ABSTRACT
With a few small guilty reservations, most people consider themselves ethical. They would say that morality, fairness, and being good remain important to them even as they pursue whatever they pursue, in daily life and in large political problems like climate justice. Asking oneself more questions, however, especially if one probes beyond ideals absorbed from family, religion, or popular culture, if one asks what makes some course of action better or worse, the answers divide into the major philosophical schools of ethics: duty ethics, utilitarianism, and virtue ethics. We might call these systems “the ethics of everyday life.”
