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Ethics, Morals, and Ethical Theory

In ordinary language, the words ethics and morals are used interchangeably to refer to standards of conduct or social norms that guide proper behavior. The English ethics derives from the Greek ethika, meaning character or custom, and is related to the Latin mores, also meaning custom, which gave us the word moral. Some philosophers, however, distinguish between the two. Morals is often taken to refer to universal norms of human behavior—the distinction between good and evil—whereas ethics is used as a generic term for all the different ways scholars use to understand and examine our moral lives (Beauchamp and Childress 2001). Some approaches to ethics are normative while others are nonnormative. Normative approaches seek to discover and justify the general standards of be­havior we should accept, and to apply them to specific situations. Nonnormative approaches can be descriptive—that is, factual investigations of moral con­duct and belief—or what is called meta-ethics, the analysis of ethical language, concepts, and methods of reasoning. Morality generally refers to norms for right and wrong human conduct that are so widely shared they form a stable social consensus. Here it is important to distinguish between what many philosophers call the common morality, the norms that all serious persons share, and communal norms that are shared only by a specific community. Common morality, although it cannot be specified precisely, is universal. Communal norms are similar to the common morality but are specific to a particular group, like a religious or cultural community. Common morality also includes moral ideals and extraordinary virtues, which call us to exhibit morally exemplary behavior. Common morality seems to spring from human nature as shaped by living together in community. Successful communal life requires that people adhere to certain standards of behavior. For example, a principle of promise keeping seems essential to any society, whatever its specific organization. Similarly, the arbitrary harming or killing of other people cannot be tolerated in a civilized society. A principle of truth telling seems essential to all human relationships.