Everyday Ethics

55 responses so far ↓

• 1 Di Amirante // Nov 28, 2008 at 10:42 pm

  Finally, I see the footsteps of another traveler searching through the largest accumulated base of human knowledge ever to exist for some definitive comparison between two words; morality and ethics. Some years ago I came to the near same conclusions that you have reached and I must tell you, there seem to be few of us who have done so. If I might make a slight revision and addition to your thoughts as follows:
  “Ethics is about building the kind of world we want to live in” is much too subjective a statement, too broad and somewhat inflexible. Ethics just might be comprised of more than one component, let’s try three; human, natural, and civil/societal.
  Then we might consider you statement in another way __ Ethics is about the reciprocal fairness and equality between individuals without regard to any internal or external features less than value of the individual as a fellow human. Ethics is about regarding the natural world for the value it provides toward the continuation of our existence. Ethics is about a flexible code of laws from which to maintain equitable, just and humane treatment within the changing cultural tides of a merging global community. Aside from these small adjustments I could not agree with you more.
  Most Sincerely, Your Fellow Traveler,
  just di

• 2 jack // Jul 20, 2009 at 12:43 pm

  Thank you for committing these thoughts to print.

  I’m curious about a certain possible follow-up: how does one propose an ethicist begin to deal with the contradiction (between 2 ethically-opposing morals, per the last-mentioned example).

  Of course, let me know if this has been directly or indirectly addressed in a separate post.

  I too “hold” a bachelor’s degree in philosophy, but in not pursuing beyond that (chosen instead a path of collecting Art degrees and their ensuing debt)… holding on tends to be a heavier weight of unresolved doubt than, perhaps, letting go (?).

  Best of Luck!

• 3 Elijah Weber // Jul 26, 2009 at 2:51 pm

  So the question is how an ethicist can try to resolve the holding of two contradictory ethical positions. That’s a tough question, but for the philosopher, the presence of contradiction is an indicator of faulty reasoning. The ethicist has a few options.

  1. Clarify concepts, in order to demonstrate that the apparent contradiction isn’t actually contradictory. For example, I might clarify the position that murderers should be put to death by arguing that although all human life is valuable, the importance of punishing murderers to the maximum extent possible outweighs the value of human life.

  2. Change something, in order to eliminate the contradiction. The ethicist might have to acknowledge that if abortion is wrong because all human life is valuable, it doesn’t really make sense to also think murderers should be put to death. If one’s ethical views are contradictory, the easiest solution is to find some consistency.

  I’m sure this doesn’t fully resolve your question, but that’s where I’d tend to start.

  Thanks for reading.

• 4 Cash // Oct 8, 2009 at 12:19 am

  I too have found the definitions of these two words interchangeable. Some one told me once the best definition of ethics and morals are as follows, “ethics—knowing something is wrong, but tends to do it anyway, for example, J knows that sleeping with his friends wife is wrong, but does it anyway and morals—knowing something is wrong and does not do it, J knows sleeping with his friends wife is wrong and does not do it.” I am not sure if these simple definitions really tackle the definition of these words but thanks for reading.

• 5 Steve // Nov 7, 2009 at 12:56 pm

  I’m not a philosopher, but the reasoning here trips me up:

  “For example, let us say that I believe abortion is wrong because all human life is valuable, but I also believe that we should punish murderers by putting them to death. These points of view could be held simultaneously from a position of simple moral belief, but would at a minimum require additional justification before being accepted as a reasonable ethical position. Morality is simply a statement about right and wrong. Abortion is wrong, the death penalty is right.”

  Morally, how could one believe all human life is valuable but then advocate the taking of it in some situations?

  It seems to me the moral issue is actually the former — that all life is valuable (or, perhaps, that killing is wrong) — but the ethical issue is that in some cases, the taking of a life is “within the rules” of justice because some crimes justify the punishment.

  I realize the moral concern you raised was specific to abortion being wrong, and I’m not a pro-lifer with an ax to grind or anything, but I’m still confused on the distinction between a moral judgement and an ethical expression of it.

• 6 Elijah Weber // Nov 13, 2009 at 10:20 am

  Let me try to simplify. When I say “Abortion is wrong,” that is simply a statement of what I believe. I need not offer support or an argument, it’s just what I think about that issue.

  Ethics is more systematic. If I say “abortion is wrong”, and then give you an argument for that position, with some theoretical support, now I’m doing ethics.

  As for your example, I think the question of whether capital punishment is justified in some cases might be a political question as much as an ethical one.

  The distinction I’m making is that moral judgments are uncritical. They need not be supported by arguments, and one can hold contradictory moral views without much difficulty. People do it all the time.

  Ethics, on the other hand, is a critical taks. It relies on theory, reasons, and arguments. Contradiction would be a huge problem in ethics, but it’s not for morality, because our standards are different. Ethics is a kind of specialty that requires skill and background knowledge. Anyone can have moral opinions.

  I hope that helps some. If not, let me know and I’ll see what I can do.

  Thanks for reading.

