Welfare

By Weale, Albert

Notions of welfare occur widely in political philosophy and political argument. For example, utilitarianism is a social ethic that may be interpreted as giving a pre-eminent place to ...

Political philosophy

By Miller, David

Political philosophy can be defined as philosophical reflection on how best to arrange our collective life - our political institutions and our social practices, such as our economic ...

Reproduction and ethics

By Mertes, Heidi

The ethics of reproduction is concerned with outlining and critically analysing the moral pitfalls and opportunities surrounding reproductive decision-making by prospective parents, health care professionals and policy makers. ...

Sen, Amartya (1933–)

By Qizilbash, Mozaffar

Amartya Sen is one of the leading economists of the twentieth century and was awarded the Nobel Prize for economics in 1998. His influence extends well beyond economics ...

Genetic modification

By Newson, Ainsley J.; Wrigley, Anthony

Genetic modification in humans, non-human animals, and plants gives rise to a range of philosophical and ethical issues. There are a range of techniques and applications for genetic ...

Political philosophy, Confucian

By Chan, Joseph

Confucianism is a tradition of ethical and political thought in which ethics and politics are tightly connected. Confucianism endorses a politics of virtue that can be understood in ...

Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism is a theory about rightness, according to which the only good thing is welfare (well-being or ‘utility’). Welfare should, in some way, be maximized, and agents are ...

Utilitarianism

By Chappell, Tim; Crisp, Roger

Utilitarianism is a theory about rightness, according to which the only good thing is welfare (wellbeing or ‘utility’). Welfare should, in some way, be maximized, and agents are ...

Well-being

An individual’s well-being – or, equivalently, their welfare or quality of life – is the extent to which their life is going well for them. ...

Economics and ethics

By Hausman, Daniel; McPherson, Michael S.

Unlike many other sciences, economics is linked both to ethics and to the theory of rationality. Although many economists regard economics as a ‘positive’ science of one sort ...

Market, ethics of the

By Miller, David

Markets are systems of exchange in which people with money or commodities to sell voluntarily trade these for other items which they prefer to have. Most economic transactions ...

Social choice

By Hamlin, Alan

Social choice theory is the branch of economics concerned with the relationships between individual values, preferences and rights and collective decision making and evaluation. Social choice theory therefore ...

Ethics of ignorance

By Wieland, Jan Willem

Moral ignorance is ignorance about the permissibility of one’s conduct. It involves both conceptual and normative issues. We could ask what it is, and we could ask when ...

Sustainability

By Holland, Alan

Sustainability is a property of any activity, practice, process or institution that has the capacity to be continued in more or less the same way indefinitely. The concept ...

Equality of opportunity

By Navin, Mark

Equality of opportunity is a political ideal according to which participants in some cooperative systems should possess equal access to some advantages at some point in time. According ...

Deontological ethics

Deontology is often defined by contrasting it with one of its chief competitors, consequentialism. In its simplest form, consequentialism claims that we only have one moral duty: to ...

Engineering and ethics

By Davis, Michael

Engineering ethics is a form of applied or professional ethics concerned with the conduct of engineers strictly speaking. ‘Engineer’ is has a number of uses not relevant here, ...

Happiness

By Griffin, J.P.

In ordinary use, the word ‘happiness’ has to do with one’s situation (one is fortunate) or with one’s state of mind (one is glad, cheerful) or, typically, with ...

Human nature

By Shapiro, Ian

Every political philosophy takes for granted a view of human nature, and every view of human nature is controversial. Political philosophers have responded to this conundrum in a ...

Normativity

By Darwall, Stephen

Something is said by philosophers to have ‘normativity’ when it entails that some action, attitude or mental state of some other kind is justified, an action one ought ...

Engineering and ethics

By Davis, Michael

Engineering ethics is that form of applied or professional ethics concerned with the conduct of engineers. Though engineers do many different things, they share a common history, which ...

Liberalism

By Waldron, Jeremy

Liberal political philosophy explores the foundations of the principles most commonly associated with liberal politics: freedom, toleration, individual rights, constitutional democracy and the rule of law. Liberals hold ...

Repugnant Conclusion

By Ryberg, Jesper

Over the past four decades philosophical attention has been directed to the ethical questions that arise when one’s actions will affect the identity or number of people that ...

Bacon, Francis (1561–1626)

By Milton, J.R.

Along with Descartes, Bacon was the most original and most profound of the intellectual reformers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. He had little respect for the work ...

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (1770–1831)

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel is one of the most influential thinkers of the nineteenth century. His thought had a profound impact on later philosophers, social theorists and theologians, ...