Saturday, December 14, 2013
Is This Right?
To paraphrase Pat Summitt, if you have to stop and think about whether or not it's a good idea, it isn't. That's comforting in some ways, though I'm not sure I agree. Do you? Certainly, this philosophy depends on a clear sense of both ethics and morality. In this vein, let's keep exploring what these mean, both categorically and personally. Please do a little research (you may choose to begin here) on definitions of Ethics and Morality. Read, think, synthesize, create. Share your sources and share your own definitions. Please complete this writing by 9:30 Monday evening and arrive Tuesday having read everyone's definitions. It's the right thing to do.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
After doing some research on the definitions and history behind the philosophy of morals and ethics, I am still a bit foggy on how I should go about defining them clearly... However, I believe I have managed to at least separate the two from their own intertwining definitions.
ReplyDeleteTo begin, I read up on morals, which in my head tend to come first. Morals to my understanding are a set of rules you learn and formulate for yourself. One does not come into this world with their own list all ready and set to follow, however as they grow up, they form a set of ideals that make them satisfied (with their personal soul) living here on Earth. For example: I was not born a vegan, yet through developing my emotional self, and learning how I think about the rest of the world, I chose to not consume any animal products. Hurting another creature is against my morals.
On the other hand we must define ethics. When researching a general definition for ethics I came across one that relates back to morals: “a set of moral principles, esp. ones relating to or affirming a specified group, field, or form of conduct.” What I have extracted from this and what now sticks in my personal dictionary, is the idea that ethics have to do with a set of moral ideals. Relating this back to myself I might include the practice of veganism, as well as daily yoga and meditation. As I began to find myself as a person and defined whom I wanted to be, I ended up practicing what many would categorize as “Buddhist ethics.” Buddhism is based on the principals of kindness and doing no harm to other living things, as well as finding who you were meant to be within your soul. It is a very internal and emotional state of living that I have gravitated towards and define as my general ethics for life.
In simpler words…Morals are the single snowflake that is you, while ethics are the various different mounds of snow that each little snowflake falls into.
https://www.google.com/search?q=definition+of+ethics&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
Deletehttps://www.google.com/search?q=definition+of+morals&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
As I am about to start my research I’m just thinking about a few questions that I have and ultimately would like to find the answer to. The first thing I want to know is if ethics and values are different and if so, how do they differ? I also want to find out if there is a direct relationship between the two terms and if one exists I want to know what it is. I would also like to know if there can be a universal definition of both and what I can I learn or take home from my research. I will now try to answer these by possible looking at various web definitions and articles.
ReplyDeleteTo start, I ended up on Ask.com which is not quite reliable at times but I wanted to get a starting point with basic information. Surprisingly it gave me a very clear and precise definition of each and differentiated them. It stated, “While morality refers to personal character and values, ethics refer to certain set codes of conduct expected of a certain group of people. Morality is determined by what one considers to be wrong or right while ethics are set behaviors that are acceptable in certain environments. Ethics are determined by external factors such as religion, peer group or profession.” I originally planned to try and paraphrase this definition and make it clearer but its definition was already so clear and easy to understand that I had difficulties paraphrasing without confusing myself. So I decided to state it as is and make comments about it. To start with three of my questions have already been answered. Ethics and Morals are different terms and not quite synonymous. They differ in that morality is more individual and internal while ethics are more rigid and societal. I also previously hypothesized that ethics would be dependent on the culture of a place, their religion, educational background etc. Another thing I hypothesized after reading that definition is that morals usually stick with one since its more internal while ethics change from place to place or society to society. as I continued browsing through web pages wisegeek.com sort of confirmed this by saying that ethics change and that is why there are social ethics, work ethics, company ethics and family ethics meaning that these are a combined set of codes or behavior that a person belonging to a specific group is expected to follow. However, after doing research and I have not found any direct relationship between the ethics and morality while they do have implications involving wrong are right in my opinion there is a clear cut difference between the two.
The right thing to do; what is it?
ReplyDeleteIm going to start my blog post today by saying that I think that there is no way to explore these concepts individually. Theres always a bigger picture, theres always something more to look at and assess. But I've heard that it is impossible to explore every big question in the universe within the 90 minutes our TOK class has together each week so I'm going to try to simplify by sharing my research.
