AS

• The word ethics comes from the Greek word 'ethike' meaning 'habit' or 'behaviour'
• Ethics is the study of the frameworks of guiding principles that direct actions.
• A person who is making an ethical decision is referred to as a 'moral agent'
• doing something ethically wrong is different to an error - it refers to a moral agent falling short of a moral framework.
• meta-ethics is the study of the nature of ethics i.e why we act as we do
• normative ethics is the study of what principles underly an ethical theory
• applied ethics is the application of ethical theory to real world problems
• absolutists believe that their standard of right and wrong is fully and totally binding no matter the circumstances
• relativists believe that morality is a response made by humans to outline norms for how to interact with one another
• relativists do not use rules - they use norms which have a desirable objective in being used
• subjective ethical theories are theories where the truth is dependent on a person's outlook
• an ethical theory is objective if its truth is independent to a person's view
• teleological ethical theories are theories in which consequences are used to guide actions
• teleological ethical theories are consequentialist as they claim that the value of our actions is directly related to their consequences
• deontological ethical theories are exclusively concerned with the analysis of acts and no other circumstantial information
• Somebody who follows a deontological ethical theory may feel obligated to act in a certain way despite the negative consequences that may result - this is because to deontologists, consequences don't matter