• 7 Branden // Dec 1, 2009 at 6:50 am

  I’ve contemplated this a bit too lately and I’ve come to a simple answer that I like for myself, and maybe some of you will enjoy it too:

  Ethics eliminate morals by using the scientific method, in hopes of finding universally accepted morals, which result in ethics.

• 8 Jay Dillon // Jan 1, 2010 at 12:57 pm

  Personally,I use the word Ethics to mean a system or process for the resolving of differences of opinion.Qualities of Ethical behaviour, include equality,fairness,and respect.
  Morality is a code of conduct that may have antecedents in religious teachings.
  More Importantly,how do we as constituents of any city or county in the US help and direct our elected officials and Corp. heads to use and live by More Ethical standards than last exhibited by the greed and mismanagement of our banking and investment industries…We the peole must show and direct them.

• 9 Telos // Feb 25, 2011 at 10:41 am

  I realize that this post is old, but I just stumbled upon it. The morals/ethics confusion reminds me of other notable tensions between related words (race vs. ethnicity comes to mind). I think this debate becomes even more complicated when these ideas intersect with things like political economies (or, heck, political economies of race if we really want to complicate matters). Actually, a political analysis of these ideas within the context of U.S. politics could be very productive. Thanks for the post!

• 10 Van // Mar 9, 2011 at 11:38 am

  I know this is quite old but…

  For me I always thought of morals being about
  how we treat others and not a simple belief of what is right or wrong.

  e.g using drugs is wrong. For me this has nothing to do with morals, ethics or right from wrong but it may be a medical problem for the individual. So I obviously don’t see it as an issue to do with morals.
  If you take a similar example make it :Forcing people to do drugs is wrong, is right. Basically because I believe imposing harm on other individuals is wrong and stopping people from making their own choices is also wrong unless those choices involves harming or forcing others (I.e self defence or saving someone).
  So I don’t think anything done to yourself (providing the above premises) is a moral issue and that includes killing yourself. Not that it isn’t selfish.
  I see this as morals based on uttermost respect and rationality

  Would you say this is based on ethics or morals?

• 11 succinct // Mar 11, 2011 at 5:58 am

  ∃x (x ∈ X | X = Ethics & x = Morals)
  done.

• 12 Margarita Sanchez // Apr 30, 2011 at 10:00 am

  Hi, I enjoyed a lot your article. I am trying to write an essay about Ehics and Morals and I am going to get crazy. I am in your club.

• 13 The Traveller // May 1, 2011 at 12:48 pm

  When asking myself the distinction between morality and ethics I ask myself: “what is the difference between duty and justified duty?”

  Working along this basis, an unjustified duty may attain any desired justification without consistency: it is formless and subjective. There is no use in pretending that it is justified - that it has a set form - by appealing to affirmation rather than evidence.

  A justified duty has form, and therefore has an obligation to be clear and consistent with itself and reality. This does not make it immune to mass critique; it is through philosophical analysis that we determine that which is supported and justified from that which is not.

  Within the scope of one’s own duty (to either themselves, others, or a deity), we can determine that one either has a responsibility to the cause, effect or personal character of their actions. These systems of duty, in general, are not necessarily justified; they are simply applications duty which may or may be rational.

  I would submit that because “duty” and “justified duty” may diverge (something could be immoral yet ethical), they are independent concepts and may NOT be interrelated.

  I would also propose that since rationality is the drive for objective evidence; ethics possess a quality of objectivity that morality lacks. This does not require a god - indeed we would need an objective god first.

• 14 Lunatec // May 11, 2011 at 11:10 pm

  How can one hold two opposing moral values? It’s easy. I believe that murders, rapists and child molesters should be shot. I am for pro-choice.I am against war and the needless suffering of innocents. These are contradictory in that on one hand that destroying human life can be justified, in the other, that killing is wrong. Ethically, these are in conflict. We will always have these conflicts and this cannot be avoided. It is what defines us as human.

• 15 Sydney Edmonds // May 13, 2011 at 6:49 am

  I really enjoyed your philosophical point of view regarding ethics and morals. It was playful and humorous, and at times, made me say, “Yeah, I’ve often wondered that myself.”

• 16 Chuck // Oct 11, 2011 at 10:52 pm

  Being a life-long Catholic, my perspective on morality vs. ethics is quite different and probably the opposite of what you hold. For all of the religion classes I’ve had through high school, all of the sermons I’ve heard in church, and the bible study courses I’ve taken, I do not recall ever hearing the word “ethics” used to describe God’s notion of right and wrong. It has always been “morality” and “morals.”

  Therefore, for me and probably most people with a religious upbringing, morality is more than a code of conduct. It is God’s reasoned system for describing right and wrong. Ethics is an alternate reasoned system devised by men who are either trying to enhance God’s wisdom with their own to clarify issues, or trying to rebel against God.

