Abstract

Among ethical norms teleological and formal ones are distinguished. The former admit that a behaviour which tends to a realisation of a moral Good is ethical, and the latter determine an ethical behaviour as consonant to a norm. Teleological norms determine a behaviour showing its purpose, and the formal norms emphasize the relation to other people as their characteristics. The former determine a duty through the Good, the latter instead adopt the concept of duty as primordial. Therefore, the former may be called axiological norms and the latter deontic ones. The deontic norms are either egalitarian, when they contain a postulate of equal rights: what I should have, under certain conditions, the same should have everybody when he fulfils these conditions, or elitarian, when they deny the postulate of egalitarism and grant larger rights to some chosen individuals or to some groups to a detriment of others. A possible third situation, when the rights of other people are considered to be above our owns can be connected with any of the two mentioned. A full system of norms should determine both a complex of Goods being aims of an ethical action and behaviour towards other individuals. It must contain, therefore, both axiological and deontic norms. In various ethics, in which only norms of one kind are specified, norms of the second kind are included in the former.