What’s the difference between the two?
Just a stab it it.
I thinks ethics probably refers to the application of moral decision making practices, and is a subject of debate (GD being where I think this thread might be headed) because people differ a bit on just how much one must tell another party involved in a common venture. Some things are widely regarded as unethical, while others (such as attornies advertising) are subject to debate.
IMHO
I would think that morals is something that desribes a persons inner beliefs (such as a stand on right to life) while ethics is how you apply your morals in dealing with other people (not taking advantage of someone in a weak position).
I think of it like this:
Morals are imposed from outside one’s self by one’s society, or one’s church, or one’s family, or some combination of all of the above. The Ten Commandments are morals, if you believe them.
Ethics, however, are something that are arrived at after philosophical thought and introspection.
Part of my frustration with morals, by these definitions, is that they can be manipulated by the leaders of religions and societies, as has happened innumerable times in the past; given constant reenforcement, most people never stop believing what they were told from birth.
An interesting example:
A family comes to the United States from an Arabian theocracy (perhaps Iran). In this country, law and religion are so intertwined that lawyers and theologians are one and the same. The family consists of a father, a mother, a son of perhaps fifteen, and a daughter of perhaps two. The father, mother, and son, having grown up with a background of religious law, hold many of the morals they grew up with. The daughter, on the other hand, grows up in an American society, and acquires many American morals (notice that I am carefully not using the word “ethics”). As such, when she is about sixteen or seventeen, she gets a boyfriend (against her father’s wishes), and has sex with him. From an American viewpoint, this is not horrible; a little unwise perhaps, but in this case they were practicing safe sex, and she didn’t get pregnant or catch any STD’s, so it’s not a huge deal. On the other hand, from the viewpoint of the religious law that Dad and brother grew up with, this is contravention of God’s word, and there is no solution but to kill her. This responsibility falls by the law they grew up with to her father, but he is much older now, and feels he cannot perform the duty, so he calls on his son to carry out God’s wishes. Son, being a dutiful and religious man, kills his sister and immediately leaves America for the country he came from.
In America, everybody knows that the son killed his sister; there would be evidence of it, and perhaps even witnesses. Clearly murder in the first, since the killing was planned well in advance. The son may even have sought advice from friends or other people who he knew would understand his obligation to kill his sister for her sins.
In his Arabian home, though, the son becomes a respected man. God has given him a hard duty, and he acted well and performed his duty as required. Certainly, he is sad that his sister had to be killed, but doesn’t this just prove that America is the Great Satan, and their ways and influence are evil?
Every member of this (theoretical, but based on fact) family acted morally. The son acted as his father and his God asked him to. The father, heavy in heart, but knowing both God’s requirement and his own weakness, asked his son to take the painful duty, and then provided the means for his son to escape to a safe place afterwards. The daughter, having a somewhat different set of morals, knew that having sex with her boyfriend was not a big deal, and was careful to protect herself from possible complications by insisting that the sex be safe.
Did each member of the family act ethically, though? I certainly don’t know. They probably thought they did, each and every one of them. But, just as American Christians never examine ethically their moral that all killing is wrong, many others never examine ethically that his killing was right; they just accept the morals they grew up with.
I don’t want to start a flamewar or a debate about the ethicality of killing in htis circumstance or any other; I’m too tired to deal with it. What I do want to start is introspection. Ask yourself, each and every day, "Was this the right thing to do? Why? Because God told me so? Did the men who wrote down the Word of God twist His words, either for their own ends or from simple ignorance? I can assure you that at least some of them did, men being fallible.
The whole reason for my distinction between morals and ethics is that developing a system of ethics is hard work. The whole reason religion and other popular causes such as environmentalism are so popular (one of them, anyway) is that they free the common man from that hard work. He can go right ahead and plant and reap, knowing that wiser men than he have done his thinking for him. If you’re willing to be led by other men, and accept what they say, then these popular pursuits might be a good thing for you. Many people have a certain need for the strong leadership that they offer; many people have no idea even where to begin to start developing their own ethics; many people simply believe what they have been told every day of their lives, and are just incapable of thinking otherwise. If, on the other hand, you’d like to spend every waking moment debating with yourself and others, reading dusty books written by others of similar bent, perhaps write a book or three yourself, and generally gain a reputation as being a deep but useless thinker, you may wish to become a philosopher. It doesn’t pay well, so plan to have a day job, too.
Is it easier to believe the preacher (whatever his topic), or to research the topic yourelf, and draw your own conclusions? Is it easier to toss your paper cup in the recycle bin, or preach to your friends that paper recycling is actually harmful to the environment?
I decided that it couldn’t be ethical to let others set my morals.
A committee is a lifeform with six or more legs and no brain.
What does this mean? Does it mean that no Iranian did that in this country, but that you believe such a killing to be a religious mandate to any Shiite Moslem or whatever?
One, maybe somewhat irrelevant, thing: Iran isn’t “Arabian”/Arabic but Persian. And are you sure such mandate for a family member to kill a girl/woman under such circumstances arises from an Islamic belief, or maybe just the local custom in the particular part of the Middle East? And what’s this about “American Christians” believing that “all killing is wrong”? I thought most of them believed that, if they marched off to war and killed for their Uncle, God would be on their side and they would become heroes, possibly be buried in the National Cemetary and be welcomed in heaven. And are you saying that if the girl in your story had gotten an STD, it would’ve been OK to snuff her?
