Adapted from material provided by Daniel Gaines, with additional sections on autonomy by Levi Smith and applied ethics by David Paul.

Value Theory and Moral Frameworks: An Introduction to Ethical Reasoning

In philosophy, value theory plays an important role in understanding how we make judgments about the world around us. It includes different kinds of claims and values, each contributing to our understanding of ethics and morality. Importantly, this isn’t just an academic endeavor—we all make value judgments all the time, from the very minor (one person prefers one color for a shirt, someone else prefers something else) to the profound (like choices about religious belief). The kinds of beliefs we have and the kinds of claims we make are shaped by our values, by what we think right and wrong actions are, by what we think it means for people to be good people or bad people, and what we think about concepts like fairness, dignity and integrity. All of this is moral philosophy.