- who Philosophers/Anyone.
- what The study of right and wrong actions.
- where ethics is taught at universities/anywhere.
- when the first profesional philosopher was about 2500 years ago and humans have been thinking about this for thousands of years.
- why so we can tell what are the right and wrong actions.
Defintions
Ethics: the study of right and wrong actions is the defintion that we think is correct. A theory or system of moral values is the dictionary one.
Famous Ethical Theories
- Utilitarianism
- Consequentialism
- Contractarianism
- Deontology
- Nihilism
- Religions such as Christianity islam hinduism etc
Personhood and Moral Agency
Ethics effects human beings because with humans if we murderd another human we would put them in jail unless it was for self defence and the reason why ethics doesnt effect other animals is because its thier natural instinct. The reason why we can study ethics is because we are the smartest animal right now because our brains.
Ethics can also apply to aliens and robots. Personhood is any intelligent being. Having personhood means responsability another way to say that somone is responsable is moral agent. The reason why domthing like a baby or toddler cant be moral agent is because thier brain hasnt developt. Inteligence is based on brain developement and as you get older you get a more developed brain so you get responcabilities.
If sombody is crazy they dont have responcabilities most the time but if thier crazy enouph to kill a bunch of people they can be arrested. If sombody is mentaly disabled they do not have responcability
For ethics to effect people you need to have at least 2 people.