[Oly]

I don't know.

[Chameleon]

Ball, and ball rolling; simply put.

[Miryr]

Morality is your own beliefs on what is right while ethics is the bullshit that people tell you should be done for the common good.

[Oly]

I didn't really get this

	Originally Posted by Chameleon To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Ball, and ball rolling; simply put.

either until I read this:

	Originally Posted by Miryr To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Morality is your own beliefs on what is right while ethics is the bullshit that people tell you should be done for the common good.

Thanks for your thoughts, I like hearing other people's definitions rather than jargon-y versions! :D

[DeaconSyre]

	Originally Posted by Oly To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Thanks for your thoughts, I like hearing other people's definitions rather than jargon-y versions! :D

Unfortunately, jargon-y versions of things generally have more data density. Which given INTJ's preference for efficiency...

[Oly]

	Originally Posted by DeaconSyre To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Unfortunately, jargon-y versions of things generally have more data density. Which given INTJ's preference for efficiency...

What's the part after the ellipsis?

[DeaconSyre]

	Originally Posted by Oly To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	What's the part after the ellipsis?

The ellipsis represents INTJs' predicted action of sticking with the most efficient action.

[Warrior]

Morality is your sense of right and wrong. It can be derived from a number of sources, but ultimately it is what you believe to be right and wrong.

Ethics are agreements between two or more people, groups, or organizations that you generally have a choice to enter into. Sometimes this choice is explicit, sometimes it is implicit. Agreeing to an ethical code can be a condition of entry into a group or organization. Ethics can cover a wide variety of behaviors. It can overlap with morality and it can also cover areas that don't have a moral component to them.

[aku chi]

Wikipedia tells me that ethics is the "branch of philosophy which addresses questions about morality" (
To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
).

[Equinox]

Ethics: What must we do to abide by the written and unwritten rules of society?
Morality: What should we do to be as good as possible?

---------- Post added 01-16-2012 at 11:59 AM ----------

You can be moral without being ethical and ethical without being moral.

[Trevor Black]

It's in the dictionary.

	moral 1. of, pertaining to, or concerned with the principles or rules of right conduct or the distinction between right and wrong; ethical: moral attitudes.

	morality 1. conformity to the rules of right conduct; moral or virtuous conduct. 2. moral quality or character. 3. virtue in sexual matters; chastity. 4. a doctrine or system of morals.

ethics 1. a system of moral principles: the ethics of a culture. 2. the rules of conduct recognized in respect to a particular class of human actions or a particular group, culture, etc.: medical ethics; Christian ethics. 3. moral principles, as of an individual: His ethics forbade betrayal of a confidence. 4. 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.

Ethics usually though not necessarily imply a larger study of moral matters, such as a more encompassing perspective or one in which a full group of individuals and not just a single individual take part in.

[Jason]

I think aku chi's Wikipedia definition comes closest to the way I understand ethics and morality. Over time, it's possible the two terms have been separated conceptually. But as far as most of the ancients were concerned, the two ideas were practically interchangeable. "Ethics" derives from the ancient Greek ethos, which refers to the active state of performing right actions; while "morality" is simply the Latin version moralis, which basically describes the same thing: a proper or right way of living.

[Disillusioned]

We just discussed these in two of my ethics classes.

Morality is your own conception of right and wrong no matter where it comes from.

Ethics requires an appeal to reason and intellectual thought about a particular moral issue. Ethics should be able to be expressed in academia terms that all can understand with appeal to reason and evidence not just "God told me, so it's right". Religion doesn't play much role in ethics but it can in morality.

Examples of ethics are the field of bio-ethics or the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. If you look at the Declaration of Human Rights you will not find an appeal to any particular religion. It is not necessary or warranted when establishing ethical views that should be easily understood by all. In short ethics requires rational justification in a way that it can be academically discussed, morality does not.

Ethics is a field of academia and philosophy, and it is treated as one. Religion does not play a role in academia which is about using reason and evidence to come to rational conclusions about the world. It is a secular institution.

[nettneu]

Originally Posted by Disillusioned To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Examples of ethics are the field of bio-ethics or the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. If you look at the Declaration of Human Rights you will not find an appeal to any particular religion. It is not necessary or warranted when establishing ethical views that should be easily understood by all. In short ethics requires rational justification in a way that it can be academically discussed, morality does not.

I don't see that the UN declaration contains any rational justification. It's just a list of demands. Or is there a justification in some other document?

By the way, I presume that when you say that religion "is not necessary or warranted when establishing ethical views that should be easily understood by all", you mean "by all those who are intended to subscribe to the code of ethics in question"? So that if it was, for example, a code of ethics for Roman Catholic clergy, an appeal to a particular religion would certainly be warranted, and indeed in that case would by the only premise on which any acceptable rational justification could be based.

[CanadianWill]

Unfortunately the two terms are more or less interchangeable in most discourse; even in academia there's no hard and fast rule for usage.

That being said I happen to like this set of definitions, courtesy of Ronald Dworkin:
Ethics is primarily concerned with what people should do to live a good life--what they should aim to be and achieve.
Morality is primarily concerned with the interactions between people and the structure of society; it makes claims about how people ought to treat each other.

As you can see there is still some overlap between the two since they're essentially different facets of the same question.

You could also think of Ethics as more of a second-order reflection on Morality (Morality here being understood as the accepted norms of a society).

[E148]

Ethics is moral philosophy, as has been stated already. It tries to answer the question what should we do, as individuals and as a society. It can be based in religion but usually is not. Kant's Categorical Imperative is considered quite often in the study of ethics. But Kant himself was a monk. He did not quote the Bible in his writings.

Morality can be based on ethical theories but usually not. I tend to think of morality and religion --- ethics and philosophy.

But for most intents and purposes they are the same. So, when a politician says so and so was unethical and immoral I cringe. He was being redundant.

[UltraIncredible]

	Originally Posted by nettneu To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	I don't see that the UN declaration contains any rational justification. It's just a list of demands. Or is there a justification in some other document?

It's a pretty good starting point for how people can effectively get along together. Although a couple of points may be controversial/political, most of them can be agreed on by people who want to maximize their chances at having a good life. Kind of like the Bill of Rights in the U.S.

Ethics/morality is all just a branch of decision theory, the act of calculating to maximize certain goals based mostly on the genetic preferences of the relevant parties.

[Nathanael]

Originally Posted by Disillusioned To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

We just discussed these in two of my ethics classes. Morality is your own conception of right and wrong no matter where it comes from. Ethics requires an appeal to reason and intellectual thought about a particular moral issue. Ethics should be able to be expressed in academia terms that all can understand with appeal to reason and evidence not just "God told me, so it's right". Religion doesn't play much role in ethics but it can in morality. Examples of ethics are the field of bio-ethics or the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. If you look at the Declaration of Human Rights you will not find an appeal to any particular religion. It is not necessary or warranted when establishing ethical views that should be easily understood by all. In short ethics requires rational justification in a way that it can be academically discussed, morality does not. Ethics is a field of academia and philosophy, and it is treated as one. Religion does not play a role in academia which is about using reason and evidence to come to rational conclusions about the world. It is a secular institution.

This. Ethics drives from the greek concept of ethos, the "character" of a society and their ideology. Ethos is also an element of rhetoric where one's character compels the audience to belief - a reliable narrator by virtue of their integrity, a trustworthy, knowledgeable source, etc. Ethics is something we should be able to come to a consensus on, while morality is intensely personal and potentially irrational.