  Morals are absolutes from the Ultimate Authority, while ethics are relative statements from men. Whether something is morally right or wrong does demand justification in that we must discern whether or not it is governed by one of God’s teachings (clarify the issue?). Ethics that are contrary to morality cannot be justified by any reasoning because what is logical to one appears flawed to another, and has no ultimate authority to appeal to (except the business end of a gun).

  Thanks for reading.

• 17 Nikola // Nov 6, 2011 at 7:09 pm

  Thanks for this, I was googleing this for a college project, and you really nailed it. Great writing, thanks again.

• 18 Jake // Nov 8, 2011 at 3:31 pm

  It appears that what is suggested about morals is that they are a simple subjective emotional opinion of what someone thinks is right or wrong, based on no firm foundation. Ethics would at least hold up to some logical scrutiny or foundation about describing certain behaviour as right or wrong. I’m for having strong foundations when forming opinions about right or wrong. I’m immoral but ethical!

• 19 mark // Nov 17, 2011 at 10:25 am

  Great discussion, and I’m obviously coming in late on this one but here goes. Doesn’t this definition of morality, “moral judgments are uncritical. They need not be supported by arguments” seem both unpractical and so broad as to qualify any decision as “moral.” Unpractical because I don’t believe we make moral decisions without any thought to reason, one always checks a moral decision with some system of beliefs or code of conduct. Second, it doesn’t ring true to me that if I simply state, “I’m going to paint my house red because I believe it’s the right thing to do” has any association with morality. Not all decisions are moral decisions. Moreover, if my belief was some much more grotesque, such as, “I believe all infants should be tattooed” and simply stated (remember, no arguments, that’s ethics) it was my belief. I don’t honestly believe anyone would consider either moral or ethical. In my opinion, morality has to be more than just belief put into action.

• 20 Tim Mensch // Dec 2, 2011 at 10:49 am

  I’ve long considered there to be a distinction between ethics and morals, and I think you’re really on to something.

  It’s also frustrating to me that ethics and morals are defined as synonyms in most major sources.

  I like the way you came to the conclusions you did, though I was disappointed to not see a reply to Di, above, since his/her opinion is very close to the conclusion that I’ve come to.

  I agree that morals are based on belief, and that ethics are a system of values. But that’s a definition from a study-of-philosophy point of view, and I feel there’s a different colloquial definitions.

  Namely, that ethics are always about relationships between people; I can’t imagine any native English user saying “it’s unethical for anyone to worship an idol,” as a random example. The only word that works there is “immoral”, and I contend that it’s not only because ethics is a system of values, but that it’s a system of values that governs the relationship between people, or the behaviors of one person as it affects others.

• 21 paul noeldner // Dec 12, 2011 at 7:02 pm

  Agree ethics - and specifically public ethics - can and sometimes should conflict with personal and group centric morals and values. I’d be interested in what you think of my blog entries on this subject

• 22 Petti Van Rekom // Dec 13, 2011 at 11:25 pm

  It’s been almost 2 years since the last post, so not sure if anyone’s monitoring this. But here’s my input. I believe that Ethics is more global, universal, effecting all humanity. While Morals are more local and cultural and yes impacted by religious beliefs. That being said, I too am angered at our politicians and corporate leaders not acting “ethically” or “morally” - while apparently not breaking any laws. I wonder if it would be possible to create a “checklist” of ethical principles or code of conduct which we could use to evaluate a proposed action or piece of legislation. Any thoughts?

• 23 Erick Green // Dec 25, 2011 at 12:39 pm

  To me judging something as right or wrong is not only a waste of time but also quite foolish and somewhat arrogrant. There is a rule of the universe that contridicts morals and ethics, which is; Every action have positive and negative consequences. Using your example for killing, you should that there is another rule that contridicts your statement; Life leads to death and death leads to life. To elaborate, humans consume life when they eat food and when they make clothing that needs cotton and other plant material. Thus if someone were to kill he would also save lives, and saving lives would cause lives to be taken. To elaborate even more, Albert Eistein’s theory of of changing the past suggest that chaging past events could lead to great castrophe, like going back in time and prevent 9/11 from happening. You may save 3,000 lives but you would most defintely would cause even more lives to be taken. Well thats all i want to say.

• 24 How do you know when it's over? - Page 2 // Dec 27, 2011 at 8:39 pm

  [...] don’t really understand what you mean about him caring enough about his lack of ethics? I mean ethics in the sense of how he deals with [...]

• 25 Atom // Jan 1, 2012 at 4:49 pm

  Words are tools and only mean what we say they mean (i.e. how we use them). As with any specialized tool, we may fashion our own, hoping others may find them useful for a similar purpose.
  In the case of morals/ethics, I personally find the following definitions could be worthwhile (of course, whether anyone agrees will determine the extent of their usefulness. And I am not saying this is what they DO mean in current usage, I am only suggesting this is what they possibly SHOULD mean):

  MORALS are abstract belief statements about right and wrong. (i.e. “Killing is wrong.”)

  ETHICS are morals in action. (i.e. “Is it ethical to kill in self-defense?” Any ethic — “moral action” — which contravenes an overarching moral requires a justification based on the broader thrust of the morality in question.)

