this initial worry and save the student’s life. I might consider that a) the student is a fellow human being and I'd expect the same treatment (Kantianism), b) if I don't help, they could die (Utilitarianism), c) though I don't know them very well, we have some relationship, and we’re definitely not strangers (Care Ethics), and d) helping is the sort of thing a virtuous person would do, and will likely enhance my overall character (Virtue Ethics). Of course, things would get complicated if I'd have to dodge speeding traffic to save to the student, or if when I get there I see that my son is bleeding to death too and I can only help one of them. Or if I realize that rather than my student, the bleeding person is Hitler! But you get the picture.

Coherence and the Role of Gut

I said in the opening section that our feelings tend to cloud our judgment, and therefore can’t be trusted when doing philosophical ethics. We can’t follow our intuitions when it comes to moral decisions because our instincts often get us in trouble. Bias and overreaction lead us astray, the heart clouds the mind—that’s why scientists and philosophers alike turn to reason to figure things out. But our gut does play a respected role in analyzing ethical theory. When it comes to our baseline, fundamental, no doubt moral convictions, like slavery is wrong, we shouldn’t allow an elaborate argument to sway our certainty. If a theory tells us slavery is OK, that’s probably reason enough to reject or revise the theory, or at least admit its limitations, rather than declare slavery morally acceptable.

The ultimate goal is to hold a consistent set of moral beliefs that can be supported with good argumentation. Why? Because treating like cases alike seems to be a necessary rule of ethics, and we can’t be confident that our views are correct without reasons to support them. With that in mind, our gut-level moral judgments require constant evaluation, articulation, examination, reevaluation and revision. That is, we shouldn’t use ethical theories to simply rationalize our prejudices, but rather to improve our views. For example, maybe we start out convinced that homosexuality and abortion and promiscuous sex are definitely and in all cases morally wrong. But are these three convictions logically consistent? In deciding, we should try to identify an abstract moral principle that makes sense of all three judgments. Perhaps a person thinks through them like this:

OK, so I think homosexuality, abortion and promiscuous sex are all three always morally wrong. How can I make sense of these convictions… Maybe all three are in some sense evolutionarily disadvantageous? Gay sex doesn’t lead to reproduction, and abortion hinders reproduction… but promiscuous sex typically promotes reproduction. Hmm. Maybe all three don’t respect human dignity? Abortion, at least in cases where the unborn developing human is viable and the mother is in no danger, seems to severely neglect the realized and potential dignity of the child, and promiscuous sex seems undignified because it’s only engaged in for brief animal pleasure… but there doesn’t seem to be anything inherently undignified about homosexual sex when practiced as an expression of monogamous love. So do I revise my position on promiscuous sex, or homosexuality?

This is just an example, and how the person resolves the apparent conflict is up to them. The point is, as we go back and forth between our convictions, searching for and testing different guiding principles, we may find that our baseline judgments aren’t so certain after all. Maybe homosexuality or some forms of abortion or promiscuous sex wind up not seeming as wrong as we originally thought. Or maybe all three turn out to seem even more wrong than we originally thought! Either way, ethicists emphasize the necessity of holding a consistent set of moral beliefs—those that don’t logically contradict one another, and can be explained with some overarching principle—with reason.

So that’s ethics in a nutshell! Since it seems to be the best we can do, ethicists use their capacity for higher reason to solve moral questions rather than blindly follow their feelings, the crowd, cultural tradition or religion. However, many ethicists defer to religion in their personal lives, and as we just saw, our intuitions play an important role in helping us decide which ethical theories are worthy of our respect. Four theories dominate ethics contemporary philosophy—Kantianism, Consequentialism or Utilitarianism, Care Ethics and Virtue Ethics. When it comes to applying those theories and making concrete judgments, one strategy is to consider what each theory would have us do, and act according to whichever option gets the most net support. And while we shouldn’t allow our raw emotions to control everything we think and do, we should pay close attention to our carefully considered moral judgments, and make sure our moral decisions don’t contradict our fixed considered convictions. Any ethical theory that does conflict with our bedrock, reflective moral convictions probably needs revising. And so long as your views are consistent, and you can give good reasons to support them, you’re doing ethics.