Some theories of ethics see the subject in terms of a number of laws (as in the Ten Commandments). The status of these laws may be that they are the edicts of a divine lawmaker, or that they are truths of reason, knowable a priori . Other approaches to ethics (e.g. eudaimonism, situation ethics, virtue ethics ) eschew general principles as much as possible, regarding them as at best rules-of-thumb, frequently disguising the great complexity of practical reasoning. For the Kantian notion of the moral law, see categorical imperative.
Philosophy dictionary. Academic. 2011.