The belief that there are no uniform universal set of moral principles. The two most popular types of moral relativism are descriptive and normative. Descriptive moral relativism believes that moral standards are defined by each individual culture. Normative moral relativism believes that everyone should accept that different societies have different moral views due to universal moral principles not existing. Moral relativism is seen everywhere as in almost every society, people believe their morals are “right” while other societies are not. A common saying that describes moral relativism is “To each their own” as it perfectly shows what it means to have the moral relativist mindset.

A type of skepticism that believes that the things that help us make judgments are in fact misleading us from making true judgments. A common example is with our senses. Many believe that our senses are what make things true: you feel your blanket on your body, you smell blood, etc… However, a cartesian skepticism believes our senses are not valid grounds for making determinations of what exists. A counterpoint made by the cartesian skepticism may be that our senses fail us all the time without us knowing. For example, you may think you are running up to tap your friend on the back but when they turn around you realize it wasn’t the person you originally thought it was. This is an example of your sight failing you. Another common counterexample is when you go into an airconditioned room after being outside in chilly weather versus hot weather. After being in chilly weather, you probably won’t notice the effect of the air conditioning or it might even feel warmer. However, if it’s after being in hot weather, the feeling of coldness from the airconditioning is amplified even though the airconditioning is the exact same for both scenarios. The father of this belief is 17th-century French philosopher Rene Descartes, and his solution to this theory was through his famous quote
“I think therefore I am.” Because Descartes had the feeling of doubt he realized that at the bare minimum he was a mind with thoughts and therefore existed in some way.

When one makes all the actions to benefit others without thinking of its effect on themselves. In other words, altruism is the opposite of egoism. Theoretically, if everyone acted altruistically, we would all be acting in accordance with helping others and many believe our world would be better off. However, this is also seen as pure utopian as there is some intrinsic egoism built into most humans. There are many types of altruism, some of which make distinctions of when one should act towards helping others versus balancing helping themselves. An example of this is nepotistic altruism which is one of the most common forms of altruism in humans and even animals. Nepotistic altruists act to put their families before themselves when acting in any way. A common example of this is how a mother bear will always protect her cubs even though it endangers her. Another common but less frequently seen form of altruism is reciprocal altruism, which is basically a give-and-take relationship where people do acts to benefit others who they think will later do the same to them.

Exactly what it sounds like. Egoism is the mindset that yourself should be the motivation and the goal of one’s actions. This means that an egoist would only do actions that they think benefit them, ignoring the fact of how that action may or will affect others around them. Egoism has two parts, descriptive egoism and normative egoism. Descriptive egoism is the belief that all humans intrinsically make actions to benefit themselves and to believe that we didn’t would be incorrect. Normative egoism is the same as descriptive egoism except it is prescribing that you should act egoistically. Basically how we do act versus how we should act.

A radical form of skepticism that rejects all moral and religious principles. In other words, the belief that all life is meaningless. Nihilists believe that values are baseless and nothing can ever be known or communicated. Nihilism is very rare and not seen often in today’s world. Although this all must seem extremely negative, nihilism can help many people cope with their lives. When some people are under extreme and unmanageable levels of pressure, nihilism can help them relieve pressure from their life and live happier. If you subscribe to the nihilistic belief when you are extremely stressed out remembering that what is causing you to stress is insignificant can help you prioritize the things you like versus the things you feel like society pushes you to do.

A moral theory that guides and assesses the choices of what one should do. In deontology, the morality of an action is either right or wrong. Deontology is opposite to the consequentialist (similar to utilitarianism) view as it believes what makes a choice morally right is its conformity with moral norms. The deontological view believes that some choices can’t be justified by their effects. In other words, no matter how great the consequences of an act, some actions are morally wrong and as such, forbidden. An example of a moral rule that Deontologists would follow is what many of us know as the golden rule: “do unto others as you would be done by.” Deontology was derived by the German 18th-century philosopher Immanuel Kant. 

A moral theory that is based on one’s ability to make decisions from the consequences of an action. The utilitarian mindset believes that the choice that produces the greatest benefit to the most people is the choice that should always be exercised. There are two types of utilitarianism, act utilitarianism, and rule utilitarianism. Act utilitarianism operates very close to the definition of utilitarianism— one should tailor their actions to benefit the most people regardless of any personal feelings or societal reasons. Rule utilitarianism differs from this as it takes into account things like the law. A rule utilitarian tailors one’s actions to benefit the most people through the fairest means possible. In short, rule utilitarianism values justice and kindness at the same time. One problem that many people have with utilitarianism is that each person makes their own decisions with different life experiences and subjective ideas of what “the most good” is. Also, no one can be certain that their prediction of the outcome of an action is accurate. Utilitarianism was derived by the English mid-to-late 18th-century philosopher Jeremy Bentham.

The moral foundation that dictates a person’s actions and behavior. In other words, ethics is a system that a person uses to make decisions. The study of ethics is normally categorized into metaethics (the nature of moral judgment), normative ethics (the content of moral judgments and what right or wrong is), and applied ethics (the practical application of ethics to real-world issues). Ethics relates to teenagers in every way too; understanding different theories of ethics helps us build a moral map that we can base our actions on.