Systemizing Ethical Theory

Ethics can be divided into three main branches, namely:

1. Metaethics
2. Normative Ethics
3. Applied Ethics

Metaethics:

When we talk about meta, we're talking about something that goes beyond the thing it's describing. The questions that meta-ethics concerns itself with have to do with the nature of morality itself. These are questions like: 

• What make something morally wrong or right? (as opposed to the question "What is morally wrong or right?" which would be a normative question.)
• Are there objective moral facts? Or is it just subjective, which varies from culture to culture? 
• If there are objective moral facts, how can we go about finding what those are? 
• What is the relationship between morality and evolution? 

Normative Ethics:

What normative ethics concerns itself with is how we ought to live and act. It is the branch most people involve themselves in. While meta-ethics seeks to provide an explanation to what moral properties are, normative ethics seek to provide a methodology on how to identify and utilize said properties to act in line with what is consequentially deemed moral or immoral. It seeks to answer the question: What are the fundamental moral principles? 

A grand majority of the normative theories will hold the form: 

      -An action A is only right if and only if A satisfies condition C. (Where different normative theories will differ on what condition C entails.) 

Examples of normative theories: 

• Consequentialist Moral Theories: These normative theories tells us whether an action is morally right or wrong on the grounds of whether it has good consequences. The disagreement almost solely is about what makes the consequences good. Types of consequentialist moral theories include but are not limited to:
• Utilitarianism: A form of consequentialism that holds that an action is morally right if it maximizes happiness. 
• Intellectualism: A consequentialist theory which dictates that the best action is the one that best fosters and promotes knowledge.
• Egoism: The belief that the moral person is the self-interested person, and holds that an action is right if it maximizes good for the self.
• Deontological Moral Theories: Holds that some actions are wrong or strictly obligatory no matter what consequences they have. (These type of normative theories are also known as "Duty Theories") Examples include but are not limited to: 
• Kant's Categorical Imperative: Which roots morality in humanity's rational capacity and asserts certain inviolable moral laws.
• Natural Rights Theories of John Locke or Robert Nozick: Which holds that human beings have natural inalienable rights. 
• Virtue Ethics Theories: Holds that an action is morally right if a an ethically virtuous person would do it. These are some of the theories held by Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, which focused on the character of a person rather than actions. 

Applied Ethics:

Applied Ethics is simply concerned with applying the normative theories stipulated above, to matters that affect our every day life. Some examples of these matters include but are not limited to: 

• Abortion
• Vegetarianism/Veganism
• War
• Bioethics
• Medical Ethics
• Legal Ethics
• Business Ethics
• etc.

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There is another branch of non-philosophical ethics called Descriptive Ethics, which is separate from the other three schools of ethics stipulated above. It is concerned with studying people's beliefs about morality, and delves itself into questions such as: "What do people believe is morally right and why?", "What motivates people to behave in the way they do?" and "Why do people behave morally or immorally?" Such matters are sought after and studied by psychologists, anthropologists, sociologists, and evolutionary biologists. All in all, figuring out why we believe things and how we act on them can tell us a lot about how our moral-decision making processes work, and can help us understand the contrast between those processes with the demands of normative theories.