There are two different theories that I became interested in while searching the web:
non cognitivists: error theorists (philosophers, thinkers, whatever you wanna call them) who believe that there are no moral properties or moral facts.
These people believe that moral statements have no substantial truth in them; this doesn't make them false. They think that morals are more similar (cognitively) to desires, approval, or disapproval, rather than true beliefs.
Basically, what I think this is saying is that morals are not an altogether different concept then a strong sense of approval, disapproval, wanting or not wanting, etc. They are not based on a certain faith or fact. I liked where this was going.
Cognitivism: the belief that moral statements express beliefs and truth and falsity. (basically the opposite of non cognitivism, duh)
sidenote: they can, like non coognitivists, believe that moral statements are false.
I'm inclined to explore non- cognitivists, who believe that theres a strong connection between "moral" judgements and the motivation to act. Basically, people believe that humans have to have specific motivation, whether through past experience or something they were taught, in order to than have morals based on them. This has to do with emotion, and from there comes the emotivists, who believe that an action can be considered "right" just because someone approves of it.
This doesn't get me any closer to exploring the boundaries of right and wrong and the fine line between them, but it certainly opens up a new world of possibilities that we have yet to talk about. Its also somewhat comforting to know that people are still arguing about it, and some of the greatest minds in the world are no closer to an answer of what is rigt and wrong.
Note: Morals and ethics are human defined concepts. Is there still right and wrong if humans don't exist anymore? If so, what are examples of right and wrong?
Before writing last post, I thought morality and ethics meant the same thing because in Chinese, there aren’t two different words for these two ideas. It is really hard for me to distinguish these two. After the last class and researching, I realize that morality is one individual’s principles of differentiate right and wrong and ethics also works to define how things are but by using the principles set by a bigger group.
ReplyDeleteMy definition of morality is the principles I use for myself to distinguish right and wrong, good and bad. For example, I would never take three prices of brownie from the dining hall. I know there are a lot of people so we need to share. From the perspective of ethics, no one would care whether or not one take three pieces of brownies. There are not such principles saying that if you take three pieces of brownies, you are terrible, or wonderful. However, my moral tells me that I should not take three pieces of brownies. I don’t tell this to the others. They may have their reasons to take the amount of brownies they want. I can’t interfere with it. Hence, morality differs from people and is not able to affect one another.
For ethics, it is the rules in one group, community or culture. There are many different kinds of ethics. The ethics in different career vary. For example, there are business ethics, feminist ethics, African and ethics and so on. These ethics have different focus and emphasis. Something can be wrong according to ethics A and be right according to ethics B.
When I was looking at the chart on diffen.com, the differences between the flexibility of morality and ethics really helped me understand the two words much better. For ethics, it says, “Ethics are dependent on others for definition. They tend to be consistent within a certain context, but can vary between contexts.” For morality, it says, “Usually consistent, although can change if an individual’s beliefs change.” According to these lines, ethics depends on others while morality depends on oneself.
One thing I found really interesting is that one can go against her morality in order to fulfill the ethics.
http://www.wisegeek.org/what-is-the-difference-between-ethics-and-morals.htm
http://www.diffen.com/difference/Ethics_vs_Morals
Ethics:
ReplyDeletean area of study that deals with ideas about what is good and bad behavior : a branch of philosophy dealing with what is morally right or wrong (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ethic)
Morlas:
concerning or relating to what is right and wrong in human behavior (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/moral)
So far, the definition for ethics and morals seem to be almost the same. In comparison they both acknowledge or relate to what is good or bad in human behaviour. While in contrast , ethics encompasses morality , in other words ethics seem to be the collective study of morals. Ethics is what is accepted by society who share common morlas , while morals is simply what an individual’s perception on wrong or right is.Using the philosophy “ if you have to stop and think about whether or not it's a good idea, it isn't” This could be one’s moral thought that was accepted by several members of society in some way or another to become an ethical view. On the other hand as an individual who developed that thought based on what is right or wrong , then it can be considered as a result of that particular individual’s morals.
