Manuel Velasquez, Claire Andre, Thomas Shanks, S.J., and Michael J. Meyer Show
Some years ago, sociologist Raymond Baumhart asked business people, "What does ethics mean to you?" Among their replies were the following: "Ethics has to do with what my feelings tell me
is right or wrong." These replies might be typical of our own. The meaning of "ethics" is hard to pin down, and the views many people have about ethics are shaky. Like Baumhart's first respondent, many people tend to equate ethics with their feelings. But being ethical is clearly not a matter of following one's feelings. A person following his or her feelings may recoil from doing what is right. In fact, feelings frequently deviate from what is ethical. Nor should one identify ethics with religion. Most religions, of course, advocate high ethical standards. Yet if ethics were confined to religion, then ethics would apply only to religious people. But ethics applies as much to the behavior of the atheist as to that of the devout religious person. Religion can set high ethical standards and can provide intense motivations for ethical behavior. Ethics, however, cannot be confined to religion nor is it the same as religion. Being ethical is also not the same as following the law. The law often incorporates ethical standards to which most citizens subscribe. But laws, like feelings, can deviate from what is ethical. Our own pre-Civil War slavery laws and the old apartheid laws of present-day South Africa are grotesquely obvious examples of laws that deviate from what is ethical. Finally, being ethical is not the same as doing "whatever society accepts." In any society, most people accept standards that are, in fact, ethical. But standards of behavior in society can deviate from what is ethical. An entire society can become ethically corrupt. Nazi Germany is a good example of a morally corrupt society. Moreover, if being ethical were doing "whatever society accepts," then to find out what is ethical, one would have to find out what society accepts. To decide what I should think about abortion, for example, I would have to take a survey of American society and then conform my beliefs to whatever society accepts. But no one ever tries to decide an ethical issue by doing a survey. Further, the lack of social consensus on many issues makes it impossible to equate ethics with whatever society accepts. Some people accept abortion but many others do not. If being ethical were doing whatever society accepts, one would have to find an agreement on issues which does not, in fact, exist. What, then, is ethics? Ethics is two things. First, ethics refers to well-founded standards of right and wrong that prescribe what humans ought to do, usually in terms of rights, obligations, benefits to society, fairness, or specific virtues. Ethics, for example, refers to those standards that impose the reasonable obligations to refrain from rape, stealing, murder, assault, slander, and fraud. Ethical standards also include those that enjoin virtues of honesty, compassion, and loyalty. And, ethical standards include standards relating to rights, such as the right to life, the right to freedom from injury, and the right to privacy. Such standards are adequate standards of ethics because they are supported by consistent and well-founded reasons. Secondly, ethics refers to the study and development of one's ethical standards. As mentioned above, feelings, laws, and social norms can deviate from what is ethical. So it is necessary to constantly examine one's standards to ensure that they are reasonable and well-founded. Ethics also means, then, the continuous effort of studying our own moral beliefs and our moral conduct, and striving to ensure that we, and the institutions we help to shape, live up to standards that are reasonable and solidly-based. This article appeared originally in Issues in Ethics IIE V1 N1 (Fall 1987). Revised in 2010.
