Book contents
- Ethics and the Environment
- Cambridge Applied Ethics
- Ethics and the Environment
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Figures
- Table
- Preface
- 1 The Environment as an Ethical Question
- 2 Human Morality
- 3 Moral Philosophy
- 4 Normative Ethics
- 5 Humans and Other Animals
- 6 Animals, Food, and the Environment
- 7 The Value of Nature
- 8 The Plurality of Values
- 9 California Conflicts
- 10 Nature’s Future
- 11 How Should I Live?
- References
- Index
4 - Normative Ethics
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- Ethics and the Environment
- Cambridge Applied Ethics
- Ethics and the Environment
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Figures
- Table
- Preface
- 1 The Environment as an Ethical Question
- 2 Human Morality
- 3 Moral Philosophy
- 4 Normative Ethics
- 5 Humans and Other Animals
- 6 Animals, Food, and the Environment
- 7 The Value of Nature
- 8 The Plurality of Values
- 9 California Conflicts
- 10 Nature’s Future
- 11 How Should I Live?
- References
- Index
Summary
Normative ethics is divided between ethical theory and practical ethics. Three families of ethical theories are consequentialism, virtue ethics, and Kantianism. Consequentialism is the view that consequences determine what we ought to do. Virtue ethics is the view that right actions should be understood in terms of virtuous agents and their character. Kantianism’s central concern is with how rational agents ought to relate to themselves and to each other. Ethical theory is difficult to disentangle from practical ethics, which is concerned with what we ought to do in particular situations, which – along with the question “How should I live?” – is the most important topic in ethics and perhaps all of philosophy.
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- Ethics and the EnvironmentAn Introduction, pp. 66 - 86Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024