# Can we come to a consensus on the differences between ethics and morality? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 5, 2006, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-come-to-a-consensus-on-the-differences-between-ethics-and-morality/347166 "2006-03-05T19:07:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Lynwood\_Slim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Lynwood\_Slim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynwood_Slim)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2006, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-come-to-a-consensus-on-the-differences-between-ethics-and-morality/347166/21 "2006-03-11T05:42:07Z")
> [@Krokodil](#): > > Actually, screw that. I’m gonna stick with my first post. > > Consider: When you read about a politician with “ethical problems,” the story is likely to focus on fiscal improprieties. But if the story is about his “moral problems,” it is likelier to focus on his sex life. > > Sure, “morality” and “ethics” are synonyms. But as with most synonyms, there are nuanced differences between the ways they are commonly used. There is definitely something priggish and Falwellian about “morality” that just doesn’t apply to “ethics.” > > Think I’m wrong, **Lynwood Slim**? Let’s try an experiment. Next time some bubbly young co-ed asks me about my degree, instead of “BA in English,” I’ll say I have a Bachelor’s in, oh, Literature or Writing. It won’t affect my social standing in the slightest. > > When she asks you about your degree, tell her you have a Ph.D. in Morality. Your post supports the usage I learned in graduate school. “Ethics” refers to improprieties typically related to given profession, calling, etc. Influence peddling would be a wrongdoing especially pertaining to politicians, but would be strange to accuse a hotel owner of the same. But I think even secularists would describe slavery as an immoral institution. I have heard secularists call the disparity of wealth in our nation “immoral” and condemn the war in Iraq as “immoral”. I just disagree with your premise that “morality” pertains to religion and “ethics” pertains to secularists. It is a specious distinction. I have no idea what you are talking about the bubbly co’ed comparing your degree in English to my degree in Social Ethics. What are you getting at? ---
**Author:** ![Lynwood\_Slim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Lynwood\_Slim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynwood_Slim)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2006, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-come-to-a-consensus-on-the-differences-between-ethics-and-morality/347166/22 "2006-03-11T05:51:05Z")
> [@sturmhauke](#): > > This seems the most useful definition to me. If two people have very similar sets of values but one is deeply religious and the other is an atheist, why should we say that one has morals while the other has ethics? That doesn’t make a lot of sense. > > The character of Dr. House from the Fox TV show [House](http://www.fox.com/house/) makes for an interesting study. I would describe him as moral but flagrantly unethical. He does his damndest to save his patient’s lives, but he utterly ignores all codes of behavior to do it. He browbeats the truth out of people, lies to them, gives them treatments that might temporarily worsen their conditon to rule out various causes, breaks into their houses to look for disease agents or other clues, even violates court orders. In the most recent episode, > > a man who needs a new heart and a brain dead woman are both in the hospital. Each is declared ineligible to receive or donate, respectively, any transplant organs; the man is thought to be too old and the woman is thought to be in poor health. House won’t accept this, so he talks his boss into recording the operations as experimental and outside the normal transplant procedures, and manipulates the brain dead woman’s husband by forcing a meeting with the old man’s daughter. I agree. Ethics, as it is used by many, would be the application of certain moral values into a specific domain, creating special norms. Ethics, in a way, reduces the arena of moral choice. It is a rule based theory of morality, as opposed to an act based theory. Your depiction of the TV character is an excellent example – he is unethical, but moral. The danger, of course, is that he ignores the wisdom of society as it has created ethical norms. Imagine the therapist who falls in love with her patient, and believes that he truly loves her. Therapist ethics says “no physical contact, and no contact outside the professional parameters.” But since this is true love, and she like the physician you describe, believes in morals and not ethics, permits herself to deviate from ethical standards. Our American appreciation of “rugged individuals” rebels against the strictures of rule bound ethics, but for most of us in the varied profession, those ethical rules are to protect us from our own lack of good judgment and to protect those whom we serve from harm. ---
