Normative ethical theories

The map: deontological, teleological, character#

FoundationAQA 7062/1 Section B: Normative ethical theoriesDfE GCE Religious Studies subject content

The three families of normative theory

Fig. 1Theories locate moral value in the act (deontological), the consequences (teleological), or the agent's character (aretaic).

Normative ethical theories can be sorted into three great families by asking where they locate the moral quality of an action. A deontological theory (from deon, duty) holds that the rightness of an action lies in the action itself — in its conformity to a rule, duty or right — independently of its consequences; some acts (lying, murder) are simply wrong whatever good they might produce. A teleological or consequentialist theory (from telos, end) holds that rightness lies in the end or consequences an action brings about: an action is right if it produces good results (pleasure, welfare, love), whatever its intrinsic character. A character-based or aretaic theory (from arete, virtue) shifts the question from 'what should I do?' to 'what sort of person should I be?', locating ethics in the virtues of the agent rather than in rules or consequences.

The three theories studied map onto this framework, though not always neatly. Aquinas' natural moral law is primarily deontological: it holds that certain precepts, derived from human nature and reason, must be followed as moral absolutes regardless of consequences (though its doctrine of double effect lets consequences enter in a limited way). Fletcher's situation ethics is teleological: the one absolute is love (agape), and the right action in any situation is whichever produces the most loving outcome, so no act is intrinsically wrong. Aristotle's virtue ethics is character-based (aretaic): it asks not which acts are right but which character traits enable a person to flourish, and the right action is what the virtuous person would do.

A further important distinction is between absolutist and relativist theories. An absolutist ethic holds that some moral rules are objective and universal, binding on everyone everywhere regardless of circumstances (natural law's primary precepts, Kant's categorical imperative). A relativist ethic holds that moral judgements are relative to circumstances, cultures or persons, with no universal binding rules (situation ethics is 'principled relativism' — one absolute, love, applied variably). Virtue ethics sits between: the virtues have some cross-cultural stability, but their application is sensitive to circumstance, so it is neither strictly absolutist nor strictly relativist. Placing a theory on the absolutist-relativist spectrum immediately surfaces its characteristic strengths (clarity, universality) and weaknesses (rigidity; or flexibility at the cost of guidance).

This map is the indispensable framework for the whole ethics component, because every applied issue (life and death, sexual ethics) is approached by applying these theories, and every evaluation compares them. A candidate who has internalised the deontological/teleological/character trichotomy and the absolutist/relativist spectrum can locate any theory, predict its characteristic verdicts, and structure a comparison — whereas one who treats the theories as an unconnected list will produce descriptive rather than analytical answers. The recurring evaluative question is which locus of moral value — rule, consequence or character — best captures what morality is, and each theory is strongest exactly where the others are weakest.

Worked example

Predicting verdicts from the map

A dying patient asks a doctor to lie to a relative to spare distress. Predict how a deontologist, a teleologist and a virtue ethicist frame the case.

Deontological (natural law)
Lying violates a precept (truth-telling); the act is wrong in itself regardless of the comfort it brings.
Teleological (situation ethics)
The right act is whichever is most loving in this situation; a compassionate lie could be right if it best serves agape.
Character (virtue ethics)
Ask what the compassionate yet honest person would do; the focus is on cultivating and expressing the right virtues, not applying a rule.
Note the different questions
Deontology asks about the act, teleology about the outcome, virtue ethics about the agent — they may agree or diverge.

Result: The three families frame the same case differently — by rule, by outcome, and by character — which is why locating a theory on the map lets you predict its verdict and structure a comparison.

Typical mistakes

Calling situation ethics 'relativist' without qualification — it is a principled relativism with one absolute (agape).
Treating virtue ethics as a theory of right action like the others; it is primarily about character, and asks a different question ('what should I be?').

Active revision

Explain the difference between deontological, teleological and character-based approaches to ethics. (Structured AO1 response)

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for religious studies (Department for Education)

Natural moral law (Aquinas)#

StandardAQA 7062/1 Section B: Normative ethical theoriesDfE GCE Religious Studies subject content

Aquinas' structure of natural law

Fig. 2From the eternal law, reason discerns natural law and its primary precepts, from which secondary precepts are derived.

