Source of Principles
Ethics are external standards that are provided by institutions, groups, or culture to which an individual belongs. For example, lawyers, policemen, and doctors all have to follow an ethical code laid down by their profession, regardless of their own feelings or preferences. Ethics can also be considered a social system or a framework for acceptable behavior.
Morals are also influenced by culture or society, but they are personal principles created and upheld by individuals themselves.
Consistency and Flexibility
Ethics are very consistent within a certain context, but can vary greatly between contexts. For example, the ethics of the medical profession in the 21st century are generally consistent and do not change from hospital to hospital, but they are different from the ethics of the 21st century legal profession.
An individual’s moral code is usually unchanging and consistent across all contexts, but it is also possible for certain events to radically change an individual's personal beliefs and values.
Conflicts Between Ethics and Morals
One professional example of ethics conflicting with morals is the work of a defense attorney. A lawyer’s morals may tell her that murder is reprehensible and that murderers should be punished, but her ethics as a professional lawyer, require her to defend her client to the best of her abilities, even if she knows that the client is guilty.
Another example can be found in the medical field. In most parts of the world, a doctor may not euthanize a patient, even at the patient's request, as per ethical standards for health professionals. However, the same doctor may personally believe in a patient's right to die, as per the doctor's own morality.
Origins
Much of the confusion between these two words can be traced back to their origins. For example, the word "ethic" comes from Old French [etique], Late Latin [ethica], and Greek [ethos] and referred to customs or moral philosophies. "Morals" comes from Late Latin's moralis, which referred to appropriate behavior and manners in society. So, the two have very similar, if not synonymous, meanings originally.
Morality and ethics of the individual have been philosophically studied for well over a thousand years. The idea of ethics being principles that are set and applied to a group [not necessarily focused on the individual] is relatively new, though, primarily dating back to the 1600s. The distinction between ethics and morals is particularly important for philosophical ethicists.
Videos Explaining the Differences
The following video explains how ethics are objective, while morals are subjective.
References
- The Definition of Morality - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Ethics Definition - Dictionary.com
- Ethic Origins - Online Etymology Dictionary
- Moral Origins - Wiktionary
- Morals Definition - Dictionary.com
When academics talk about ethics, they are typically referring to decisions about right and wrong. As noted above, the study of ethical behavior goes back thousands of years to ancient Greece. Ethics are a branch of philosophy that investigates questions such as “What is good and what is bad?” “Is it just to reward one group with more benefits than another?” “What action should an individual or organization take if a client mistreats him/her/it?” In
practice, ethics are decision-making tools that try to guide questions of human morality, by defining concepts such as good and bad, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc. By contrast, ethics are universal decision-making tools that may be used by a person of any religious persuasion, including atheists. While religion makes claims about cosmology, social behavior, and the “proper” treatment of others, etc. Ethics are based on logic
and reason rather than tradition or injunction. As Burke suggests of the “hortatory Negative” of the “Thou Shalt Not”s found in many religious traditions that tell people how to behave by “moralizing," ethics include no such moralizing. If something is bad, ethics tells us we should not do it, if something is good, obviously there is no harm in doing it. The tricky part of life, and the reason that we need ethics, is that what is good and bad in life are often complicated by our personal
circumstances, culture, finances, ethnicity, gender, age, time, experience, personal beliefs, and other variables. Often the path that looks most desirable will have negative consequences, while the path that looks the most perilous for an individual or organization will often result in doing the most good for others. Doing what is “right” is a lot harder than doing what is expedient or convenient. Q: What are the basic differences between how religion makes decisions and ethics makes
them? Q: Are religion and ethics incompatible? Which one should take precedence over the other?
Often, religion and ethics are treated as the same thing, with various religions making claims about their belief systems being the best way for people to live, actively proselytizing and trying to convert unbelievers, trying to legislate public behaviors based around isolated religious passages,
etc. Of course, not all religions are the same, some are more liberal than others and some more conservative, but in general, all religious traditions believe that their faith represents a path to enlightenment and salvation.