Talk:Ethics

Wiki Education assignment: Legal Environment of Business

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 19 August 2024 and 20 December 2024. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Cinnamonlover69 (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Cinnamonlover69 (talk) 01:42, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Applying ethics to 'Applied ethics'

The ethics behind the choice to include abortion as the primary example of 'Applied ethics' are seemingly unethical, as detailed below.

Firstly, abortion is not considered a concrete ethical problem by a majority of Americans and Europeans. Thus, the sentence is incorrect when the word abortion is included. Delete the word abortion.

Secondly, abortion is a very contentious issue, so why choose to use it as even a faulty example ? It's a poor choice, both here in the Ethics page and in today's Featured Article. Substitute abortion with War.

Thirdly, abortion is also not a real-life ethical issue for a majority of people. Thus, again, it's a poor word choice. Furthermore, the subject of Ethics should not be inserted with subtle political agendas on Wikipedia through the use of the false descriptive real-life in a subtle reference to the 'Right to Life' PAC's position. That's unethical. Substitute the unethical word choice of real-life with the more ethical word choice of daily or common.

The exact quotation from the Ethics page is here: here: Applied ethics examines concrete ethical problems in real-life situations, such as abortion [treatment of animals, and business practices not included in Today's Featured Article].

And the exact quotation from the Featured Article page: ...; applied ethics, which addresses specific real-life ethical issues like abortion;... 116.66.195.178 (talk) 06:35, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Your characterizations are not substantiated by the reliable sources cited. Please engage in terms of said sources before expecting editors to make changes or consider your characterizations.Remsense ‥ 论 06:43, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

@116.66.195.178 Oh. BangladeshiEditorInSylhet (talk) 15:45, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 27 September 2024

Under the heading "Moral knowledge" Change "coherentists" to "coherentism" Kanwar Faizan (talk) 16:57, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

 Not done: The current version is grammatically correct. PianoDan (talk) 21:38, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

May 2025 Assessment

I took it upon myself to assess this article. What follows below forms the basis or rationale for some but not necessarily all of the edits I make to this article.

Organization

The article's organization is decent. The section on cogntivism and non-cognitivism is especially good, but this is because there is a tremendous amount of unanimity among philosophers about how those positions are to be formulated, and thus they are presented everywhere in a standardized way. The article accurately recapitulates that presentation. One notable point of weakness is the 'Other' section, which I'll say more about below.

Quotations are not used and more can be done to aid presentation of key ideas

The article presents few examples which help the reader grasp the basic concepts of ethics, concepts which they are likely encountering for the first time, such as 'intrinsic value'. Shockingly, I do not see a quotation of G.E. Moore, whose discussion of intrinsic value has profoundly shaped all later discussions on the topic in analytic philosophy.

Ethical Theories section is lackluster

The discussion of ethical theories mentions only the big three (deontology, consequentialism, and virtue ethics), while relegating contractualism to an 'Other' section. But contractualism has been receiving a tremendous amount of scholarly attention for the last two decades, and is considered by many to be a serious contender for the truth. It should not be relegated to the 'Other' section, which in all honesty is just a grab bag of views that writers didn't know how to categorize.

Ethical Theories cont.

Divine command theory (DCT) is listed under that same heading, but this is by far the most historically influential ethical theory, though contemporary philosophers almost unanimously reject it. And finally, we should not take for granted that contractualism and DCT are ethical theories at all--DCT can be construed as a meta-ethical view about the nature of wrongness, and contractualism is hard to categorize, with some versions being ethical theories properly speaking and others being meta-ethical theories. The article as it's written ignores these rich complications.

Very few contemporary philosopher mentioned

Finally, the article mentions very few if any contemporary Western proponents of the views presented. The way that philosophical views have been developed to meet the most obvious objections against them is totally absent but always illuminating. This issue can be resolved easily by adding sentences which show how the historical development of the view was shaped by these objections. I might put in something like: 'Many scholars views Sidgwick's rule utilitarianism as a direct response to this objection. This is especially apparent in bk. 4 of The Methods of Ethics, where Sidgwick writes...Sidgwick's views on this subject clearly influence even contemporary consequentialists such as Al, Bob, and Cole.

ForeverBetter (talk) 11:00, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

Hello ForeverBetter, welcome to Wikipedia, and thanks for your suggestions. Quotations of widely cited passages can sometimes be helpful but they are not required. I'm not sure which widely cited passage of Moore you are referring to. The theories discussed in the section "Others" are not as influential as those three, which is why they don't get their own sections in the article. Your concern about metaethical interpretations is discussed in footnote [d]. For reasons of concision, the history section only has two paragraphs on the 20th century, so we have to be very selective about whom to mention. More details could be added to child articles instead, such as History of ethics.

As a side note: This is a level 2 vital article that recently passed an FA review. For a new editor without experience, it may be difficult to make substantial contributions, so this may not be the best place to get started with Wikipedia. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:11, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

@ForeverBetter, I'm going to be frank in recommending you yourself peruse the Good Article review and Featured Article candidacy this article underwent over the course of months in the past year or so. You'll learn a lot about how Wikipedia works. It's encouraged that you share insights you have, but I wanted to make clear that this is one of the very best articles of the 7 million we have, and I think site guidelines we work by that you're not wholly familiar with may be getting in the way of what you see as the ideal article. Cheers. Remsense ‥ 论 17:16, 11 May 2025 (UTC)