Natural moral law, given its classic form by Thomas Aquinas (building on Aristotle and the Stoics), is the view that there is a moral order built into human nature which reason can discern, and that acting morally means acting in accordance with our God-given telos (purpose). Aquinas holds that everything has a telos: the purpose of human beings, as rational creatures, is to flourish, and ultimately to achieve union with God. Because God created human nature with this purpose, the moral law is not arbitrary divine command but is knowable by reason reflecting on human nature — which is why natural law can be shared by believers and non-believers alike. The theory is deontological and absolutist: the fundamental precepts hold universally, for all people, regardless of consequences.

Aquinas orders law into four tiers. The eternal law is the mind of God, the rational plan by which God orders all creation — known fully only to God. The divine law is that part of the eternal law revealed to humanity through scripture (the Decalogue, the Gospel), which supplements reason. The natural law is the eternal law as it applies to human beings and is knowable by natural reason without revelation — the rational creature's participation in the eternal law. The human law consists of the particular laws made by societies, which are just and binding only insofar as they conform to the natural law (an unjust human law, for Aquinas, is 'no law at all'). This hierarchy explains how a universal moral order is mediated to concrete human communities.

At the heart of the theory is the first principle of practical reason — 'good is to be done and pursued, and evil avoided' (synderesis) — from which Aquinas derives the primary precepts: the fundamental goods that human nature is oriented towards. These are traditionally listed as the preservation of life, reproduction (the ordering of family life), the education of offspring, living in society (an ordered community), and worshipping God — sometimes summarised by the mnemonic that we should Preserve life, Reproduce, live in an Ordered society, Educate, and Worship God. From these self-evident primary precepts, reason works out secondary precepts — more specific rules for particular situations (e.g. from 'preserve life' follow prohibitions on murder, and on suicide and abortion). Secondary precepts are more open to error and to circumstance than the primary precepts.

Two refinements are crucial for application. First, the distinction between real and apparent goods: reason can be led astray, so that we pursue an apparent good (something that seems good but does not truly fulfil our nature, e.g. an adulterer pursuing pleasure) rather than a real good; sin is acting on a mistaken idea of the good. Second, the doctrine of double effect: an action with both a good and a bad effect may be permissible if the act itself is good or neutral, the bad effect is not the means to the good, the intention is only the good effect, and there is proportionality between the goods and harms. This lets natural law permit, for example, giving a dying patient pain-relief that foreseeably shortens life (the intended effect is relief, the death a foreseen side-effect) — a device that reintroduces a controlled role for consequences into an otherwise absolutist theory.

Worked example

Applying double effect

A doctor administers a large dose of morphine to relieve a terminal patient's agony, foreseeing it will hasten death. Is this permissible under natural law?

The act itself
Administering pain-relief is a good or neutral act, not intrinsically evil.
The means
The death is not the means to the relief; the relief comes from the analgesic effect, not from the death.
The intention
The doctor intends only to relieve pain, not to kill; the death is a foreseen but unintended side-effect.
Proportionality
Relieving unbearable terminal agony is a proportionate reason to risk hastening an already imminent death.
Verdict
All four conditions are met, so double effect permits the act — sharply distinguishing it from euthanasia, where death IS the intended means to relief.

Result: Under the doctrine of double effect the pain-relief is permissible because death is foreseen but neither intended nor used as the means; this shows how natural law admits consequences in a controlled way while still forbidding intentional killing.

Typical mistakes

Confusing the primary precepts (self-evident, universal) with the secondary precepts (derived, fallible, circumstance-sensitive).
Getting the double-effect conditions wrong, especially forgetting that the bad effect must not be the means to the good effect.

Active revision

'Natural moral law provides clear moral guidance.' Assess this view. (Extended essay)

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for religious studies (Department for Education)

Situation ethics (Fletcher)#

StandardAQA 7062/1 Section B: Normative ethical theoriesDfE GCE Religious Studies subject content

Fletcher's four working principles

Fig. 3Agape is applied through four working principles that govern how the most loving action is determined in each situation.