  In this construct, if we didn’t have morals, we would have no ethical dilemmas. Again, a moral dilemma would be, “Is killing right or wrong?”; an ethical dilemma would be, “Having already said killing is wrong, what possible justification could there be for killing in this situation?” In other words, ethics are the practical application of abstract morals.

• 26 anonymous // Jan 17, 2012 at 12:27 pm

  “I emphasize here and throughout the book the distinction between ethics, which is the study of how to live well, and morality, which is the study of how we must treat other people.”
  R. Dworkin, Justice for Hedgehogs (2011), p. 13.

• 27 Brian Miller // Jan 19, 2012 at 4:39 pm

  Great question: the distinction between morality and ethics. Ethics comes from the Greek ethike, meaning character; morality comes from the word mos (mores). I saw a distinction in an Ethics text that stated that ethical issues dealt with actions that dealt with lying, cheating, stealing, etc. that did not involve life or death questions nor sexual issues. Morals dealt with these life and death issues such as abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, death penalty, incest, sex before marriage, etc. This distinction has never really been fully justified to my satisfaction, but it sounds intriguing. I would argue that ethics is a systematic analysis of normative or value claims. Morality is the value claim of an individual or group.

• 28 Elijah Weber // Jan 20, 2012 at 11:07 am

  Brian,

  Great point, always a good idea to look at the root of a word to try to figure out what it actually means. The way you’ve described the distinction closely matches the quote from Ronald Dworkin that someone provided in an earlier comment. It also roughly tracks the way Bernard Williams puts the distinction. For Willliams, ethics is about the question of how we ought to live, while morality concerns our obligations to other people. By stating what our obligations to others are, we may or may not (Williams thinks not) have an answer to the question of how we ought to live. While I like Williams’s way of putting it, I think, as others clearly seem to given the thread of the comments here, that ethics has a systematic quality that morals need not have in order to count as morals.

  Thanks for reading.

• 29 Richard Rowe // Jan 22, 2012 at 8:48 pm

  Elijah - many thanks for this thought-provoking essay. As a rank amateur in the field of philosophy (although with a keen interest in it) I took a short course in Philosophy some time back. Below is one of a series of emails I exchanged with my tutor - I hope the rankness doesn’t put you off too much.

  Cheers, Richard.

  Hi Douglas –

  It’s a shame the Wednesday evening course is coming to a close – I have been thoroughly enjoying it – even if we have been disagreeing on some issues.

  Speaking of which, after researching the (many) definitions of “morality” and “ethics” I’m forced to the conclusion that you are right – they can, under the current definitions, be used synonymously, even if they do, in fact, approach the subject of “lifestyle paradigm” from different directions. And this is a great shame, and an opportunity lost.

  Having thought about the three main subjects we have been discussing (free will, morality and mind and body), it seems obvious that there is an elephant in the room we have only just touched on. That is, of course, the “Divine Command” – or religion in general. Religion influences all of our discussion points and directly or indirectly influences our approach to them. Yet in all our discussions this rates only one paragraph. Oddly enough, while theism rates the one paragraph directly, the “humanist” approach (consideration of these issues from a purely logical angle) illuminates the rest of the discussion. For the purposes of the course I can understand why (time available being the main consideration), but it seems to me that by ignoring religion we are missing one of the most important dimensions of the problem

  I’m not going to argue from either a theistic or humanist angle, but point out that since these two points of view can lead to two completely different outcomes, there should be a way of easily differentiating the two, instead of simply lumping the two together under the heading of “morality/ethics”. This is also true of the different approaches to free will and the mind/body problem. This is important, especially when it comes to considering the effect of morality/ethics on the civil law. When a lawmaker says that this law, or that one, comes from a “moral” perspective, what does he mean? Is he one of the “God said it, I believe it” crowd or does he have a carefully reasoned humanist standpoint? Separating the two approaches with different words could/would have a more illuminating effect, not only on the source of the civil law, but on many other aspects of society.

  It might seem to be a very small niggle, but words have power – power to shape our thoughts and our actions. Consider the following. Would you be in favour of banning a sect that indulged in ritual pseudo-cannibalism? I have asked a few people this and without exception they would – admittedly a very small sample. When it’s pointed out to them that this is no more than a clinical description of the Christian Mass, they just look confused, and then try to argue that this is an unfair description (it isn’t) and it wasn’t a real question anyway. So – words have power.

  It might be unfair at this point to also point out that people are easily confused and can take a certain position even when overwhelming evidence to the contrary is right under their noses. Consider this case – how long did Jesus spend in the tomb (i.e. dead) after his crucifixion? 9 out of 10 people will say “3 days”. Rubbish. From 6 o’clock on Friday evening to first thing Sunday morning? I make that about 36 hours – a day and a half tops. So where does 3 days come from? And I say “tops” advisedly. There is nothing in the Bible to say that he rose from the dead a couple of minutes before the women turned up. It could have been any time from when he was buried and the stone rolled across the face of the tomb. Remember, the angel said “He is risen” – it didn’t say “You just missed him”. There’s more illogicality in the story, but I wont go into it here. (Do I hear you say “Thank heavens”? ).

