Back to Ethics · Metaethics · Normative Ethics · Debates and Religion
Competing accounts of what makes an action right, which reasons count, and how a person should live. These theories can be paired with different metaethical accounts.
Which claim? Why only God? What reasons? Why better?
Framing questions from Does Morality Require Religion - Master.
Duties and Kantian ethics
- Deontology — the introductory duties-and-constraints note.
- Deontological Ethics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) — the preserved long-form reference capture.
- Categorical Imperative — Kant’s formulations and practical reasoning.
- Categorical vs. Hypothetical Imperative — the preserved comparison graphic.
- Categorical Morality — an existing empty placeholder; use Categorical Imperative for substantive content.
- Threshold Deontology — what happens when consequences cross a threshold.
- Deontological vs Teleological — the existing comparison of duties and ends.
Consequences, agreement, and character
- Consequentialism — the ethics note on assessing actions by consequences.
- Utilitarianism — welfare-maximizing theories and criticisms.
- Alienation Consequentialism and the Demands of Morality - Peter Railton — objective assessment, personal commitments, and alienation.
- Contractualism — principles justified to others, distinguished from contractarian bargaining.
- Epicureanism — desire, tranquility, and the good life.
Pressure tests and critiques
- On the Randian Argument - Robert Nozick — the argument from life and value to egoistic obligations.
- Moral Luck — responsibility and circumstances outside the agent’s control.
Cross-vault connections
Virtue ethics · 60.12.1 Stoicism · Morality and Religion - Learning Path · Political Philosophy (MOC)
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Notes in this topic
60.9.3.2 Ethics (file not included in this release)