Joseph Fletcher's situation ethics, set out in Situation Ethics: The New Morality (1966), is a Christian teleological theory with a single absolute: agape, selfless, unconditional Christian love. Fletcher positions it between two extremes. Legalism approaches every situation armed with a code of prefabricated rules and applies them regardless of circumstance (Fletcher's caricature of natural law and rigid Christian morality); antinomianism abandons all principles and treats each situation as utterly unique with no guidance at all. Situationism, his middle way, enters each situation respecting the community's rules and wisdom but ready to set them aside if love requires it — the rules are illuminating maxims, not binding laws. The only thing intrinsically good is love, and the only thing intrinsically bad is lack of love; everything else is good or bad only as it serves love.

Fletcher structures the theory with four working principles and six fundamental principles. The four working principles are: pragmatism (the proposed course must actually work in practice to serve love); relativism (there are no absolute rules besides love; 'the situation' relativises everything else); positivism (the theory begins from a positive, freely chosen faith-commitment to love, not from reason proving love good); and personalism (people are put at the centre, not laws — ethics serves persons, so 'the sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath'). These principles govern how love is to be applied.

The six fundamental principles express the primacy of love. (1) 'Love only is always good' — love is the one intrinsic good. (2) 'Love is the only norm' — it replaces all codified law. (3) 'Love and justice are the same' — justice is love distributed, love working out what it owes to all. (4) 'Love is not liking' — agape is a matter of will and action towards the neighbour's good, not sentiment or affection. (5) 'Love justifies its means' — the end (the most loving outcome) can justify actions otherwise forbidden. (6) 'Love decides there and then' — moral decisions are made situationally, weighing this case, not by applying a rule in advance. The right action is thus always the one that, on a clear-eyed assessment of the situation, best serves agape.

Situation ethics has notable strengths and serious weaknesses. Its strengths are flexibility (it can respond to the complexity of real cases where rules conflict), compassion and person-centredness (it refuses to sacrifice a person to a rule), and its grounding in the teaching of Jesus, who repeatedly put love above law (healing on the sabbath, the woman taken in adultery). Its weaknesses are that it can be dangerously subjective and open to abuse (almost any act can be rationalised as 'the most loving thing'), that it requires a difficult and uncertain calculation of outcomes (how do we know what will be most loving?), and that it may license doing evil that good may come. Pope Pius XII condemned it as 'the new morality' precisely for undermining moral absolutes, and William Barclay warned that it gives too much freedom to fallible human judgement. Whether its flexibility is a strength or a fatal source of arbitrariness is the central evaluative question.

Worked example

Assessing the abuse objection

Assess the objection that situation ethics can justify any action.

State the objection
Since any act can be presented as 'the most loving thing', situation ethics can rationalise theft, adultery, even killing, making it dangerously permissive.
Fletcher's constraints
Agape is not liking but willed good for all affected; pragmatism requires the act actually to work; personalism forbids sacrificing persons — these limit arbitrary rationalisation.
Residual force
Even so, the calculation of the 'most loving' outcome is uncertain and self-serving bias is easy; absolutists argue clear rules better restrain human weakness.
Comparative point
Rule-based ethics avoids abuse but at the cost of rigidity in hard cases; situation ethics avoids rigidity but risks abuse — a genuine trade-off.
Judgement
The objection has real force against careless use, but Fletcher's principles blunt it; the theory is best judged as a compassionate corrective to legalism rather than a complete method.

Result: The abuse objection shows situation ethics is vulnerable to rationalisation and uncertain calculation, but Fletcher's working principles constrain it; its flexibility is both its strength against legalism and its weakness as a reliable guide.

Typical mistakes

Reducing situation ethics to 'do whatever you feel is loving' — agape is willed good for the neighbour (not liking), applied through the working principles, not mere sentiment.
Muddling the four working principles with the six fundamental principles.

Active revision

'Situation ethics gives no reliable moral guidance.' Discuss. (Extended essay)

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for religious studies (Department for Education)

Virtue ethics (Aristotle)#

StandardAQA 7062/1 Section B: Normative ethical theoriesDfE GCE Religious Studies subject content

The doctrine of the mean: courage

Fig. 4A moral virtue is the mean between a vice of deficiency and a vice of excess; courage lies between cowardice and rashness.

