Ethical theories give advice about how people ought to be and how they ought to behave (Brady & Hart, 2007). Ethical theories state the conditions under which an action is “right” or “moral” (Moore, 2007). Most often, an ethical theory will state that behavior is right if and only if a specific condition occurs or exists. Different ethical theories offer rival accounts of the condition that must occur for behavior to be right. Some ethical theories only state what the condition is for a behavior to be “wrong.” In general, there is no one universally accepted ethical theory. Instead, there are competing versions of ethical theories.

Ethical theories have been around for a very long time, so there are many versions of and variations on them. The main classifications and divisions of these theories are also subject to debate (Louden, 1996). However, ethical theories tend to fall into two different lines of thought: (1) ethics of character, which examine what sort of people we should be; and (2) ethics of conduct, which examine what sort of actions people should perform. Ethical theories in the ethics of character area focus on virtues or the goodness of an agent’s character for determining the rightness of actions, instead of on universal laws (Buckle, 2002; Santas, 1993). Examples of approaches in this area are those of Plato, Aristotle, and Confucius (Brewer, 2005; Si....