**Author:** ![Lynwood\_Slim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Lynwood\_Slim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynwood_Slim)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2006, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-come-to-a-consensus-on-the-differences-between-ethics-and-morality/347166/23 "2006-03-11T05:54:01Z")
> [@Kalhoun](#): > > In my mind, ethics are external, social rules of behavior and morals are the internal compass each of us possess. Morals cannot be imposed on others; ethics can because they’ve been agreed to by most rational adults in a given society. > > Morals and ethics can sometimes overlap, but not always. I agree, but add that ethics are derived from moral values. As many use the terms today, they related as a kind of cause and effect: ethics are derived from a given set of moral values as they pertain to given set of human behaviors. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2006, 8:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-come-to-a-consensus-on-the-differences-between-ethics-and-morality/347166/24 "2006-03-11T08:36:01Z")
> [@Lynwood Slim](#): > > I just disagree with your premise that “morality” pertains to religion and “ethics” pertains to secularists. It is a specious distinction. “Ethics” is a framework to promote mutually beneficial interactions between willing participants, and its principal prohibitions are on force and fraud. “Morals” is more of a prohibition of taboos, which vary greatly and almost randomly between societies. Picking fights and stealing stuff is condemned pretty much everywhere, and the ethics that proscribe this behavior are pretty much understood by people everywhere. Moral concepts are more religion- and area-specific; marrying your cousin is forbidden in some tribes and hunky-dory in others. So is eating pork or working on Sunday. These concerns differ from ethical ones, not because someone is obviously victimised by them, but because some cultures find them wrong at something approaching the religious level. > [@](#): > > I have no idea what you are talking about the bubbly co’ed comparing your degree in English to my degree in Social Ethics. What are you getting at? Just what I said earlier about “morality” having priggish, Falwellian baggage associated with it that “ethics” doesn’t have. I suspect that people impressed with your credentials as an “ethicist” might be put off by similar credentials as a “moralist.” ---
**Author:** ![Lynwood\_Slim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Lynwood\_Slim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynwood_Slim)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2006, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-come-to-a-consensus-on-the-differences-between-ethics-and-morality/347166/25 "2006-03-11T13:57:02Z")
> [@Krokodil](#): > > “Ethics” is a framework to promote mutually beneficial interactions between willing participants, and its principal prohibitions are on force and fraud. “Morals” is more of a prohibition of taboos, which vary greatly and almost randomly between societies. Picking fights and stealing stuff is condemned pretty much everywhere, and the ethics that proscribe this behavior are pretty much understood by people everywhere. Moral concepts are more religion- and area-specific; marrying your cousin is forbidden in some tribes and hunky-dory in others. So is eating pork or working on Sunday. These concerns differ from ethical ones, not because someone is obviously victimised by them, but because some cultures find them wrong at something approaching the religious level. > > Just what I said earlier about “morality” having priggish, Falwellian baggage associated with it that “ethics” doesn’t have. I suspect that people impressed with your credentials as an “ethicist” might be put off by similar credentials as a “moralist.” I think you have concocted your own definitions, and projected emotions pertaining thereto on innocent co’eds, very likely bursting their innocent bubbliness. Not that you can’t make up your own definitions. I just don’t think they add any clarity to the topic. Maybe you should make a distinction between “morals” (having to do with right and wrong) and “moralizing” (the priggish behavior of our friend Falwell, and given some of his decidedly offensive pronouncements – may he fall badly). ---
**Author:** ![El\_Zagna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d2c977/32.png) [@El\_Zagna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Zagna)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2006, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-come-to-a-consensus-on-the-differences-between-ethics-and-morality/347166/26 "2006-03-11T15:35:25Z")
One of the first threads that I ever started on the SD was about the difference between ethics and morals. Alas, the thread seems to have disappeared by now, but the answer that I came away with is one that has been stated a time or two in this thread, and that is that morals have to do with issues of right and wrong that are between you and your god(s) or within yourself while ethics have to do with issues of right and wrong that are between you and others. That distinction has worked for me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-come-to-a-consensus-on-the-differences-between-ethics-and-morality/347166.md?page=1)