Ethics may involve work, but I surely don’t see that it need to. Using your extreme case (which probably wasn’t a good choice to serve your purpose), it seems to me that someone – growing up where people don’t go around killing their friends and relatives, and don’t leave guns around for kids to do such without knowing what can happen if they play with them, in the vast majority of cases – just wouldn’t desire to do, or end up doing, such a thing – and those who would wouldn’t invoke a religious rule or ponder their conscious ethics.
My dictionary [Amer Heritage, 2nd Coll Ed, 1982 compares ‘moral’ to ‘ethical’ thus:
“Moral pertains to personal behavior (especially sexual) measured by prevailing standards of rectitude. Ethical approaches behavior from a philosophical standpoint; it stresses more objectively defined, but essentially idealistic, standards of right and wrong, such as those applicable to the practices of lawyers, doctors, and businessmen.”
You gave an example of a controversial lawyers’ ethic – whether one should advertise. I think the distinction more important to our times is the one between public ethics and professional/occupational ethics. Public ethics is self-explanatory – by, for and of the public. Occupational ethics (the snotty professions don’t have a monopoly on them) generally involves a mix of rules as to right and wrong behavior of members of the relevant occupation, both as aimed at the welfare of their clients / customers / the public, as fellow human beings, and at the welfare of their own membership. The public should especially take note of exactly which group is being protected by any rule in any code of such “ethics”. The rule as to attorneys advertising is, of course, fought only among attorneys, over what advertising does to their status, which they seem to like to compare to that of physicians. On the other hand, physicians usually go for that Hippocratic business of favoring other physicians first, when it comes to passage of information. In actuality, however, in most jurisdictions, the codes of both of these so-called professions don’t mean much of a darn thing to the public, because only the professionals enforce these codes through their state/provincial boards.
But as a computer consultant, you should onsult Hal as to morals and ethics. Shouldn’t be any work at all – all laid out in hexidecimally coded tablets. 
Ray
It means that this scenario was presented to me as an exercise in an ethics class as fact and as having happened in California, and that I am paraphrasing it as best I can recollect, as I do not have citations handy. Even if this event did NOT occur, the specifics are completly unimportant. The story was intended to illustrate the difference between my definitions of “moral” and “ethical.” The characters could have been from Mars, and the issue could have been theft of a blue rock. It matters not.
You’re right, it is irrelevant. See above.
The boy killed his sister because he thought it was the right thing to do. I don’t know if it was or not. I’m not attacking him or defending him. The sister swived her boyfriend because she thought it was the right thing to do. I also do not know if that was the right thing to do. I am also not attacking or defending her.
This is not some quaint local custom, but one of a large number of religiously-based laws which the people in many parts of the world follow.
Ahem.
“Thou shalt not kill.”
–God
Many Christians have, in fact, protested against wars because of the above commandment. The ones who do go to war tend to be pretty fatalistic about it, as near as I can tell, saying things like “It must be God’s will,” and such. I think you’re confusing Christians with radical Moslems, who believe that, if they die in prosecution of a jihad, they will be transported to paradise in the afterlife.
And I refuse to take a position on whether it was right to kill anyone, in any circumstances. Again, this was an exercise to show the difference betwen my definition of moral and my definition of ethical.
But, see, the whole frigging POINT of the EXERCISE was to show that some other people from ANOTHER PLACE where people DO GO AROUND KILLING THEIR FRIENDS AND RELATIVES do desire to do and do end up doing just this sort of thing BECAUSE THAT’S THEIR MORAL CODE, BECAUSE GOD TOLD THEM SO. And then, you should have gone, “Whoa, that’s really interesting. These folks feel just the way I do about their actions, but their actions were essentially different than mine. I wonder how that happened. I wonder how many of my unthinking actions are the result of my mother’s-milk indoctrination, and how many are the product of rational thought.”
But you didn’t.
So, in other words, your dictionary said exactly what you took me to task for saying: that morals are based on what others around us train us to do, while ethics are the result of thought and research, often in an abstract manner.
Um, no, actually, I didn’t. If you were to go back and read the thread, I think you’d find that was beatle. No relation.
I don’t think you understood a thing I said. Ethics are work, and are based on deep introspection and thought. Not the sort of things computers are good at at all.
A committee is a lifeform with six or more legs and no brain.
Sorry, gotta rewrite a paragraph. Changes in boldface:
But, see, the whole frigging POINT of the EXERCISE was to show that some other people from ANOTHER PLACE where people DO GO AROUND KILLING THEIR FRIENDS AND RELATIVES do desire to do so and do end up doing just this sort of thing BECAUSE THAT’S THEIR MORAL CODE, BECAUSE GOD TOLD THEM SO. And then, you should have gone, “Whoa, that’s really interesting. These folks feel the same way about their actions as I do about mine, but their actions were essentially different than mine. I wonder how that happened. I wonder how many of my unthinking actions are the result of my mother’s-milk indoctrination, and how many are the product of rational thought.”
A committee is a lifeform with six or more legs and no brain.
My definitions, & I don’t care if you agree or not.
1-Morality: a code of conduct derived from a religion.
2-Ethics: a code of conduct applying to a specific ** profession**; i.e. lawyer or physician.
3-Integrity or Honor: a code of conduct, demanding or not; personally accepted by the individual ,of his own free will, the nature of which is decided upon by that individual; and which applies only to that individual.
4-A Philosophy: a standard of personal honor or integrity that has been codified and shared with others; but does not specifically refer to a religion.
Opinions?
With magic, you can turn a frog into a prince. With science, you can turn a frog into a Ph.D, and you still have the frog you started with.