Biotic ethicsBiotic ethics (also called life-centered ethics) is a branch of ethics that values not only species and biospheres, but life itself. On this basis, biotic ethics defines a human purpose to secure and propagate life. These principles are related to bioethics, and to environmental ethics that seek to conserve existing species. However, biotic ethics value more generally organic gene/protein life itself, the structures and processes shared by all the biota. These processes result in self-propagation, an effective purpose that humans share with all life.
Primum non nocerePrimum non nocere (ˈpriːmũː noːn nɔˈkeːrɛ) is a Latin phrase that means "first, do no harm". The phrase is sometimes recorded as primum nil nocere. Non-maleficence, which is derived from the maxim, is one of the principal precepts of bioethics that all students in healthcare are taught in school and is a fundamental principle throughout the world. Another way to state it is that, "given an existing problem, it may be better not to do something, or even to do nothing, than to risk causing more harm than good.
Contemporary ethicsEthics is, in general terms, the study of right and wrong. It can look descriptively at moral behaviour and judgements; it can give practical advice (normative ethics), or it can analyse and theorise about the nature of morality and ethics. Contemporary study of ethics has many links with other disciplines in philosophy itself and other sciences. Normative ethics has declined, while meta-ethics is increasingly followed. Abstract theorizing has in many areas been replaced by experience-based research.
