Ethical principles and theories

Ethical theory about what is right and good in human conduct lies behind the issues practitioners face and the codes they turn to for guidance; it also provides guidance for actions, practices, and policies. Principles of obligation, such as egoism, utilitarianism, and deontology, offer general answers to the question, "Which acts/practices are morally right?" A re-emerging alternative to using such principles to assess individual conduct is to center normative theory on personal virtues. For structuring society's institutions, principles of social justice offer alternative answers to the question, "How should social benefits and burdens be distributed?" But human concerns about right and good call for more than just theoretical responses. Some critics (eg, the postmodernists and the feminists) charge that normative ethical theorizing is a misguided enterprise. However, that charge should be taken as a caution and not as a refutation of normative ethical theorizing.