Philosophy Ethics

Ethics — the branch of philosophy studying what is morally right, good, and just — has developed major frameworks for moral reasoning that influence everything from personal decisions to corporate governance, medical practice, and AI design. The major Western traditions: consequentialism/utilitarianism (Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill — actions are right if they maximize overall well-being; the 'greatest happiness principle'; criticized for justifying torture of innocents if it saves many); deontology (Immanuel Kant — actions are right or wrong based on whether they follow universal moral rules regardless of consequences; the categorical imperative: 'act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law'); and virtue ethics (Aristotle — ethics is about character, not rules; what would a person of good character do?). Modern ethical dilemmas: the trolley problem (Judith Jarvis Thomson, 1985 — would you divert a runaway trolley to kill one person instead of five?) reveals that people's moral intuitions conflict with their stated principles; the drowning child argument (Peter Singer — if you would save a drowning child at trivial cost to yourself, why not donate to save equivalent lives?); and AI ethics (how to program moral reasoning into systems that may need to make life-and-death decisions). Jonathan Haidt's moral foundations theory: political liberals and conservatives differ not in reasoning but in which moral foundations they emphasize (liberals: care, fairness; conservatives: also loyalty, authority, sanctity).