Aristotle's virtue ethics, in the Nicomachean Ethics, is agent-centred: it asks not 'which acts are right?' but 'what sort of person should I become?' The organising concept is eudaimonia — usually translated 'happiness', but better rendered 'flourishing' or 'living well' — which Aristotle identifies as the final end of human life, the good we seek for its own sake and for the sake of which we seek everything else. Eudaimonia is not a feeling but an activity: 'an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue' over a complete life. Because the distinctive function (ergon) of a human being is rational activity, human flourishing consists in exercising reason excellently, both in practical life (moral virtue) and in contemplation (intellectual virtue).

The virtues are the settled dispositions of character that enable a person to flourish. Aristotle distinguishes moral virtues (courage, temperance, generosity, justice), which concern feeling and action and are acquired by habituation, from intellectual virtues (wisdom, understanding, and especially phronesis, practical wisdom), which are acquired by teaching. The moral virtues are learned by practice: 'we become just by doing just acts, brave by doing brave acts' — as one becomes a builder by building. Virtue is therefore not innate but cultivated through repetition until acting well becomes second nature, a stable state (hexis) of character rather than an occasional effort.

The doctrine of the mean specifies where virtue lies: each moral virtue is a mean (a middle state) between two vices, one of excess and one of deficiency, relative to the individual and the situation. Courage is the mean between the deficiency of cowardice and the excess of rashness; generosity between meanness and prodigality; proper pride between humility and vanity. The mean is not a bland average but the appropriate response — feeling and acting 'at the right times, towards the right objects, towards the right people, for the right reason, and in the right way'. Hitting the mean is difficult and requires phronesis, practical wisdom: the capacity to perceive what a particular situation demands and to deliberate well about how to act, which the virtuous, experienced person possesses and the novice lacks.

Virtue ethics enjoyed a major twentieth-century revival, launched by Elizabeth Anscombe's 'Modern Moral Philosophy' (1958), which argued that rule-based ethics (deontology, utilitarianism) had become incoherent without the theological framework that once grounded moral 'law', and that we should return to the older language of virtue and character. Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue) developed a communitarian virtue ethics grounded in social practices and traditions. The strengths of virtue ethics are that it captures the importance of character, motivation and moral education (which rule-based theories neglect), that it fits the way moral life is actually lived and learned, and that it is realistic about moral development. Its weaknesses are that it seems to give little concrete action-guidance in a dilemma ('do what the virtuous person would do' can be unhelpfully circular), that virtues can conflict (honesty vs kindness) with no rule to adjudicate, and that what counts as a virtue may vary between cultures, raising the spectre of relativism. Whether character or rules is the more fundamental category in ethics is the enduring debate.

Worked example

The circularity objection

Assess the objection that 'do what the virtuous person would do' is unhelpfully circular.

State the objection
Virtue ethics defines the right act as what the virtuous person would do, and the virtuous person as one who does right acts — an unhelpful circle giving no independent guidance.
First reply
The virtues are specified independently (courage, honesty, justice) with content, so we can ask what honesty or courage requires here without vicious circularity.
Second reply
Phronesis and moral exemplars (the virtuous person as a model) provide real guidance in the way an apprentice learns from a master, not from a rulebook.
Residual force
In a genuine dilemma where virtues conflict (honesty vs kindness), virtue ethics still offers less crisp direction than a rule-based theory.
Judgement
The objection overstates the problem — virtue ethics guides through specified virtues and exemplars — but concedes something real about hard conflict cases.

Result: The circularity objection is largely answerable: the virtues have independent content and phronesis guides application, though virtue ethics is genuinely less decisive than rule-based theories in cases of conflicting virtues.

Typical mistakes

Translating eudaimonia as a pleasant feeling; it is flourishing, an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue over a whole life.
Treating the mean as a literal midpoint or moderation in all things; it is the appropriate response relative to person and situation, judged by phronesis.

Active revision

'Virtue ethics cannot tell us what to do.' Assess this claim. (Extended essay)

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for religious studies (Department for Education)

Comparison and evaluation#

AdvancedAQA 7062/1 Section B: Normative ethical theoriesDfE GCE Religious Studies subject content

Rule-based and character-based ethics compared

Fig. 5Natural law fixes moral value in rules; virtue ethics in character; they share a concern for objective human goods.