While I continued to read on the difference between ethics and morals I encountered this interesting website http://www.diffen.com/difference/Ethics_vs_Morals. This website in some sense cleared the air between ethics and morals for me. Even though both ethics and morals have to do with right and wrong ,ethics may be more clearly recognised as rules of conduct given to a group of individuals by an external source in which they must respect and carry out in order to be accepted by that sector of society. Morals are basically just our perception on right and wrong. The activity we did in class where we identified what we viewed as wrong or right in the world was based from our perception on wrong and right , in other words our morals. At Stoneleigh , we sign the honor code to signify that we should not cheat and we should be honest in our academic life, this rule or practice is followed by us as students because in order to stay in this particular school we must comply to this ethical practice , because the hierarchy deem it as right i.e Good Work Ethics The link I provided is a very good source to clear the confusion that we are struggling with between ethics and morals , several videos and charts are provided for further learning. What I generated from the website is just my basic understanding. Tell me what you think.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteTo my understanding I found that ethics and morals are totally different ideas. I think that mixing up the two stems from the fact that they both have to do with the ideas of good things and bad things. This brings me to Pat Summitt's theory, if you have to think about something before you do it then you should not do it at all. I do not agree with this statement because it generalizes for all situations. However, it should be dependant base, because there are always exceptions.
ReplyDeleteEthics. I happened upon a site that clearly explains what this word means. Ethics means a set of principles that are structured around the idea of good and bad. I agree wholeheartedly with this statement because its separates itself from the meaning of morals. For me I think that ethics are needed in a society to have order and prevent chaos. Of course this is not always the case, with cheating, murder, burglary etc. However, ethics provides a model for people to follow and to live by. Ethics are more societal that individual; they pertain mostly to the community than one person. If individuals should take ethics into their own hands and set up a set of rules or code of conduct to live their life by and follow that is morality or morals.
Morals. Morals are the goodness and the badness of a person. This is more tailored to the individual because it is what the individual sets up for themselves as good and bad, and how the individual distinguishes between the two. To differ morals and ethics even further, ethics do not change very often, and even so if they did it is rare. Morala, however, do change if the person wishes or if the person changes themselves (personality wise). I think that this is a valid point, because ethics pertains more to society, societal view do not change often so the ethics will not change often. But when it comes to a person, with their own personality and individuality of course their morals may change based on the situation that they are in. Maybe this doesn’t make sense...BUT bottom line, I think there is a difference between ethics and morals.
http://www.endusmilitarism.org/ethicsandmorality.html
Before our class discussion, I had never thought of morals and ethics as separate things. In my life, people seem to use them interchangeably, which leads me to believe I’m not the only one who finds this confusing. Online, I found a few things that interested me. In general, most articles states that morals are how we as individuals process what is bad or good. Most also state that ethics are community based principles and beliefs. When looking at the two ideas, I feel like morals are beliefs that are derived from ethics. If ethics are rules and principles based on a community level, there must be some pressure from this on to our morals. Even though people have their own ideas, nature and nurture come into play and can change ones thoughts. I also, on the other hand, believe that humans are born with some morals, or maybe another way to put it is having a conscience.
ReplyDeleteAnother interesting idea I picked up on while reading online is that ethics can be altered depending on the situation. I’m not saying that they can be completely altered, but for certain cases, principles can be different. For example, many jobs contain a set of ethics that the employee must comply with. I think a good example of this is how doctors are supposed to treat humans as equally as possible, without judgment. However, last year I read a book about the black market of organ donors, and quickly realized that the medical profession has round about ways of getting around ethics.
Lastly, I found this quote off an article: One lives according to one’s morals but adheres to one’s ethics while doing so. Morals are the tools by which one lives, and ethics constitute the manual that codifies them.
I found this to be very true. I believe that people can still comply with ethics and have their own morals. This quote simply puts it out there that morals are how people live individually, but ethics are how they behave or act in public.
In light of Pat Summit, I also do believe in gut feelings. I’m not sure whether this applies to ethics as much as it does to morals. Because morals are so engrained into our beings, when a situation pops up, our brains are so wired to think within our morals that we can make a fast decision.
http://www.dailywritingtips.com/ethics-vs-morals/
http://www.diffen.com/difference/Ethics_vs_Morals
To start off, my first thought when reading the post, was centered around really trying to think of the difference between ethics and morals on my own. To be quite honest, while I understand both terms and use them normally, I do not know them well enough to be able to provide a definition off the top of my head. I assume this played a major role in my inability to actively follow how people in class were attempting to distinguish the difference between these two terms.
