How Best to Subdivide Philosophical Ethics
The Standard Three-Part Division
It is common to divide philosophical ethics into three areas. Under this model, the central division is Normative Ethics, which investigates what our morality should be. A step above this is Metaethics, which studies the nature of morality. And below this is Applied Ethics which considers how morality should be applied to specific issues and fields.
Within this three-part division, Normative Ethics is the dominant and best-known area. It considers the broad moral approach we should choose and includes the long-running debate between views that focus on consequences, rules or virtues. Metaethics is more abstract and specialised, enquiring into the nature of morality and the concepts we use. Completing the standard picture, Applied Ethics considers moral issues on topics such as abortion and war and in domains such as bioethics and business ethics.
Proposed Revisions
I find this standard model helpful, but want to suggest a couple of revisions.
First, I think the subject matter for each of the three areas should be broadened to explicitly cover all of practical reason rather than just morality. So, Normative Ethics, Metaethics and Applied Ethics should concern deciding what to do generally, rather than only addressing morality. As I have argued elsewhere, there are multiple reasons why we should take our subject matter to be broad practical reason rather than morality.
Second, it should be recognised that Normative Ethics and Applied Ethics deal with general principles and so miss the most fundamental area of ethical thinking – making particular decisions about what to do. I therefore suggest recognising a fourth area of philosophical ethics, Particular Decisions. Our real-world practical thinking is primarily about Particular Decisions, while our philosophical thinking concentrates on the progressively more abstract domains of Applied Ethics, Normative Ethics and Metaethics.
The diagram shows my proposed four-part division. I offset Applied Ethics as this is less central to the main moral philosophy story which starts from Particular Decisions, which are generalised by Normative Ethics, with the whole reviewed by Metaethics.
Advantages of the Revised Model
The revised model has the advantage of covering all practical decision making. Philosophical ethics does not stop at the borders of ‘morality’ and the revised model recognises this. In addition, less weight is put on the concept of ‘moral.’ The word has a variety of meanings, suffers from stress between its absolutist history and modern uses and, in any event, is subsidiary to the more useful concept of practical reason. Metaethics has struggled with the marginal question of how to define morality instead of dealing with the more important question of understanding practical reason.
A separate advantage of the revised model is that it recognises Particular Decisions as a distinct part of philosophical ethics. It gives a place for concrete decision-making beside the general and abstract thinking of Normative Ethics and Applied Ethics. It provides somewhere to file decision theory and the study of biases. It also gives the space to leave open the particularist question of the extent to which general rules should guide our particular decisions.
In conclusion, while I find the traditional three-part division a good starting point, to better reflect my perspective on philosophical ethics, I find it worth refining the model so as to explicitly cover practical reason generally, and to include a fourth division for Particular Decisions.