  Anyway, this is a plea to differentiate the theistic from the humanistic when it comes to things such as questions of morality. I can think of no better method than to redefine the theistic approach as “morality” and the humanistic approach as “ethics”.

  And if you say this is unlikely ever to happen, I would have to sadly agree. There are too many people with a vested interest in keeping the confusion going.

  Thank you for reading this rant/waffle.

  Cheers, Richard.

• 30 Elijah Weber // Jan 25, 2012 at 8:07 am

  Richard,

  Thanks. This is an interesting suggestion, to make “ethics” refer to a humanistic approach to ethics, while “morality” refers to a theistic approach.

  Here are a couple of concerns I’d have with such an approach. First, it implies that theistic approaches don’t have the systematic features typically associated with ethics, which I don’t think is true in all cases. Many theists attempt to give systematic accounts of ethics, and divine command theory is clearly an ethical theory. Also, theistic approaches are clearly interested in questions like “how we ought to live,” a question that is thought to reside in the realm of ethics, rather than morality.

  On the other side, we shouldn’t assume that non-theistic approaches to ethical questions don’t involve moral “0ughts.” I can be a humanist about ethics, but still think that there are things that I owe to others, and that I am obligated, morally, to do. So I worry that dividing the landscape along these lines blurs some important distinctions, and perhaps unfairly characterizes both approaches to these sorts of questions.

  In any event, I enjoyed reading your comment, and I thank you for reading.

• 31 Socrates, Media Ethics and Case Studies – 25JAN12 « sonofaud // Jan 26, 2012 at 7:18 pm

  [...] http://everyday-ethics.org/2008/11/ethics-vs-morals-not-as-easy-as-it-seems/ [...]

• 32 Liaozhixiong // Feb 6, 2012 at 5:24 pm

  I love your articles really.I also have a website.One page is about moral vs ethics.Yes,I do agree with your point towards abortion.I am from China.It is legal to have an abortion.But in some minorities,it is forbidden to have an abortion.Thanks for your so fabulous articles

• 33 Buzz Moonman // Feb 13, 2012 at 5:26 am

  G’day, we’ve been debating this on a blog I’m a regular on and he is my take on it. I came across your site when the debate ended and I was curious to see how others saw this divide and found your interesting site.

  Morality is the rules of social living, an idea I first came across in Peter Kroptkin’s book Ethics (where ethics is the science of morality). Kropotkin also said that Darwin was proposing a social theory of morality in The Descent Of Man.

  Social living is political. If you’re in society, the personal is political. Morality is also therefore a political act.

  Moral behavoiur is ethical. But not all ethical behaviour is moral. Moral is not always interchangeable with ethical though morality is a subset of ethics. Morality deals with people’s relationships with other people, the rules of social living. Ethics deals with our relationship with the whole planet. The terms morality and ethics are not always interchangeable. Ethics is broader. Ethics deals with what is generally right and wrong and morality with what is right and wrong in relations between people. There is ethical behaviour that does not bother with whether it is moral or immoral, ie capitalist ethics, or the ethics of ideologies.

  Too often people talk of moral when they mean ethical. Moral has a much narrower use than ethical.

  Decisions involving other people are moral choices. Decision involving trees or animals or the environment or institutions etc are ethical choices. If you’re alone on a desert island, it’s not morality you need, its ethics.

  Ethics (as defined as a guide to doing things rather than the science of morality) deals with our relationships to everything on the planet, morality with our relationships to other people. People are a subset of the planet. Ethics and morality do cross over but I agree that they are not synonyms. Morality is certainly a part of ethics but not all ethics is a part of morality so the two are not always interchangeable or synonyms. Ethics is a guide to doing stuff as is morality a guide to doing stuff to live socially, but you can be doing something that is ethical for the given POV while at the same time it is unethical and immoral from a social POV.

  Torturing a dog is unethical and wrong as there is no reason to inflict that pain on the animal but it’s not immoral as that is the wrong term to use because another human is not involved. However, if your neighbour objects and starts hammering your door down, then you have a moral problem, particularly if it’s their dog. Murdering a person is not only immoral it is also unethical.

  Then there is corporate and ideological ethics.
  The ethics of capitalism is maximization of profit. This ethic is not concerned with whether the activities pursued in profit maximization are moral or immoral.

  One of the best ways to maximize profits is to minimize your labour costs and the most effective way to do this is slavery. From the POV of capitalism, slavery is ethical and from the POV of capitalism slavery is neither moral or immoral, it’s a sound business practice resulting in profit maximization

  The modern way for a CEO to get their share price up is to sack employees. When they do this, people buy their shares, they go up in value and shareholders get increased dividends. The workers end up on the scrap heap but this is of no concern to the CEO or shareholders. The only imperative is profit maximization and bonus payments.