ReplyDeleteWhen beginning my exploration of the term “ethics” the first thing I automatically realized, was that there are so many kinds of ethics, that focus on certain subjects. For example, ethics about religions, races of people, technology, environment, lots of science themes etc. This is hard for me to begin working with, because it quickly conveys the message to me, that ethics is broader a topic than I had originally thought. Therefore, it will probably be harder to have my own set definition of it. In my research of ethics I found that some of the topics we discussed in class were actually not considered ethics to a lot of researchers. One study from Santa Clara University, shows that ethics is not related to one’s feelings, religion, law, nor “‘whatever society accepts’”. Rather, this study like many others, provides the idea that ethics is more about the ethics come in the form of terms of right, obligations, fairness, specific virtues etc. It states that “ethic refers to well-founded standards of right and wrong that prescribe what humans” should do. Ethical standards could include the right to life because it is supported by consistent and grounded reasons. Lastly my research showed me that ethics is about the individual who is questioning it, it relates and differs by each individual knower. The continuous development and constant analyzing of an individual's ethical standards and morals to ensure they are backed by concrete reason is ethical as well.
On the other hand, morals are generally values that are related to one’s individual beliefs. However, many times, a person receives their morals at first, by the influence of those around them, though it may be subconsciously. Many times, morals get their appeal by a bigger power like society for example. Morality, to many is defined as what is right based on a community or a family or a law etc. In a lot of research I have come across, moral has been broken down into examples of values which many think are moral such as honesty, integrity, and compassion.
In summary, one website I found, concludes this post nicely I believe, “even among those who believe they know the answer to this question there is not total agreement. For many, the way you answer the question is a function of the academic discipline which shaped your thinking and the religious and/or theological underpinnings of your personal belief system”. The question being discussed in this quote is the difference between ethics and morals. And really simplifies my opinion into understandable terms. I think that this is a very difficult question to even begin wrapping my mind around. Ethics and morals are such broad topics, however I think the conclusion I have come to, though it may be disagreed with, is that ethics is a value or idea that can be supported by a concrete reason to any individual while morals are a set of values that are related to a certain set of beliefs. Morals define right and wrong, while ethics can be debated with proof. Morals is clearly distinguished between right and wrong, its a black and white situation in my opinion. However, ethics is a gray area which could be why it covers such a broad spectrum, it does not define right or wrong on its own, but rather by the person who is question the ethics of their act, and can be considered right or wrong based on one’s proof and reasoning behind it.
First of all I would like to say that even after doing research and thoroughly searching my brain for an answer of ethics and morals, I still don't think I quite get it. To start, my own definition of moral is an individuals set ideas that separate right from wrong. For example, I have my own morals and you have yours. They may be completely different but in our eyes our own set morals are correct. Ethics/Ethical is a set of principles/morals that help us identify what is good and what is bad. In my opinion this is the more broad understanding of right from wrong. We use our inner morals to judge whether or not something is ethical. After defining moral and ethical I thought about the general, societal understanding of ethical. For example, society has labeled stealing and murder as unethical. However, the U.S government has said that War is ethical and has ways of justifying it. To me neither is ethical. I guess that is because of my personal morals. This lead me to question of how life worked in general, but then I really started questioning ethics.
ReplyDeleteFirst question was: If someones morlas go against the common categorization of something being unethical, is it still unethical. Meaning, if my morals said that my life and my families life would be better if I stole someones wallet, since my morals say its okay, would it still be unethical. Of course that is a very bad example, however, it still comes down to questioning whether or not there should/can be a general understanding of ethical vs. unethical.
This led me to the second question: Can society/higher power have the authority to change/go against someone morals by saying they are unethical and thus wrong, based on their own opinion of right and wrong? Wouldn’t that be like a democrat going up to a republican and saying “Hey, you...so your thoughts go against mine so they are wrong and you are unethical because you don't agree with me”. This really put me in a straight-full-on-ditch of confusion. But I came to the ending conclusion that morals and ethics are all defined by the individual who is defining them. Again, my ethics and morals may be different from yours, but thats not to say they are wrong.
