Ethics is a subdiscipline of philosophy concerned with questions of behavior and morality. Ethicists, for example, will ask questions like “What is right?” or “What is good?” Legal ethics, bioethics, and animal ethics are just a few examples of different types of ethics. It’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with the type of ethics you want to study before choosing the best ethics class. It’s also important to pick a class that’s offered at a good school with good instructors, as this will help you get the most out of your education.
Ethics and basic philosophical questions are inextricably linked in many ways. The theme of Plato’s classic book Republic, for example, is the question “What is justice?” Ethics is a dynamic field with many different approaches and solutions because these questions rarely have a definitive answer. To illustrate, philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once stated that if someone wrote a comprehensive book on ethics, it would destroy all other books in the world.
It’s a good idea to start with an introductory ethics course if you’ve never taken one before. This should familiarize you with some of the field’s key concepts while also introducing you to some of the classic literature on the subject. A good ethics class should cover the various subcategories of ethics and provide an overview of various ethical schools of thought.
It’s also worth considering the academic institution that offers the ethics course. Look at the school’s website to learn more about the philosophy faculty and possibly read biographies of potential instructors. You might be able to find an instructor whose interests are similar to yours doing so.
Some ethics classes focus on a specific aspect of the subject. There are ethics courses that focus on specific subdisciplines, such as business ethics, biomedical ethics, and legal ethics, for example. A biomedical ethics class will typically cover topics like euthanasia and abortion, discussing how they affect society and identifying pro and con arguments. A legal ethics class, on the other hand, might cover some of the ethical responsibilities that lawyers face. The best ethics classes should provide a thorough background of related theoretical approaches, as well as an assessment of current issues in the field.