Editing Descriptive ethics

{{Short description|Study of people's beliefs about morality}}
'''Descriptive ethics''', also known as '''comparative ethics''', is the study of people's beliefs about [[morality]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=comparative ethics {{!}} philosophy {{!}} Britannica|url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/comparative-ethics|access-date=2022-01-19|website=www.britannica.com|language=en}}</ref> It contrasts with prescriptive or [[normative ethics]], which is the study of ethical theories that prescribe how people ought to act, and with [[meta-ethics]], which is the study of what ethical terms and theories actually refer to. The following examples of questions that might be considered in each field illustrate the differences between the fields:
*Descriptive ethics: What do people think is right?
*Meta-ethics: What does "right" even mean?
*Normative (prescriptive) ethics: How should people act?
*[[Applied ethics]]: How do we take moral knowledge and put it into practice?

==Description==
Descriptive ethics is a form of [[empirical]] research into the attitudes of individuals or groups of people. In other words, this is the division of philosophical or general ethics that involves the observation of the moral decision-making process with the goal of describing the phenomenon. Those working on descriptive ethics aim to uncover people's beliefs about such things as values, which actions are right and wrong, and which characteristics of moral agents are virtuous. Research into descriptive ethics may also investigate people's [[ideal (ethics)|ethical ideal]]s or what actions societies reward or punish in [[law]] or [[politics]]. What ought to be noted is that culture is generational and not static. Therefore, a new generation will come with its own set of morals and that qualifies to be their ethics. Descriptive ethics will hence try to oversee whether ethics still holds its place.

Because descriptive ethics involves empirical investigation, it is a field that is usually investigated by those working in the fields of [[evolutionary biology]], [[psychology]], [[sociology]] or [[anthropology]]. Information that comes from descriptive ethics is, however, also used in philosophical arguments.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Greene |first1=Joshua D. |s2cid=9063016 |title=Beyond Point-and-Shoot Morality: Why Cognitive (Neuro)Science Matters for Ethics |journal=Ethics |date=July 2014 |volume=124 |issue=4 |pages=695–726 |doi=10.1086/675875}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Sinnott-Armstrong |first1=Walter |last2=Wheatley |first2=Thalia |last3=Sugden |first3=Sherwood J. B. |title=The Disunity of Morality and Why it Matters to Philosophy |journal=Monist |date=2012 |volume=95 |issue=3 |pages=355–377 |doi=10.5840/monist201295319|doi-access=free }}</ref>

[[Value theory]] can be either normative or descriptive but is usually descriptive.

==Lawrence Kohlberg: An example of descriptive ethics==
[[Lawrence Kohlberg]] is one example of a psychologist working on descriptive ethics. In one study, for example, Kohlberg questioned a group of boys about what would be a right or wrong action for a man facing a moral dilemma (specifically, the [[Heinz dilemma]]): should he steal a drug to save his wife, or refrain from theft even though that would lead to his wife's death?<ref>Kohlberg, Lawrence, (1971). "Stages in Moral Development as a Basis for Moral Education." In C.M. Beck, B.S. Crittenden, and E.V. Sullivan, Eds. ''Moral Education: Interdisciplinary Approaches''. Toronto: Toronto University Press.</ref>
Kohlberg's concern was not which choice the boys made, but the moral reasoning that lay behind their decisions. After carrying out a number of related studies, Kohlberg devised a theory about the development of human moral reasoning that was intended to reflect the moral reasoning actually carried out by the participants in his research. Kohlberg's research can be classed as descriptive ethics to the extent that he describes human beings' actual moral development. If, in contrast, he had aimed to describe how humans ought to develop morally, his theory would have involved prescriptive ethics.

==See also==
* [[Experimental philosophy]]
* [[List of ethics topics]]
* [[Moral reasoning]]
* [[Moral psychology]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Further reading==
* {{cite book |last1=Hämäläinen |first1=Nora |title=Descriptive Ethics: What does Moral Philosophy Know about Morality? |date=2016 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |location=New York |doi=10.1057/978-1-137-58617-9 |isbn=978-1-137-58617-9}}
* Coleman, Stephen Edwin, "DIGITAL PHOTO MANIPULATION: A DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSIS OF CODES OF ETHICS AND ETHICAL DECISIONS OF PHOTO EDITORS" (2007). Dissertations. 1304. https://aquila.usm.edu/dissertations/1304

{{Ethics}}

[[Category:Descriptive ethics| ]]
[[Category:Moral psychology]]