I thought I was done being confused after that….but then I thought of another question. Is it unethical to state that someones morals that create their understanding of ethical vs. unethical are wrong, based on the fact that they go against the common categorization of ethical and moral? I thought again of the political example. And then I thought about religion. Separate religions think that other religion are unethical/have no morals because they disagree/go against that religions own beliefs. Isn’t that little unethical- to say that someone is wrong just because you think you are right. I looked back on my definition of moral and ethical, and once again realized that each definition depends on the individuals understanding of right vs. wrong. So, in my opinion saying that someone is unethical is unethical because you are defying that person the freedom to think/believe for themselves. (But then again, I’m being unethical by saying it would be unethical to say that someone was unethical based on their beliefs..wowza)
Trying to define morals and ethics and analyzing the differences between them has been very difficult for me. I have always thought of them as being interchangeable words, so this was new to me. In class we sort of just jumped right in to the concept and a lot of it went right over my head. I honestly didn’t know what to think and I couldn’t even think of any questions to ask to better my understanding of this topic because I was overwhelmed. So, on my own, I decided to start with the basics.
ReplyDeleteThe first thing that come to my mind when I think of morals and ethics is the fact that I use the word morals a lot more than ethics. When make a decision I think a lot about my morals. It depends on the situation, but in any case I know myself well enough to decide what I believe is right and wrong. I always take my morals in consideration when thinking about whether to do something or not, along with my beliefs of good and bad karma. I think that everyone can have different morals, many overlap, but they are based on the individual’s character and what he or she considers to be acceptable or not for themselves.
When thinking about ethics I tried to understand why it is that it’s not the first thing that comes to my mind when I think of right and wrong. I decided that for me, my morals allow me to judge my own behavior and to decide what is right and wrong in my personal situations, whereas ethics are a way of judging right and wrong on a larger scale. For example, in the United States in some cases when murder is done because of self defense, it is deemed ethical; I agree with this, I think that if someone is trying to kill you and you end up killing them in self defense, it does depends on the circumstances but, I believe that that is ethical. However, I would never be able to live with myself if I took another human beings life. I am not saying that if someone came at me with a gun I wouldn’t try to take them down first, but I still do not believe that that is moral to me.
In other words; I believe that morals can be defined as an individual's personal principles of right and wrong. Whereas, I would define ethics as broad spectrum of principles that govern the behavior of individuals based on a vision of right and wrong that is collectively supported and accepted.
After doing some research, especially on ethics from (http://www.scu.edu/ethics/practicing/decision/whatisethics.html), I really agree with the statement that, “ethics refers to well-founded standards of right and wrong that prescribe what humans ought to do, usually in terms of rights, obligations, benefits to society, fairness, or specific virtue”. I think that morals are on a more personal level, but when different morals are shared in a society they can come together to create what is morally accepted based on a larger spectrum of standards of right and wrong of what humans “ought to do”. I think that is why ethics is often referred to as a branch off of morality or moral philosophies or moral principles.
Although different, I believe that ethics and morals go hand-in-hand. Morals are the building blocks, if you will, to the bigger ethics. Each of these are the ideas and beliefs of right or wrong embedded in ourselves or a society. And that is the only difference.
ReplyDeleteEthics are the ideas and beliefs of what is right and what is wrong within a certain society. They are agreed upon and followed by a majority of the population of a society and determine what things one can and cannot do without being judged. The society members tend to follow these ethics in order to stay out of trouble, "go with the flow," etc. Ethics are, in essence, what society claims to be as manners and etiquette.
The difference between morals and ethics is that morals are on an individual level where ethics are on a broader, larger level. Morals are what make up ethics, in a way. They are the basis of the ethics that make up a society. The society goes off of the common morals that each individual has with another. While we all have different morals, we also all have similar morals which make up the ethics of the society we live in.
Referring to Pat Summit's statement, I completely disagree. I think that one needs to think through everything they are doing, but that doesn't mean that thing is wrong, it just means that the thinker of the situation is double-checking to make sure it is, in fact, a good idea. Also, who is one to say that someone's idea is a bad one. Each of us has different morals and ethics because we live in different society's, and often more than one per person. One may second guess their decision as it is a conflict between moral and ethical, not good or bad. I am having some difficulty trying to put my thoughts into words, so hopefully I'll be able to articulate this better in class, but I hope it makes a little sense!
Essentially, morals are the building blocks of ethics and they are both the ideas and beliefs of what is right and wrong whether on a personal or larger level. And I don't agree with Pat Summitt because second quessing what to do does not mean they are questioning whether it is right or wrong, maybe it is a question of is it ethical or moral.
