ethics
Ethics (more specifically, normative ethics) is the study of whether punching someone is good or bad. Value theory is the study of what it means to live a good life. Metaethics is the study of what “good” even means.
Extremely broadly speaking, ethics is split into two categories: “There are certain actions you should never take, like murder” (deontology) vs “Anything is ok as long as it leads to good outcomes” (consequentialism)
Often, ethics means different things to different people
Some other notes:
Most of my notes on ethics come from PHIL 306 (the ethics course I took at Rice) and The Fundamentals of Ethics, by Russ Shafer Landau, which I highly recommend (it’s a beginner level book).
