Zorrilla y Moral, José, 1817-93, Spanish poet and dramatist. His works and life epitomized the brief period of Spanish romanticism. One of the most honored of Spanish writers, he was nevertheless continually impoverished. Among his many plays Don Juan Tenorio (1844) is a Spanish favorite, as is El zapatero y el rey [the shoemaker and the king] (1840-42). He gathered and reconstructed many legends in Cantos del trovador (1841), Granada (1852), and other volumes of verse and also wrote an interesting autobiography (1880-83).

Moral Re-Armament: see Buchman, Frank N. D.

Moral Majority, U.S. political action group composed of conservative, fundamentalist Christians. Founded (1979) and led (1979-87) by evangelist Rev. Jerry Falwell, the group played a significant role in the 1980 elections through its strong support of conservative candidates. It lobbied for prayer and the teaching of creationism in public schools, while opposing the Equal Rights Amendment (see feminism), homosexual rights, abortion, and the U.S.-Soviet SALT treaties (see disarmament, nuclear). The Moral Majority was dissolved in 1989.

Theory that derives duty from what is valuable as an end, in a manner diametrically opposed to deontological ethics. Teleological ethics holds that the basic standard of duty is the contribution that an action makes to the realization of nonmoral values. Teleological theories differ on the nature of the nonmoral goods that actions ought to promote. Eudaemonism emphasizes the cultivation of virtue in the agent as the end of all action. Utilitarianism holds that the end consists in the aggregate balance of pleasure to pain for all concerned. Other teleological theories claim that the end of action is survival and growth, as in evolutionary ethics (Herbert Spencer); power over others (Niccolò Machiavelli and Friedrich Nietzsche); satisfaction and adjustment, as in pragmatism (Ralph Barton Perry and John Dewey); and freedom, as in existentialism (Jean-Paul Sartre).

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Branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of ultimate value and the standards by which human actions can be judged right or wrong. The term is also applied to any system or theory of moral values or principles. Ethics is traditionally subdivided into normative ethics, metaethics, and applied ethics. Normative ethics seeks to establish norms or standards of conduct; a crucial question in this field is whether actions are to be judged right or wrong based on their consequences or based on their conformity to some moral rule, such as “Do not tell a lie.” Theories that adopt the former basis of judgment are called consequentialist (see consequentialism); those that adopt the latter are known as deontological (see deontological ethics). Metaethics is concerned with the nature of ethical judgments and theories. Since the beginning of the 20th century, much work in metaethics has focused on the logical and semantic aspects of moral language. Some major metaethical theories are naturalism (see naturalistic fallacy), intuitionism, emotivism, and prescriptivism. Applied ethics, as the name implies, consists of the application of normative ethical theories to practical moral problems (e.g., abortion). Among the major fields of applied ethics are bioethics, business ethics, legal ethics, and medical ethics.

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Ethical theories that maintain that the moral rightness or wrongness of an action depends on its intrinsic qualities, and not (as in consequentialism) on the nature of its consequences. Deontological ethics holds that at least some acts are morally wrong in themselves (e.g., lying, breaking a promise, punishing the innocent, murder). It often finds expression in slogans such as “Duty for duty's sake.” Deontological theories are often formulated in such a way that the rightness of an action consists in its conformity to a moral rule or command, such as “Do not bear false witness.” The most important exponent of deontological ethics is Immanuel Kant. Seealso categorical imperative.

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