Contemporary ethics

Ethics is, in general terms, the study of right and wrong. It can look descriptively at moral behaviour and judgements; it can give practical advice (normative ethics), or it can analyse and theorise about the nature of morality and ethics.

Contemporary study of ethics has many links with other disciplines in philosophy itself and other sciences.Normative ethics has declined, while meta-ethics is increasingly followed. Abstract theorizing has in many areas been replaced by experience-based research.

Psychology, sociology, politics, medicine and neurobiology are areas which have helped and been helped in progress in ethics. Within philosophy, epistemology (or the study of how we know) has drawn closer to ethics. This is in part due to the recognition that knowledge, like value and goodness, can be seen as a normative concept. The traditional analyses and definitions of knowledge have been shown to be unsound by the Gettier problem.

New interest has flourished in meta-ethics. This has in recent years developed as a recognised category proceeding from the work of Hume, G. E. Moore and the error theories of J. L. Mackie who seeks a real basis, if any, for talk of values and right and wrong. Mackie is sceptical about solving the dilemma posed by the distinction between values and facts.

The dominance of reason has come under increasing challenge from various quarters.Heidegger's work has become increasingly translated and interpreted in the Anglo-American sphere and the wisdom of always following reason is widely questioned.

The ethics of care, and environmental ethics are other flourishing areas of research. These point to a general increasing cultural awareness of the hitherto dominance of reason and male based values in society rather than a relational, contextual and communitarian view of the social world. Reason and emotion are seen as more equal partners in human actions

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