  It’s nothing personal , it’s just business.

  Eichmann is another example of the moral/ethical divide.

  Eichmann was a psychopathic bastard who mass murdered Jews. This was immoral and wrong because he breached mutual peace, the natural objective source for morality, between himself and the people he murdered. He failed in his moral obligations to those people.

  However, his behaviour was ethical in the framework of Nazi ethics. These are not ethics that I would use or recommend but a lot of Germans and others did. And some deluded people still think they are ok. While failing in his moral obligations to the Jews, Eichmann did fulfill his ethical obligations to Nazism. You can be ethical while being immoral. I daresay that Eichmann knew that though he was being an ethical nazi, he also knew he was being an immoral human and doing wrong. But humans have a great capacity to use epicycles to explain dodgy or immoral behaviour.

  It seems to me that you would not be incorrectly using the word ethical if you use ethical to describe a behaviour as it applies to everything but if you want to use moral then you need to think a bit more about whether the circumstance you are describing is really moral or ethical. So, when in doubt, use ethical. But I bet it will still confuse people.

  Thanks

• 34 Elijah Weber // Feb 13, 2012 at 7:08 am

  There seems to be a lot of consensus here that the moral is a subset of the ethical. That’s what Williams and Dworkin thought, though they are hardly the first to think that. And you raise a good point about the use of the term “ethics” to describe professional codes of conduct. We speak of “medical ethics,” though the content of most codes of ethics makes a fair bit of the obligations that physicians have, a notion that is typically thought to fall under the moral rather than the ethical. It’s tough to know what to make of these sorts of examples, where the desciption of them is put in terms of “ethics,” while their content is mostly that of “the moral.” One thing I’ve noticed from all the comments on this post is that the way we use these terms is not particularly consistent, and sometimes it is downright misleading.

  Your opening comments about the connection between the ethical and the political is interesting. There are certainly cases in the history of philosophy, going back at least to Hobbes, if not all the way to Plato, where the moral and the political were thought to be relevantly connected. But I think it’s an interesting question what the connection between them ought to be. Should we read our moral codes from the political rules that a society gives us, or should we structure our political rules to reflect what we think is true of morality? Where should the non-moral, ethical fit in the political structure, if anywhere?

  Surely we want to leave room for the moral and the political to come apart conceptually, as your example of Eichmann demonstrates convincingly (whether you intended this or not).

  In any event, thanks for reading, and for your contribution to what has been a very productie and intersting discussion.

• 35 Ethics Question // Feb 21, 2012 at 11:01 pm

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• 36 Katarina Berweiler // Feb 26, 2012 at 7:19 pm

  I really enjoyed reading your article. I find myself having troubles also providing difference to ethics vs morals. I consider morals to be what a person holds true to themselves as opposed to ethics being on more of a broader audience. I really liked your comparison to abortion vs the death penalty. It’s interesting to see people be against abortion but for the death penalty. It seems like an oxymoron in a sense.

• 37 Sean Naeger // Mar 22, 2012 at 10:49 am

  Great posts. Let me sum it up as I see it.
  Morality is a finite set of rules or code that does not need justification; e.g. God’s 10 commandments or Hitler’s version of fascism. Within moral codes there can be contradiction. Morality is based off of some social construct, religion, or ethical debate.
  Ethics is a way of discovering or analyzing moral rules or codes. Ethics relies on justification; e.g. Scientific theory. There can be no contradictions in ethics. It must be rational. Ethical codes are not fixed. They can be reworked as new dilemmas are experienced and knowledge is revealed. Ethics evolve.
  The whole debate about ethics vs. morality kind of sounds like religion vs. science. However, once ethical codes are established they become morality. People who don’t understand the rationality behind the laws or codes take them on faith. If you try to understand the reasoning behind the moral codes you are practicing ethics.
  With this being said, be careful of moral codes that cannot be rationalized or changed. One of the most fundamental rules of the universe is that things change. Religious or demagogue morality is finite.

• 38 Andrew Fildes // Apr 1, 2012 at 3:49 am

  So morals are social and ethics rational? Some years ago I was looking at a translation of Aristotle’s Ethics. It suggested an interesting solution to the origin of this confusion. Apparently there were two versions of the word ‘ethike’ - one with diacritical marks (accents) and one without. One meant the personal rules by which one tried to live a good life and the other the rules imposed on you by society with the same aim. The distinction was personal versus social. However,Greek was one of those languages which lost its accents and the words which had been pronounced differently were now difficult to distinguish in demotic (everyday) use. Hence the importation of the Latin word ‘mores’ to fill the gap. Ideally then, ethics are the set of rules a person uses to guide their own bwehaviour and, for me, I like the antian idea that they should be universalisable. Meanwhile morals are socially and culturally drive and can be highly relative to context.

