ethics

noun

• 1 [usually treated as plural] moral principles that govern a person’s behaviour or the conducting of an activity:medical ethics also enter into the question

• 2 [usually treated as singular] the branch of knowledge that deals with moral principles: neither metaphysics nor ethics is the home of religion

Schools of ethics in Western philosophy can be divided, very roughly, into three sorts. The first, drawing on the work of Aristotle, holds that the virtues (such as justice, charity, and generosity) are dispositions to act in ways that benefit both the person possessing them and that person’s society. The second, defended particularly by Kant, makes the concept of duty central to morality: humans are bound, from a knowledge of their duty as rational beings, to obey the categorical imperative to respect other rational beings. Thirdly, utilitarianism asserts that the guiding principle of conduct should be the greatest happiness or benefit of the greatest number