Normative Ethics

Normative ethics comprises the study of those actions that moral agents ought to perform. In emphasizing moral obligation, normative ethics is distinguished from more descriptive ethical theories, which view ethics primarily as illuminating the way in which moral agents actually do act. Although normative ethics may utilize the tools of descriptive ethics, it seeks to articulate a set of standards that are binding on all moral agents.

[Page 2496]Normative ethical theories are commonly divided up into three broad categories, described as (1) deontological, (2) teleological, and (3) ethological. However, useful as this typology may be, in practice, moral action may make use of elements of all three.