• 39 Kathryn // Apr 6, 2012 at 9:49 am

  Over and over while reading definitions I find optional definitions of morals as a”social standard of behavior”. I consider myself to be amoral rather then immoral as I do not feel the currently popular judeo-christian standards of morality apply to me. I do, however, find myself to have a very high standard of ethics. When researching the difference between ammoral and immoral the definition swap gets more interesting.
  I believe that ethics require reasoning and are more universal while morals are what you were taught is right or wrong and need not have universally valid reasons. Maybe ethics stand the test of time and culture and morals are faddish?

• 40 Richard // Apr 12, 2012 at 7:59 am

  I found this take on the difference interesting.
  http://www.ethicsdefined.org/what-is-ethics/moral-and-ethical-sphere-of-influence/
  What do you think?

• 41 Henry // Apr 15, 2012 at 1:07 pm

  Morality is typically “Right VS Wrong”, “Black VS White”. eg “It’s wrong to kill”.

  Ethics is the study of contradictory moral positions.
  “Abortion is wrong because life is precious” VS “Abortion means less unwanted children, which reduces the crime rate, meaning abortion causes less adults to be murdered”

• 42 Burdett // Jun 13, 2012 at 1:12 am

  Well done. Thank you for explaining it better than what I have been reading on other sites.

• 43 » Ethics in Conflict Phoenix Unlimited Martial Arts // Jul 7, 2012 at 9:59 am

  [...] almost anything, while ethically we require reason and justification for what we believe.  When a doctor violates a certain behavioral standard, this is an ethics violation rather than a moral one.  This [...]

• 44 Mugami // Jul 19, 2012 at 9:00 pm

  I like to say, “I am a very moral man, but I am not ethical.”

  By this, I mean, there is what is right and what is wrong (morals) but this is not the same as what the laws deem to be “right” or “wrong”.

  Examples:
  A child is bullied day after day verbally. One day the boy snaps and beats the hell out of the bully. The bully from then on learns to watch his mouth and all the people thoughout his life he would’ve abused psychologically he doesn’t.
  Did the bullied child do the right thing?
  It was illegal. But was it immoral?

  A woman’s mother attempts to lie in court, claiming her daughter left her children at home alone and was a drug addict. She is and has done neither. But the court favors the grandparents citing that the grandmother has a higher income. The woman procedes to lie and claim her mother used to abuse her, call her fat and worthless and a whore, and uses a medical report of an old accident as false proof that her mother pushed her down the stairs and broke her arm. The mother keeps her kids and usurps the lying grandmother by lying herself.
  This is obviously unethical. But is it immoral?

  A lawyer is told by his client that the client did rape and murder two children. He gets the murderer off on a technicality.
  This is ethical. But not moral.

  What is right or wrong is not the same as what is ethical or unethical.

• 45 Derek Lewis // Jul 30, 2012 at 5:02 pm

  These types of definitions seem to be follow a kind of intuitive natural law if one can but divine it. Has anyone mentioned that these definitions are based on a belief system. Moral presupposes an absolute preexistent order of right and wrong by which an action might be measured and would reasonably make sense to a believer but to a non-believer would lack a necessary explanation based on reason. Ethics it seems to me derive from a human need to create a system of conduct in the absence of belief in a real absolute universal morality. It must be reasoned but need not be reasonable and it may be general or localised to a group of people. Ethics are purpose built by a consensus view of how to acheive an end thought of as good. Both ethics and morals remain unproven then. Believers in morality need a divine order to exist. Believers in ethics need the reasoned consensus view of what is good to not be utterly misguided. Else both morality and ethics are transient and arbitrary systems of conduct based on repressed desires and prejudices of the day. This could explain the nebulous and many overlaps between the two concepts.

• 46 dawood // Jul 30, 2012 at 11:08 pm

  to me morals are generally based on socio-religious norms of society and ethics are the means to activate our moral principles. Different societies and religions tend to differ in their morals.

  In short; Morals are the “science” of how to behave as humans and ethics is the “technology” of delivering this to our society.

• 47 Bradley // Jul 31, 2012 at 11:02 pm

  Seems to me like the differences between the two are even simpler than your example. “Abortion is wrong” is where the moral portion ends. The subsequent clause “because all human life is valuable” is then an ethical statement. You are justifying a moral position based upon a larger, overarching system of belief, one that prioritizes human life. The purpose of the ethicist is then two-fold. First, to determine a standard or value to which all morals will be held accountable (i.e. All human life is valuable), and second, to insure that all other morals adhere to that standard (i.e. Rectifying the contradiction between supporting the death penalty and prioritizing human life).

  This simplification, however, raises another question: how do we make the distinction between an individual’s ethical standard and a corporate one. There seems to be a conception in your definition that defines morals as individual, and ethics as corporate, but I feel that, based on the above clarification, an individual can have a unique ethical standard independent of society. This, however, defeats the argument that morals are subjective and ethics objective, as for an individual an ethical standard could be just as subjective. It is less about objectivity and more about consistency. In this sense, an ethic is still a belief, just like a moral, it is simply a belief that requires justification, reason, consistency, and personal honesty.