Along with my own definition of what ethics and morals are, i found these two websites that accurately explain the differences in a way that is easily comprehendible.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.philosophersbeard.org/2010/10/morality-vs-ethics.html
http://grammarist.com/usage/ethics-morals/
The first website states that “Morality is primarily about making the correct choices, while ethics is about proper reasoning.” I like to think that morality is what goes on in your head, while ethics is applying your morals into everyday situations. To clarify what the website means, morality is about what an individual knows is right, and ethics is about using morals to guide what choices you make in any certain situation. Ethics may change because it relies on what is going on in a certain point and time. Morals are stable; they usually do not change in a person, but there are morals that are more important than others, so in the an ‘ethical dilemma’ you have to use reasoning to choose which one of your morals is most important. An example that is used in this website is the “trolley problem”, which is an experiment about runaway trains. In the trolley problem, “A train is hurtling down a track and you see that it is going to hit a group of 5 people and will certainly kill them all. However you happen to be standing next to a switch that can divert the train down another track where only a single person would be killed.” This is an ethical dilemma because you have to use your morals to reason in what you should do. If I was put in this situation, I would let the train kill 1 person instead of 5. my morals tell me that I am responsible for doing something in this life or death situation. It tells me that killing someone is bad, but it also tells me that killing 5 lives is worse than killing 1. So here, I have conflicting morals. and I have to reason to reach a decision.The website’s concept of ethics vs morals is a bit different from what we talked about in class when we came to the conclusion that morals adhered more to individuals, whereas the ethics adhered to society. What I get from this definition is that both morals and ethics focus on the individual. The difference is that ethics is a category including society and the immediate situation that a person is in, not just the person.
The second website defines morals as “ the principles on which one’s judgments of right and wrong are based” and ethics as “principles of right conduct” This website’s definition I more like the definition that we came up with in class. We talk about ethics being a way to promote justice, and fairness and whats best for the people. This article also finds that ethics and morals are often interchangeable. Before TOK class, I had not really separated the two concepts because they are so related. For many people, ethics and morality are the same thing, because they live their lives based on what is best for society. It states an interesting quotes saying “that ethics are the science of morals, and morals are the practice of ethics” which makes sense.
To conclude this post, after doing all this research on ethics versus morality, I am certain about what morals are, but there are many different definitions to what ethics are. People seem to have different variations on what ethics are although they share a general idea. I believe all these definitions that I see, because they all seem to make sense, and it could just be that ethics has many definitions.
TOK 18
ReplyDeletehttp://stanford.library.usyd.edu.au/entries/morality-definition/
http://stanford.library.usyd.edu.au/entries/identity-ethics/
Once I arrived at the site and scrolled to look for ethics, I was mildly surprised and a the same time, comforted by all the different kinds of ethics there are. It is comforting to know that I have been correctly confused by mixing up all the kinds of ethics that I was aware of together to define what ethic is. Because, apparently, it’s hard to try to work out an overall meaning of ethics when I’m thinking of all the details of different kinds of ethics. The links above are a few that I thought was most relevant to my research of ethics.
Since there were so many kinds of ethics, that they each have their semi-complex explanation, I thought that I should start with reading about moral, because since the two are so connected, I could help if I tried to understand ethics in terms of moral. Judging from the webpage of definitions, moral has a more direct meaning, because there is only one kind of moral.
Moral means the right of conduct put forward by a society, yet it may not be something that is universal to every individual in that society. Morals can be separate from the law. However, moral applies to all those who can understand and govern their behavior to go by it. This excludes the minority who is either not able to understand it, disagree with it, or cannot control what their own actions to be outside of society’s morals. So how is an individual’s morals shaped by those of societies? For example, in China, boys play with toys guns and tanks when they are little, they pretend to be policemen. Whereas in America, little boys grow up playing with toy dinosaurs, conducting trains, pretending to be superman, or astronaut. These two groups of people in the two cultures grow up extremely different.
“ ‘Ethics’ here is broadly construed to be about the way(s) in which we ought to live our lives, and so it includes both self-regarding and other-regarding practical concerns.’ In ethics, self-identity plays a big role, because it is on personal principles that personal identity lie, and principle is one of the big things that play into individual decision-making, and to predict the outcome of the decision on oneself as well as on others is also based on principles. Something that one person holds important might not be as important to another person, so I think ethics is basically the how a decision might have an effect concerning oneself as well as others.
