Key Ethical Concepts

for PHIL 350 -- Fall 2007

Last Revised: August 29 2007

Instructor: Dr. Jan Garrett

Note: These rather basic discussions of Key Ethical Concepts are aimed at a target audience of undergraduate students in a first Ethics course. They were developed in order to help people distinguish related concepts that are often confused with one another. To do that one must often distinguish among two or more meanings possessed by a single word or phrase. Perhaps students taking Ethical Theory can also benefit by reviewing these pages.

1. Responsibility

2. Consequentialism

3. Nonconsequentialism

4. The Concept of Rights (new 2-5-03)

5. Justice: A Word With Many Meanings (link added 4-30-02)

6. Persons and Morally Considerable Beings (link added 4-30-02)

7. Punishment

8. Reparation, Retribution, and Revenge

9. Needs, Wants, Interests, Motives (new: 2-11-04)