描述伦理学（descriptive ethics），研究社会族群所持有的伦理观，这包括风气、习俗、礼仪、法规、对于善与恶的见解、对于各种实际行为的响应等等。它与规范伦理学、元伦理学不同；规范伦理学探讨关于判决与规范人们行为的伦理理论；元伦理学主要是钻研伦理术语、伦理理论的含意；以下列出，在这些伦理学分之领域，一些可能遇到的不同例题：

Descriptive ethics, also known as comparative ethics, is the study of people's beliefs about morality. It contrasts with prescriptive or normative ethics, which is the study of ethical theories that prescribe how people ought to act, and with meta-ethics, which is the study of what ethical terms and theories actually refer to. The following examples of questions that might be considered in each field illustrate the differences between the fields: