I don't think the definitions are used entirely consistently; supposedly "ethics" deals more with specific "rules", while "morality" deals more with principles, philosophy, etc.

It seems from my Google-fu abilities that ethics supercedes morality.

So, what's with the difference between the two, subjectivity??

Morality - priniciples (e.x. respect for others' property, personal autonomy, etc)

Ethics - rules (e.x. laws and punishments for theft, murder, rape, fraud, etc).

From Wiki: "...and directly from Latin moralis "proper behavior of a person in society," literally "pertaining to manners," coined by Cicero ("De Fato," II.i) to translate Greek ethikos (see ethics)..."

In short, if you are going to refer to them, then you have to decide and make clear what you mean, or there's a good chance no one, even including you, will know what you're referring to.

Morality is an informal public system applying to all rational persons, governing behavior that affects others, having the lessening of evil or harm as its goal, and including what are commonly known as the moral rules, moral ideals, and moral virtues. Ethics is the philosophical study of morality. It is divided into the general study of goodness, the general study of right action, applied ethics, descriptive ethics, metaethics, moral psychology, the metaphysics of moral responsibility, etc.

The former is the latter's subject matter.

Sup, nice to see you around.

If ethics supercedes morality as the subject matter of inquiry, then why not say that all of morality begets in the domain of ethics? Or even otherwise, how do you explain the differences between the two concepts?

Howdy :victory:

I'm not sure I understand your first question. However, I will say that there is no consensus about what morality consists in, so any definition we supply must be rather vague and all-encompassing. On certain metaethical views, the existence of morality is questioned and even denied, so any sort of positive definition, for them, would just stand proxy for "what morality is generally taken to mean" in ordinary [philosophical] discourse. Where morality refers to a wide range of observer-relative phenomena, ethics just is a study of that phenomena. Morality, on this view, is to ethics as wealth, GDP, stocks, etc. is to economics.

:up:

Hm. I would have said this was exactly wrong.

Morality is mere codification; ethics is rational analysis.

Sup, nice to see you around. — Shawn

Second that. :cool:

Thanks, all of you guys too :cool:

However, I will say that there is no consensus about what morality consists in, so any definition we supply must be rather vague and all-encompassing. — Wolfman

I guess, what I'm trying to say is that if morality is so rife with subjectivity, then ethics should be of greater concern than what one might consider as "moral". Returning back to the OP, we often can say that a person behaved immorally or was amoral towards what would have been concerned as ethical.

So, I guess what I am asking is that if nothing can be said about what is moral due to its subjectivity, then I suppose the point is that ethics should be of main concern when discussing about what is moral.

I hope that doesn't sound like gibberish.

Ethics is more rooted in the principles of a ‘natural law’ whereas morality is more rooted in choice rather than subscribing to there being an actual law - as far as I can tell.

In modern parse they are used interchangeably, and in philosophical discourse these terms have been used in different ways over the centuries.

Personally I find it most useful to view ‘ethics’ as more or less what is deemed lawful or abhorrent by most people, where morality is more about acting as you see fit regardless outside pressures. At the end of the day they are chained together because we cannot act against ethical ideologies without being influenced by them in the first place.

In this sense I view sticking to an ‘ethical’ position as being to adhere to what others deem fit, whereas to be truly ‘moralistic’ is to do something unethical and suffer the consequences knowingly because you have the conviction to see past the use of adhering to some ‘moral code’ that fits all.

Ethics is the study of what is moral in the same way that physics is the study of what is real.

There is no substantive difference between the subject matter of “morality” and “ethics”. Morality is the subject matter of ethics; ethics is the field that studies morality.

Attempts to say some normative things are “ethical” not “moral” or vice versa are all misguided.

There is no important difference in the terms, broadly they're about what is "right and wrong", and how we should behave based on those facts. You're free to assume that normative ethics is just a fancy term for morality. Because meta-ethics can go any number of different ways, under some frameworks there is zero difference.

That said, you will find some people making formal distinctions in some cases. Usually they use ethics to refer to what we should or should not do (it's like a set of rules governing social interaction),and morality to refer to the individual process of figuring out what we should or should not do, or the capacity for ethical behavior in and of itself.

I guess, what I'm trying to say is that if morality is so rife with subjectivity, then ethics should be of greater concern than what one might consider as "moral". Returning back to the OP, we often can say that a person behaved immorally or was amoral towards what would have been concerned as ethical.

So, I guess what I am asking is that if nothing can be said about what is moral due to its subjectivity, then I suppose the point is that ethics should be of main concern when discussing about what is moral.

I hope that doesn't sound like gibberish. — Shawn

If I'm understanding you correctly, then yes, I think so. But let me say more...

That morality has a [inter]subjective mind-dependent element to it does not in itself license the conclusion that doing normative ethics is a mislead enterprise; nor that any of its conclusions are necessarily impractical or unworkable.

The modern moralist only became obsessed with action-based/consequence-based ethics rather recently, sometime in the last 300 years. But the term ‘moral,’ traces its roots back to the Greek word êthos, which just meant character. For the Ancient Greeks, there was nothing mystical or metaphysical about ethics, and there was no obsession with trying to produce definitive answers to irresolvable moral dilemmas, or trying to abide by some rigid, undiscerning imperative. They were more concerned with finding out what good character traits consist in, and then they taught them to people.

According to my view, the wisdom of the ages has shown us that there are some traits, or virtues, that are, on balance, better for people to possess -- that is, they are more conducive to our individual and collective well-being/flourishing.

What these virtues are is largely an open-ended question. But one thing is clear: we share a world with many other human beings. If we don’t teach these people, we must endure them, as Marcus Aurelius points out. Aristotle always maintained that ethics is a practical science, not a precise one; and so we should not expect mathematical certainty.

I've always had a problem in differentiating the difference between ethics and morality. Can someone provide a brief explanation between what differentiates the two?

My second question, perhaps related to the above, is why do we call certain behavior as amoral or immoral, whilst calling behavior that is unethical, as "unethical"? I've never encountered anyone saying that some behavior is a-ethical or im-ethical. — Shawn

Ethics vs Morality

Quite different from the link contents I believe ethics is the study of morality and morality is about what is right and wrong. There maybe different moralities but there's only one kind of ethics.

Yeah that link is just wrong.

Here’s some further reading:

https://www.iep.utm.edu/anci-mod/

There is no difference between ethics and morality. One is Greek and the other is Latin, the latter being a translation of the former. The terms are used interchangeably and when they are not, a distinction is made that is completely artificial.

In philosophy we don’t need two terms for the same phenomenon. Language is too confusing as it is, and a lot of philosophical discussion is merely caused by a confusion about the meaning of words. Simplification and reduction is a good method for finding a common understanding, and the last thing you want is to invent subtle distinctions that can be avoided.

Ethics/morality is what concerns right or wrong human behavior. We need one word that covers that entire area and not two words that each somehow covers two different parts of it.

That being said, there may be stylistic and idiomatic reasons why you would want to choose one word and not the other. We talk about work ethics and prefer to say bourgeois morality. That has to do with linguistic tradition and in a well-crafted text one can of course never be indifferent to the choice of words. Two synonyms that have the exact same extension may still have a different emotional value. It is important for literature but shouldn’t worry us in philosophy.

"The term "morals" derives from the Latin word for "manners, customs," and "ethics" derives from the Greek word for "manners, customs." They are thus perfectly interchangeable. Having said this, some philosophers have assigned different meanings to the two terms. In Kant, for example, "morals" designates the ensemble of first principles., and "ethics" refers to their application. Luc Ferry, A Brief History of Thought, 2011, p. 13. And so forth.

At one end then - the beginning- they're the same thing. At the other, they mean whatever someone says they mean.

I see Congau gets there first

No one mentioned this so I'll posit: In broad brush terms, Ethics relates to objective standards for human happiness and quality of life issues/values ( i.e., Pragmatism). Morals tend to stay in the right-wrong, good-evil, volitional/ behavioral phenomena category. Many folks use them interchangeably because there is some overlap.