Normative ethics

Normative ethics is a branch of ethics that looks to establish norms of how people should behave and act in certain situations. It also looks at how norms and values are formed in a society. It looks into what is good and right in a moral sense.

Because people have different opinions on what is good and right, multiple branches of normative ethics developed.

Virtue ethics is one of these branches. Virtue ethics says that a person can do good by having good qualities, or virtues. Philosophers such as Aristotle and Saint Thomas Aquinas supported its ideas.

One other branch is deontological ethics. Deontological ethics says that people have certain duties and rights that determine what acts are moral in a situation. Some examples of deontological ethics are Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative, John Rawls' contractualism, or John Locke's theory of natural rights.

There is also consequentialism, which says that an action is good if it leads to a more good result than other choices. Utilitarianism says that a result is more good if more people are happy.