Ethics

From EvaluationWiki

The discipline concerned with how to value people, in thought and deed; hence, a branch of evaluation. The ethical or moral point of view is normally taken to be one based on the axiom that others should be treated as of prima facie equal value with oneself, 'prima facie' meaning that, as a basis for consideration, they should be treated as equal, all other considerations being equal. Other things cease to be equal to the extent that the others have violated the axiom. For example, one justifies restricting the freedom of kidnappers because they violated the rights to freedom of those who had caused them or threatened them with harm. This axiom is the common element in virtually all of the diverse systems of ethics that relativists are inclined to suggest support their position, a view that is arguably mistaken because the systems differ mainly in the premises they take to be factual (e.g., on whether a deity created animals to be eaten by humans), and in the validity of the inferences they make from those premises, not because the key principle differs.