This Element critically analyzes Sidgwick's The Methods of Ethics, focusing on Sidgwick's moral epistemology, arguments against common-sense morality, utilitarianism, rational egoism, and 'the dualism of practical reason.  Meer

Feminist Ethics provides an overview of feminist contributions to normative ethics, moral psychology, and metaethics. It argues that through their criticisms of traditional ethics and proposals for changes, feminists are advancing 'robust agency.  Meer

This Element surveys the main claims of Bernard Williams's ethical philosophy. Topics include ethical scepticism, virtue, reasons for action, the critique of the Morality System, moral realism and the nature of theorising in ethics.  Meer

Derek Parfit (1942–2017) was one of the most important and influential moral philosophers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. This Element offers a critical introduction to his wide-ranging ethical thought, focusing especially on his two most significant works, Reasons and Persons (1984) and On What Matters (2011), and their contribution to the consequentialist moral tradition.  Meer

This Element surveys the main claims of Bernard Williams's ethical philosophy. Topics include ethical scepticism, virtue, reasons for action, the critique of the Morality System, moral realism and the nature of theorising in ethics.  Meer

David Hume's moral system involves considerations that seem at odds with one another. He insists on the reality of moral distinctions, while showing that they are founded on the human constitution.  Meer

'Ethics' was not developed as a separate branch of philosophy in Buddhist traditions until the modern period, though Buddhist philosophers have always been concerned with the moral significance of thoughts, emotions, intentions, actions, virtues, and precepts.  Meer

Prioritarianism holds that improvements in someone's life (gains in well-being) are morally more valuable, the worse off the person would otherwise be.  Meer

The Element provides an overview of Immanuel Kant's arguments regarding the content of the moral law (the categorical imperative), as well as an exposition of his arguments for the bindingness of the moral law for rational agents.  Meer

Feminist Ethics provides an overview of feminist contributions to normative ethics, moral psychology, and metaethics. It argues that through their criticisms of traditional ethics and proposals for changes, feminists are advancing 'robust agency.  Meer

This Element provides an overview of the central components of recent work in virtue ethics. The first section explores central themes in neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics, while the second turns the discussion to major alternative theoretical perspectives.  Meer

This Element critically analyzes Sidgwick's The Methods of Ethics, focusing on Sidgwick's moral epistemology, arguments against common-sense morality, utilitarianism, rational egoism, and 'the dualism of practical reason.  Meer

As Socrates famously noted, there is no more important question than how we ought to live. The answer to this question depends on how the reasons that we have for living in various different ways combine and compete.  Meer

In Section 1, I outline the history of natural law theory, covering Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics and Aquinas. In Section 2, I explore two alternative traditions of natural law, and explain why these constitute rivals to the Aristotelian tradition.  Meer

This Element provides an opinionated introduction to the debate in moral philosophy over identifying the basic elements of well-being and to the related debate over the nature of happiness.  Meer

This Element examines the many facets of ethical realism and the issues at stake in metaethical debates about it—both between realism and non-realist alternatives, and between different versions of realism itself.  Meer

This Element provides an overview of some of the central issues in contemporary moral psychology. It explores what moral psychology is, whether we are always motivated by self-interest, what good character looks like and whether anyone has it, whether moral judgments always motivate us to act, whether what motivates action is always a desire of some kind, and what the role is of reasoning and deliberation in moral judgment and action.  Meer

This Element begins by describing T.M. Scanlon's contractualism according to which an action is right when it is authorised by the moral principles no one could reasonably reject.  Meer

This Element is an examination of the philosophical themes presented in Aristotle's Nicomachean and Eudemian Ethics. Topics include happiness, the voluntary and choice, the doctrine of the mean, particular virtues of character and temperamental means, virtues of thought, akrasia, pleasure, friendship, and luck.  Meer

This Element examines the concept of moral responsibility as it is used in contemporary philosophical debates and explores the justifiability of the moral practices associated with it, including moral praise/blame, retributive punishment, and the reactive attitudes of resentment and indignation.  Meer