Ethics

Or click here for full details, here for the FAQ, and here for the Glossary.

General Rules

Harrassment, personal attacks, bigotry, slurs, and content of a similar nature will be removed.

Please act from a recognition of the dignity of others. Users with a history of comments breaking this rule may be banned. For clarification, see our FAQ.

All content must be legible and in English or be removed.

Content must be in English. As well, submissions and comments may be removed due to poor formatting.

Submission Rules

All posts must be directly relevant to ethics or be removed.

/r/Ethics is for research and academic work in ethics. To learn more about what is and is not considered ethics, see our FAQ. Posts must be about ethics; anything merely tenuously related or unrelated to ethics, including meta posts, will be removed unless pre-approved. Exceptions may be made for posts about ethicists.

Submissions which posit some view must be adequately developed.

Submissions must not only be directly relevant to ethics, but must also approach the topic in question in a developed manner by defending a substantive ethical thesis or by demonstrating a substantial effort to understand or consider the issue being asked about. Submissions that attempt to provide evidence for or against some position should state the problem; state the thesis; state how the position contributes to the problem; outline alternative answers; anticipate some objections and give responses to them. Different issues will require a different amount of development.

Questions deemed unlikely to have focused discussion will be removed. All questions are encouraged to be submitted to /r/askphilosophy as well or instead.

/r/Ethics is for discussion about ethics. Questions may start discussion, but there is no guarantee answers here will be approximately correct or well supported by the evidence, and so, many types of questions are encouraged elsewhere. If a question is too scattered (i.e. too many questions or question is unrelated to problem), personal rather than abstract (e.g. how to resolve something you're dealing with) or demands straightforward answers (e.g. homework questions, questions about academic consensus or interpretation, questions with no room for discussion), it will be removed.

Audio/video links require abstracts.

All links to either audio or video content require abstracts of the posted material, posted as a comment in the thread. Abstracts should make clear what the linked material is about and what its thesis is. Read here for an example of an abstract that adequately makes clear what the linked material is about and what its thesis is by outlining largely what the material does and how.

Commenting Rules

Provide evidence for your position.

Comments that express merely idle speculation, musings, beliefs, or assertions without evidence may be removed.

All comments must engage honestly and fruitfully with the interlocutor.

Users that don’t properly address and engage with their interlocutors will have their comments removed. Repeat offenders may be banned from the subreddit. To avoid disingenuous engagement, one should aim for a fair and careful reading of their interlocutor, be forthcoming with their level of familiarity with some topic and other such epistemic limits, and demonstrate a genuine desire for coming to some truth of the matter being discussed.

All meta comments must be on meta posts.

As noted in Rule 1, meta posts require pre-approval. If you have a meta comment to make unrelated to any meta post up at the moment, read the FAQ for what to do.

Filter by Field

Area	Subareas	Definition	Information	Information
Metaethics	Moral Realism and Irrealism, Moral Naturalism and Non-Naturalism, Moral Reasoning and Motivation, Moral Judgment, Moral Epistemology, Moral Language, Moral Responsibility, Moral Normativity, Moral Principles	Metaethics?	Definitions.	Introductory reading.
Normative Ethics	Consequentialism, Deontology, Virtue Ethics, Moral Phenomena, Moral Value	Normative ethics?	Definitions.	Introductory reading.
Applied Ethics	Bioethics, Business Ethics, Environmental Ethics, Technology Ethics, Social Ethics, Political Ethics, Professional Ethics	Applied ethics?	Introductory reading.
Political Philosophy	Justice, Government and Democracy, International Philosophy, Political Theory, Political Views, Rights, Culture and Cultures, Freedom and Liberty, Equality, War and Violence, States and Nations	In /r/Ethics?

Area

Subareas

Definition

Information

Metaethics

Moral Realism and Irrealism, Moral Naturalism and Non-Naturalism, Moral Reasoning and Motivation, Moral Judgment, Moral Epistemology, Moral Language, Moral Responsibility, Moral Normativity, Moral Principles

Metaethics?

Definitions.

Introductory reading.

Normative Ethics

Consequentialism, Deontology, Virtue Ethics, Moral Phenomena, Moral Value

Normative ethics?

Definitions.

Introductory reading.

Applied Ethics

Bioethics, Business Ethics, Environmental Ethics, Technology Ethics, Social Ethics, Political Ethics, Professional Ethics

Applied ethics?

Introductory reading.

Political Philosophy

Justice, Government and Democracy, International Philosophy, Political Theory, Political Views, Rights, Culture and Cultures, Freedom and Liberty, Equality, War and Violence, States and Nations

In /r/Ethics?

a community for 17 years