First of all I want to say that I kept asking myself this question as I did my research, “If ethics are considered from the view of a society’s judgment for a conduct, the same judgments that come from the society, where are morals of a human being derived? Is it from their thoughts or emotions, or from a super power (God)? ”
ReplyDeleteAfter researching about the definitions of morals and ethics on this site (http://philosophy.lander.edu/ethics/types.html), I concluded by saying that the way these words are defined on this site has a similar meaning to their meanings in my language, Kinyarwanda. Morals are human behaviors that are classified as either good or bad according to a person’s interpretation of what is good or bad. On the contrary, ethics is all about how one acts and how it is viewed as in the society as wrong or right. In other words, ethics is all about how one ought to act and not how one thinks he/she should act. According to me, ethics is the society’s judgment of one’s morals. This can also be termed as, “the discipline concerned with the judgments of setting up norms”.
One’s morals may or may not agree with their ethics because ethics are generally one’s judgment of morals in a broader way that involves the society. In other words, if ethics are rules of one’s conduct considering to a particular group like their society, they may not necessarily agree with them but they will still term as their ethics. For example, I do not support the fact that if someone is under 21 years of age, no alcohol for them. I totally disagree with this rule in my inside, but pretend to agree with this rule in my outside (when I’m in public). And if a young child asks me if I think that under 21 years of age drinking proper, I’ll convince them how improper it is even though I personally don’t agree with this. This also means that ethics have a great impact towards the understanding of one's morals. Sometimes people like me are confused and start agreeing with their ethics more than their morals.
The line between morals and ethics is definitely blurred. In my search for definitions, I discovered that in the definition of ethical, the word moral was used. On my search for the definition of moral, I found that ethical was not used. This led me to come to the conclusion that morals are what actually make up ethics. I believe that morals are a set of beliefs that every human has that guides to form their view of what is acceptable to do, or not to do. I believe that ethics are societies morals, all based around the general morals held by individuals.
ReplyDeleteWith this part of my research done, I went on to find other definitions. I found a very helpful site, theoryofknowledge.net, that shockingly provided their own definitions for moral and ethical. It also included a May 2014 TOK essay countdown (for us we only have about 1 year 2 months 3 weeks 5 days and 4 hours), which freaked me out a bit. TOK decided that ethics were the branch of knowledge concerned with moral principles. Therefore, ethics was the study of morals. At first glance, I was not sure I agreed with this. I had a hard time with the word study. I preferred “a collection of morals”. However, I was on a quest to find different perspectives, not force my ideas on any definitions I find. Now, I think that this is an interesting point of view. We could say that ethics is the study of how to live our lives determining right and wrong, and I would have to agree with that. Sometimes we’re born with moral instincts (hey cannibalism probably isn’t a good idea. It’s not moral), and sometimes we’re not, there are a lot of gray lines. By saying that ethics is the quest (I’m really enjoying that word) to live life morally, it’s saying that morals make up ethics. I feel like I’m becoming a little circular and lost with my argument, so I’m going to conclude this and hope that I will become further enlightened tomorrow at 12:10.
When I wrote the last post, I thought that ethics and morality are the same thing. I figured little more during the last TOK class, yet not sure if I truly understand them. I thought that morality is if a person does something that affect small range of people’s interest while ethics is if a person does something that endanger the society and have huge impact. After I did little research, I learned something new. My new definition for ethic is a philosophy study of morality. It is existed standard that value by society and individuals. It is hard to change. It usually based on law and religion. It tends to use logic to evaluate it is either good or bad. However, morality does not always follows the tradition. Morality is the rule of conduct, but it tends to use emotion. It based on self-experience. I found a really interesting story from http://www.philosophersbeard.org/2010/10/morality-vs-ethics.html . “A train is hurtling down a track and you see that it is going to hit a group of 5 people and will certainly kill them all. However you happen to be standing next to a switch that can divert the train down another track where only a single person would be killed.” Most of people would chose kill the one instead of five. However, to push someone on purpose is not a moral thing to do. I looked up the first website that came out on Google research after
ReplyDeleteI typed “Morality vs Ethics” (http://www.diffen.com/difference/Ethics_vs_Morals ). It has a clear chart to compare the differences between morality and ethics, and I learned that morality comes from individual and ethics comes from culture.
Source: http://www.wisegeek.org/what-is-the-difference-between-ethics-and-morals.htm
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/morality-definition/