Applying Ethics

Morality, our sense of the morally right or wrong act, finds expression in individual claims of what is of moral value, for example, honesty, loyalty, fidelity, and what ought to be done or avoided in general and on particular occasions, e.g., always help others in need, never cause unnecessary harm to others, be fair in your dealings with others, etc. More often than not, one may not know why, what is morally right or wrong, is so, except for the very general reason that the morally right action is beneficial for all and the morally wrong act is not. A moral/ethical theory purports to answer the basic question – why are certain acts morally right and certain other acts morally wrong? Of course, one can make moral claims and more generally possess a morality without having a moral theory. Furthermore, the same moral claims may be compatible with different moral theories. Thus, one may hold that lying is wrong without having a systematic account of what makes it wrong and this moral claim may be justifiable by quite distinct moral theories such as those of Consequentialism, Deontology or Divine Law. The level at which moral claims and judgements are made is the level of substantive ethics, and the level at which theories are adduced to explain these claims is the level of normative ethics. There is a third level, that of meta-ethics, which constitutes a discerning enquiry into the fundamental logic of the language of morals.