  So, when we as a society determine that something someone has done is “unethical,” are we drawing on a set system of ethical standards, or are we simply referring to our own personal ethical standards that happen to be similar or share commonality with the majority of individuals. If it is the former, then what is this set system, and where does it reside? Is it simply the legal system, or is it something more.

• 48 Bradley // Jul 31, 2012 at 11:18 pm

  The above thought is also relevant to many of the previous comments, which also seem to rely on a definition of morals as individual and ethics as corporate. If it is possible for an ethical system to exist in an individual, independent of societal norms, then many of these arguments would need to be nuanced or adjusted. If our ethical systems or standards exist independent of or exceed our society’s legal codes, then ideas of ethical or unethical must also exceed the concepts of legal and illegal.

• 49 Louis Wheeler // Aug 12, 2012 at 11:55 am

  We need some background. First we must agree that there is Truth in the world. This truth is absolute and applicable to each of us. Thus, my truth is your truth. If there is no absolute truth then ethical principles cannot be found. No one would even look for them.

  This takes into consideration that truth is often hard to find and that we must apply rough rules of thumb which are not the whole truth.

  Next we must agree that there are consequences for not obeying the Truth. Those consequences which lead to beneficial results are defined as good and harmful results as bad.

  We must agree that there are principles of belief and action which pursues the good and avoids error and pain. We call those principles Ethics.

  Most people are not wise enough to live a strictly ethical life, so they need rules of practice to avoid unethical behavior. Those rules are called morals.

  “Do unto other as you would have them do unto you” is an ethic. “Thou shall not murder” is a moral. But we must have clear definitions of what the terms mean.

  We also need to understand that unethical people will try to confuse us for personal gain. They will twist definitions in order to trick us into doing their will.

  Relativism says that there is no absolute good or evil. Hence, Relativists tend to do great harm. They say that “The rules that apply to you do not apply to me.” When many people are pauperized, or die, then usually some relativist has been at work.

• 50 Chris // Aug 31, 2012 at 10:43 am

  The meanings people apply to ‘moral’ and ‘ethical’ are clearly varied, as can be seen just by looking at this thread. It’s almost as if we should stop using the words as they have become meaningless.
  In most sentences moral and ethical can be used interchangeably and the sentence would still be understood. Any serious discussion about what is moral or ethical will clearly indicate how the terms are being used and what they mean in that context. As long as we are clear then there is no problem. They are only words.

• 51 Louis Wheeler // Sep 1, 2012 at 7:16 pm

  Morals and Ethics can be interchangeable, but not always. Morals are codified ethics, but a Moral only covers the commonplace and usual. What if you run into new situations? What if technology allows you to skirt Moral strictures? Ethics still applies.

  This is more than just words. What ethics does is to avoid pain and error.

  The problem is that unethical people try to confuse us. They will develop philosophies which allow them to abuse others. Ultimately, such philosophies devolve back on the tribe and life becomes a Hobbesian hell where everyone is at war with everyone else.

  Ethics provides a framework whereby you can pursue your goals without harming others. Where you can find cooperation and friendly competition, because you know your limits.

• 52 Rodgers Mike Matanda // Sep 9, 2012 at 1:16 pm

  It’s really a precise and clear philosophical distinction btn ethics and morality. Jst learnt that moralists are on the side of subjectivity while ethicists are on the objectivity side.

• 53 Ethics, Morals, and (Strange) Law « Walking Humbly, Without a God // Sep 10, 2012 at 6:38 pm

  [...] http://everyday-ethics.org/2008/11/ethics-vs-morals-not-as-easy-as-it-seems/ [...]

• 54 Hossein Rostam // Dec 26, 2012 at 10:43 am

  This is interesting, and there are lots of good comments, but I’m going to be pretentious enough to claim that I know what the distinction is. Morals are empirically observable, ethics are not. You can tell someone you’ve only known for ten minutes that their morals are bad or unusual, but you couldn’t say their ethics are. (Obviously, you COULD say it, and people do interchange the terms all the time, hence this thread… but it would sound presumptuous and like more like an attack on their character) But basically people on the thread already said this… when someone’s morals seem bad, one is tempted to investigate their ethics. When one hears about someone’s ideas about ethics, one wants to see and test it by observing the moral actions it implies. Morality implies action, behavior, and is empirical. Ethics is in the world of ideas, in the mind. Maybe not always rational, but certainly conceptual. Unless you think you can directly observe someone’s ethics (not just extrapolate from their morals), in which case I’m wrong… Lol

• 55 Hossein Rostam // Dec 26, 2012 at 10:59 am

  also, one set of ethics can lead to contradictory morals… like, for me, subjectively, if you have to choose between two lovers, breaking the one persons heart is immoral, making the other one happy is moral. But it’s more ethical to make a choice than to juggle people in limbo. The choice itself is ethical/unethical, it is a concept, the action of actually telling the one person to go away or whatever is in the realm of moral/immoral. Ok, so there are some problems with that, I just realized… but I’m too lazy to think of a better example I think I roughly made something like a point, and I don’t think anyone is going to read this anyway lol

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