I'm moving finished parts of the review here, as the nomination page is clogging up the main FAC page, and making it more intimidating for others to join in.
Lead/definition
- Normative ethics discovers and justifies universal principles that govern how people should act in any situation. --> I would simplify as "Normative ethics aims to find universal principles ... ". Is "in any situation" redundant with universal? And is it true of all normative ethics? In existentialism, aren't they arguing against the existence of these universal principles?
- Can we give less abstract examples of applied ethics in the lead? So that people who couldn't understand the normative ethics sentence can still follow?
- In some cases, they differ concerning which acts they see as right or wrong --> they differ in which (simpler)
- All but one of the photos are of white males. Is this field of study that bad?
- One of the difficulties of applied ethics is to determine how to apply general ethical principles to concrete practical situations, like medical procedures. --> are concrete and practical doing the same in that sentence?
- Different types of virtue ethics differ concerning how they understand virtues and their role in practical life --> differ on how (simpler).
- A key problem in bioethics concerns how features such as consciousness, being able to feel pleasure and pain, rationality, and personhood affect the moral status of entities. --> A key problem in bioethics is how (I feel the word concern is slightly overused).
More to come. —Femke 🐦 ( talk) 20:00, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
- It asks whether moral facts have mind-independent existence --> can this be omitted or said more simply per WP:EXPLAINLEAD?
- The domain of morality is a normative field governing what people ought to do rather than what they actually do, what they want to do, or what social conventions require. ---> Can we make this sentence structure easier. Something like "morality deals with what people ought to do ... "
- Can we simplify "According to one view, morality is restricted to the question of what moral obligations people have while ethics is a wider term that takes additional considerations into account, such as what is good or how to lead a meaningful life." Maybe something along the lines of "One view is that morality focuses on what people are required to do, while ethics is broader and includes ideas about what is good and how to live a meaningful life.". Or "According to one view, morality focuses on what moral obligations people have while ethics is broader and includes ideas about what is good and how to live a meaningful life".
—Femke 🐦 ( talk) 19:04, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
Metaethics
Here we get to the most difficult part of the article. The question is who the target audience is. I always imagine that the target audience for broad articles like this includes 16-year olds, but perhaps we can write for a slightly more educated audience here.
- underlying background assumptions --> either underlying assumptions or background assumptions
- Metaethical theories usually do not directly take substantive positions regarding normative ethical theories but they can influence them nonetheless by questioning the foundational principles on which they rest --> Metaethical theories typically do not directly adopt substantive positions on normative ethical theories. However, they can still influence these theories by examining their foundational principles. ("foundational" and "on which they rest" seem redundant").
- On the level of ontology, it is concerned with the metaphysical status of moral values and principles --> Both ontology and metaphysical are jargon. I do not understand this sentence
- Metaethics further covers psychological and anthropological considerations regarding how moral judgments motivate people to act and how to explain cross-cultural differences in moral assessments --> Can we simplify to "Metaethics also explores how moral judgments drive actions and explains differences in moral views across cultures." or an intermediate version like "Metaethics also examines how moral judgments motivate actions from psychological perspectives and explains cross-cultural differences in moral assessments through anthropological studies."
- Do we need to describe supererogation twice? Both here and in the normative ethics section? It's a tough word.
- People who are morally responsible deserve evaluative attitudes from others, such as praise or blame --> I can't quite put my finger on this, but this sentence feels odd for two reasons. It feels odd to say people "deserve" praise or blame in Wikipedia's voice. Furthermore, "evaluative attitudes" is a very abstract and, to me, odd phrase.
- A key debate in metaethics concerns the ontological status of morality and encompasses the question of whether ethical values and principles form part of reality. --> Maybe simplify to something like "A major debate in metaethics is about the ontological status of morality, questioning whether ethical values and principles are real." or an intermediate "A major debate in metaethics is about the ontological status of morality, questioning whether ethical values and principles form part of reality".
- This observation is sometimes taken as an argument against moral realism since moral disagreement is widespread and concerns most fields --> I think you can omit "concerns most fields" or reword as "widespread in most fields".
- A different explanation states that morality arises from moral emotions, which people project onto the external world --> I don't understand this. You explain this better in the Cognitivism section, so you could avoid mentioning it here perhaps?
- Moral nihilism agrees with moral relativism that there are different standpoints according to which people judge actions to be right or wrong. However, it disagrees that this practice involves a form of morality and understands it instead as one among many types of human practices --> The initial sentence is a bit tough to digest. Maybe something like this flows better: Moral nihilism, like moral relativism, recognises that people judge actions as right or wrong from different perspectives. However, it disagrees that these judgments are moral and sees them as just one type of human behaviour. —Femke 🐦 ( talk) 11:01, 22 June 2024 (UTC)
- This view is usually motivated by the idea that moral properties are unique because they express normative features or what should be the case --> no need to explain the word normative again; they express what should be the case is more clear.
- The metaethical debate between cognitivism and non-cognitivism belongs to the field of semantics and concerns the meaning of moral statements. --> The metaethical debate between cognitivism and non-cognitivism is about the meaning of moral statements and is a part of the study of semantics. (avoiding concern).
- Ethical intuitionism is one foundationalist view that states that humans have a special cognitive faculty through which they can know right from wrong. --> one such view? Connecting it better to the previous sentence without repeting the difficult word.
- Thought experiments are a common methodological device in ethics to decide between competing theories. --> method rather than methodological device?
- explore how moral intuitions about right behavior depend on particular factors in the imagined situation. --> explore how people's ideas of right and wrong change based on specific details in that situation. (simpler). —Femke 🐦 ( talk) 14:36, 22 June 2024 (UTC)
Related fields
- Is evolutionary ethics a subfield of moral psychology? Mesoudi describes them as related fields. The IEP doesn't mention the words moral psychology, but maps evolutionary ethics onto descriptive ethics, normative ethics and metaethics. I find the classification a bit odd myself.
- The article doesn't mention explicitly empirical findings on morality in animals. I know the article is already longer than ideal, but it may merit a sentence. Not sure if that fits under moral psychology rather than descriptive ethics. —Femke 🐦 ( talk) 17:10, 23 June 2024 (UTC)
- I have nothing to add about the history section. It's well-written and clear. —Femke 🐦 ( talk) 18:43, 23 June 2024 (UTC)