Editing Normative ethics (section)

{{Short description|Branch of philosophical ethics that examines standards for morality}}
'''Normative ethics''' is the study of [[ethics|ethical]] behaviour and is the branch of [[Philosophy|philosophical]] ethics that investigates questions regarding how one ought to act, in a [[Morality|moral]] sense.

Normative ethics is distinct from [[metaethics]] in that normative ethics examines standards for the rightness and wrongness of actions, whereas meta-ethics studies the meaning of moral language and the [[metaphysics]] of moral facts. Likewise, normative ethics is distinct from [[applied ethics]] in that normative ethics is more concerned with "who ought one be" rather than the ethics of a specific issue (e.g. if, or when, [[abortion]] is acceptable). Normative ethics is also distinct from [[descriptive ethics]], as descriptive ethics is an [[Empirical evidence|empirical]] investigation of people's moral beliefs. In this context normative ethics is sometimes called ''prescriptive'' (as opposed to ''descriptive'') ethics. However, on certain versions of the view of [[moral realism]], moral facts are both descriptive and prescriptive at the same time.

Most traditional moral theories rest on principles that determine whether an action is right or wrong. Classical theories in this vein include [[utilitarianism]], [[Kantianism]], and some forms of [[contractarianism]]. These theories mainly offered the use of overarching moral principles to resolve difficult moral decisions.{{Citation needed|date=February 2019}}