Editing Ethics (section)

== <span style="color: #FFFFFF;">Understanding</span> ==
The three major normative theories each capture important moral intuitions while facing distinctive challenges:

'''Utilitarianism''': Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill argued that the right action is the one that produces the greatest happiness for the greatest number. The appeal: it takes everyone's interests equally into account; it gives a clear decision procedure. The challenge: it seems to permit — or even require — horrifying acts if they maximize aggregate welfare. The utility monster (Nozick): a being that gets enormous pleasure from consuming resources should, by utilitarian logic, receive everything. Jim and the Indians (Williams): utilitarianism seems to demand that Jim kill one innocent person to prevent twenty deaths — violating personal integrity.

'''Kantian deontology''': Kant held that morality derives from reason, not experience. The supreme principle — the Categorical Imperative — has several formulations:
# Universalizability: act only on principles you could consistently will to be universal law.
# Humanity formula: treat persons always as ends in themselves, never merely as means. Kant's insight: persons have a dignity that cannot be traded off for aggregate welfare. The challenge: Kant's strict rule against lying seems to require telling a murderer where your friend is hiding — an implication most people find monstrous.

'''Virtue ethics''': Aristotle rejected the search for a single moral rule, arguing that ethics is about character. The virtuous person — courageous, just, temperate, prudent — acts well because they have developed excellent habits of feeling and action. The right act is what the virtuous person would do. The challenge: without a decision procedure, virtue ethics can seem to give insufficient guidance in novel dilemmas. Contemporary virtue ethicists (Foot, MacIntyre, Hursthouse) have developed more sophisticated accounts.

'''Metaethics and the nature of moral facts''': Even granting a normative theory, metaethical questions remain. Are moral claims genuinely true or false? Moral realists say yes — there are objective moral facts about what is right. Error theorists (Mackie) say we act as if there are such facts, but there aren't — all moral claims are false. Expressivists (Hare, Blackburn) say moral claims don't describe facts but express attitudes or commitments. Each position carries implications for moral knowledge, moral progress, and moral disagreement.
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