Final answer:
Ethics is a branch of philosophy with three main areas: metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics, each focusing on different levels of moral inquiry. Ethics establishes the principles underlying moral conduct and differs from morality, which refers to actual behaviors and practices.
Step-by-step explanation:
Ethics is a branch of philosophy concerned with exploring and elaborating on the concepts of right and wrong behavior. This field is often categorized into metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics, with each area distinguished by its own level of inquiry and analytical approach. Metaethics delves into the foundational questions of moral reasoning and the origins of moral values, questioning the nature of goodness, whether moral facts exist, and the underlying assumptions of moral beliefs and practices.
Normative ethics, on the other hand, attempts to establish norms and standards guiding moral conduct. This area includes exploring theories like consequentialism, deontological ethics, and virtue ethics, each based on distinct criteria for determining what constitutes ethical behavior. Finally, applied ethics is concerned with the application of moral norms and principles to real-world issues and controversies, such as abortion, environmental issues, and privacy concerns, with a view to resolve these dilemmas through multidisciplinary approaches, including law and policy.
Being ethical is more than being aware of moral principles; it involves acting consistently with these principles to be considered ethical. Conversely, neglecting these principles would be deemed unethical. Notably, ethics and morality, while closely related, are not synonymous, as ethics refers to the systematized principles that guide moral conduct.