This shows grade level based on the word's complexity. This shows grade level based on the word's complexity. noun
(used with a singular or plural verb) a system of moral principles: the ethics of a culture. (used with a plural verb) the rules of conduct recognized in respect to a particular class of human actions or a particular group, culture, etc.: medical ethics; Christian ethics. (used with a plural verb) moral principles, as of an
individual: His ethics forbade betrayal of a confidence. (used with a singular verb) that branch of philosophy dealing with values relating to human conduct, with respect to the rightness and wrongness of certain actions and to the goodness and badness of the motives and ends of such actions.Compare axiological ethics, deontological ethics. QUIZ WILL YOU SAIL OR STUMBLE ON THESE GRAMMAR QUESTIONS? Smoothly step over to these common grammar mistakes that trip many people up. Good luck! Question 1 of 7 Fill in the blank: I can’t figure out _____ gave me this gift. Origin of ethicsFirst recorded in 1400–50; late Middle English ethic + -s3, modeled on Greek tà ēthiká, neuter plural synonym study for ethicsWords nearby ethicsethically, ethical relativism, ethical will, ethicist, ethicize, ethics, ethinamate, ethine, ethion, ethionamide, Ethiop Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2022 MORE ABOUT ETHICSWhat are ethics?Ethics are a system of moral principles or rules that say what is and is not acceptable. Generally speaking, ethics refer to the rules or code of conduct that people use to determine when an action is acceptable or not. Often, a person’s ethics are based on the rules of their society, such as laws or religious teachings. A society’s ethics might say that it is wrong to steal from someone else, for example. You may have your own ethics that are different from the society or community you live in. For example, you may move from a country where owning a gun is legal to one where it is not. In this case, your personal ethics (your belief that owning a gun is okay) may contradict the ethics of the country you now live in. In philosophy, the word ethics is used to mean the study of what makes a person decide what is right and wrong. Philosophers often use the word morality to mean the same thing. Outside of philosophy, though, we consider ethics and morals to be two different sets of values. Generally speaking, the difference between the two is that ethics are what a community considers to be right and wrong, and morals are what an individual considers to be good and bad or evil.
Why is ethics important?The first records of the term ethics come from around 1400. It ultimately comes from the Greek éthikos, which combines the word êthos, meaning “custom,” and –ikos, which forms adjectives. The ethics of many societies are often determined by their customs. It is understandable if you are still confused by the difference between ethics and morals. The two concepts are often closely interconnected, and ethics are often motivated by the morals that a large number of people have. Many laws, seen as the ethics of society, forbid things that people consider to be a serious violation of morals, such as killing another person. However, people can have different morals and ethics from each other or their society. For example, the law might allow a farmer to do whatever he wants to the animals he owns. So, a farmer might decide to kill most of his male chicks because he only wants female chickens to lay eggs that he can sell. The farmer is both not violating the ethics of the society he is a part of and he is not violating his own ethics or morals because he personally believes there is nothing wrong about culling male chicks. But many animal rights activists would declare that this practice is morally wrong. You’ll find that people often passionately debate about what should and should not be considered acceptable according to ethics. Did you know … ?Sometimes, the ethics of a profession are in conflict with the ethics of society. Journalists will often protect the identity of their sources even under threat of being sent to prison because they refuse to violate the ethics of journalism. What are real-life examples of ethics?To help you out, we have a video explaining the difference between ethics and morals:
The word ethics is often used in instances where a person or even a whole society had an ethical dilemma or violated ethics.
Quiz yourself!True or False? Ethics are the rules that define what is right and wrong. Words related to ethicsbelief, conduct, conscience, convention, conventionalities, criteria, decency, ethos, goodness, honesty, honor, ideal, imperative, integrity, morality, mores, nature, practice, principles, standard How to use ethics in a sentence
British Dictionary definitions for ethicsnoun (functioning as singular)the philosophical study of the moral value of human conduct and of the rules and principles that ought to govern it; moral philosophySee also meta-ethics (functioning as plural)a social, religious, or civil code of behaviour considered correct, esp that of a particular group, profession, or individual (functioning as plural)the moral fitness of a decision, course of action, etche doubted the ethics of their verdict Derived forms of ethicsethicist, noun Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012 Cultural definitions for ethicsThe branch of philosophy that deals with morality. Ethics is concerned with distinguishing between good and evil in the world, between right and wrong human actions, and between virtuous and nonvirtuous characteristics of people. The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved. Are standards of human conduct sometimes called morals?Terminology. What concept refers to a person's personal philosophy about what is right or wrong?Ethics is based on well-founded standards of right and wrong that prescribe what humans ought to do, usually in terms of rights, obligations, benefits to society, fairness, or specific virtues.
|
