Terms & Concepts

Should we strive for happiness, knowledge, virtue, or the creation of beautiful things? Will we pick our personal happiness or the happiness of all if we choose happiness? What about the more specific questions we face: is it OK to be dishonest in the name of a worthy cause? Ethics is concerned with such issues on all levels. Its subject is the nature of ultimate value and the standards by which human activities may be considered right or wrong, and its principal concerns are the nature of ultimate value and the standards by which human actions can be judged right or wrong. Where earlier it would have been more accurate to speak of moral judgements or moral principles, it is now usual to refer to ethical judgments or ethical principles.