A comparative evaluation should exploit the fact that each theory is strongest where the others are weakest. Natural law's strength is clarity, universality and the protection of basic goods (life, society); its weakness is rigidity — absolutist secondary precepts can produce harsh verdicts in hard cases and it rests on a contested teleological view of nature and on God. Situation ethics' strength is flexibility and compassion, meeting the complexity of real cases; its weakness is subjectivity and the uncertainty of predicting the 'most loving' outcome. Virtue ethics' strength is its realism about character, motivation and moral education; its weakness is the thinness of its action-guidance in dilemmas. So a natural comparative structure asks: does morality most need clear rules (natural law), responsiveness to situations (situation ethics), or good character (virtue ethics)? — and the answer may be that each captures a genuine dimension the others neglect.

The theories also differ in their relationship to religion, which matters for the developments component. Natural law is theistic in foundation (it rests on God's creation of human nature with a telos) but its precepts are meant to be knowable by reason alone, so it can be defended on secular grounds. Situation ethics is explicitly Christian, grounding its one absolute in Jesus' command to love. Virtue ethics is, in Aristotle, secular and this-worldly (eudaimonia is human flourishing, not union with God), though it can be Christianised (Aquinas added the theological virtues of faith, hope and love to the cardinal virtues). This spread — from a theory defensible without God (virtue ethics) to one explicitly built on Christian love (situation ethics) — is directly relevant to the later question of whether ethics needs religion.

A recurring evaluative theme is the tension between absolutism and flexibility. Natural law's absolutism gives it consistency and resistance to self-serving rationalisation but at the cost of adaptability; situation ethics' flexibility gives it compassion and responsiveness but at the cost of consistency and the risk of abuse; virtue ethics occupies a middle ground, offering stable character-traits applied with situational wisdom (phronesis), which some regard as the best of both. A candidate can argue that the ideal ethic would combine natural law's protection of basic goods, situation ethics' compassion in hard cases, and virtue ethics' attention to character — and that the theories are perhaps best seen as complementary emphases rather than exclusive rivals.

The most defensible judgement will usually favour one theory while acknowledging what the others capture. A strong case can be made that virtue ethics is the most complete, because it accommodates rules (a virtuous person keeps promises and respects life) and consequences (practical wisdom attends to outcomes) within a richer account of the moral life and moral development that rule- and consequence-based theories omit; its weakness on decisive action-guidance is real but arguably less serious than natural law's rigidity or situation ethics' subjectivity. Alternatively, one might argue that natural law best secures the objectivity and protection of basic goods that morality requires, or that no single theory suffices and a pluralistic approach is needed. What matters at A-Level is a sustained argument to a justified conclusion that weighs the theories against a stated criterion (guidance? objectivity? compassion? completeness?), rather than a mere catalogue of strengths and weaknesses.

Worked example

Model evaluation plan: comparing the theories

Plan an essay comparing natural law, situation ethics and virtue ethics.

Thesis
Virtue ethics is the most complete because it accommodates rules and consequences within a fuller account of character, despite weaker decisive guidance.
State the criterion
Judge by completeness — capturing rules, consequences, character and moral development.
Natural law
Strong on objectivity and basic goods (clarity, universality) but rigid and God-dependent.
Situation ethics
Strong on compassion and flexibility but subjective and uncertain in calculation.
Judgement
Virtue ethics accommodates the strengths of both within an account of character; concede its weaker action-guidance but argue this is the least damaging flaw.

Result: Judged by completeness, virtue ethics is the most convincing, since it embeds rules and consequences within a richer account of character and moral growth; the honest cost is its weaker guidance in acute dilemmas, which is less damaging than rigidity or subjectivity.

Typical mistakes

Producing three separate mini-essays instead of a genuine comparison structured by a criterion.
Concluding 'they all have strengths and weaknesses' with no judgement — examiners require a sustained line of reasoning to a conclusion.

Active revision

'Virtue ethics is the most convincing normative theory.' Evaluate this claim. (Extended essay)

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for religious studies (Department for Education)

Key points

Predicting verdicts from the map

Key points

Applying double effect

Key points

Assessing the abuse objection

Key points

The circularity objection

Key points

Model evaluation plan: comparing the theories

Sources

Normative ethical theories

Key points

Predicting verdicts from the map

Key points

Applying double effect

Key points

Assessing the abuse objection

Key points

The circularity objection

Key points

Model evaluation plan: comparing the theories

Sources