College of Medicine And Health

Department: Health Informatics

Course Code:
Course Title:HIPE
Name:Abraham Asefa
ID.Number: 1200102

Samara,Ethiopia,16/7/2014 E.C
 1,what is ethics andmorality?,similarity and
difference between them?
Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy
that "involves systematizing, defending, and
recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".
The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns
matters of value; these fields comprise the branch of
philosophy called axiology.
 Ethics seeks to resolve questions of
human morality by defining concepts such as good
and evil, right
and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime.  Ethics,
understood as the capacity to think critically about
moral values and direct our actions in terms of
such values, is a generic human capacity. Ethics can
also be used to describe a particular person's
own idiosyncratic principles or habits.
 Morality is the differentiation of intentions,
decisions and actions between those that are
distinguished as proper and those that are
improper.
 Morality refers to the set of standards that enable
people to live cooperatively in groups. It’s what
societies determine to be “right” and “acceptable
Sometimes, acting in a moral manner means
individuals must sacrifice their own short interests.
 Both ethics and morality work side by side to
make the learning of good activities faster. Both
concepts help any individual to be a better person.
Both these qualities are desirable for a person. Both
the terms are interconnected in the way that Morality
helps keep alive the essence of ethics and its value.
 The main similarity is that they discuss the same thing – what
is right or wrong, good or bad, correct or incorrect, in different
situations and scenarios. They also do this in the same form
– as a set of principles/rules. The distinction should be made
between the two, though, in the sense of how and on what
basis they’re applied. Ethics are usually universally accepted
and are considered a set of rules determining what’s
considered professional behavior in different situations, being
based on our innate knowledge of right and wrong, thus
transcending time, culture and religion. Morals, on the other
hand, are based on exactly that – culture, religion, and time.
They vary based on what part of the world you look at and at
what time. They can also vary from one individual to another.

 ethics refer to rules provided by an external source, e.g.,

codes of conduct in workplaces or principles in
religions. Morals refer to an individual's own principles
regarding right and wrong.

Ethics; Principles or habits with respect to right or wrong

conduct. While morals also prescribe dos and
don'ts, morality is ultimately a personal compass of
right and wrong.
2,what are categories of ethics and discuss
detail them?
The categories of ethics which includes: descriptive
ethics,normative ethics,meta ethics and applied
ethics.
Descriptive Ethics
Descriptive ethics deals with what people actually believe (or
made to believe) to be right or wrong, and accordingly holds up
the human actions acceptable or not acceptable or
punishable under a custom or law.
However, customs and laws keep changing from time to time and
from society to society. The societies have structured their moral
principles as per changing time and have expected people to
behave accordingly. Due to this, descriptive ethics is also
called comparative ethics because it compares the ethics or past
and present; ethics of one society and other. It also takes inputs
from other disciplines such as anthropology, psychology,
sociology and history to explain the moral right or wrong.
Normative Ethics
Normative Ethics deals with “norms” or set of considerations how
one should act. Thus, it’s a study of “ethical action” and sets out
the rightness or wrongness of the actions. It is also
called prescriptive ethics because it rests on the principles
which determine whether an action is right or wrong. The Golden
rule of normative ethics is “doing to other as we want them to do
to us“. Since we don’t want our neighbours to throw stones
through our glass window, then it will not be wise to first throw
stone through a neighbour’s window.  Based on this reasoning,
anything such as harassing, victimising, abusing or assaulting
someone is wrong. Normative ethics also provides justification for
punishing a person who disturbs social and moral order.
Aristotle’s virtue ethics, Kant’s deontological ethics,
Mill’s consequentialism (Utilitarianism) and the Bhagwad
Gita’s Nishkam Karmayoga are some of the theories in
Normative Ethics.
Meta Ethics
Meta Ethics or “analytical ethics” deals with the origin of the
ethical concepts themselves. It does not consider whether an
action is good or bad, right or wrong. Rather, it questions – what
goodness or rightness or morality itself is? It is basically a highly
abstract way of thinking about ethics. The key theories in meta-
ethics include naturalism, non-naturalism, emotivism and
prescriptivism.
Naturalists and non-naturalists believe that moral language is
cognitive and can be known to be true or false. Emotivists deny
that moral utterances are cognitive, holding that they consist of
emotional expressions of approval or disapproval and that the
nature of moral reasoning and justification must be reinterpreted
to take this essential characteristic of moral utterances into
account. Prescriptivists take a somewhat similar approach,
arguing that moral judgments are prescriptions or prohibitions of
action, rather than statements of fact about the world.
Applied Ethics
Applied ethics deals with the philosophical examination, from a
moral standpoint, of particular issues in private and public life
which are matters of moral judgment. This branch of ethics is
most important for professionals in different walks of life including
doctors, teachers, administrators, rulers and so on. There are six
key domains of applied ethics viz. Decision ethics {ethical
decision making process}, Professional ethics {for good
professionalism}, Clinical Ethics {good clinical
practices}, Business Ethics {good business
practices}, Organizational ethics {ethics within and among
organizations} and social ethics.
It deals with the rightness or wrongness of social, economical,
cultural, religious issues also. For example, euthanasia, child
labour, abortion etc.

SUMMARY
Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that
"involves systematizing, defending, and recommending
concepts of right and wrong behavior".
Both ethics and morality work side by side to make
the learning of good activitie faster.
Descriptive ethics deals with what people actually believe (or
made to believe) to be right or wrong,
Normative Ethics deals with “norms” or set of considerations how
one should act. Thus, it’s a study of “ethical action” and sets out
the rightness or wrongness of the actions.
Meta Ethics or “analytical ethics” deals with the origin of the
ethical concepts themselves. 
Applied ethics deals with the philosophical examination, from a
moral standpoint, of particular issues in private and public life
which are matters of moral judgment.

Reference
Bentham, Jeremy, 1789, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, New York:
Prometheus Books, 1988.
 Alexander, Richard, 1987, The Biology of Moral Systems, New York: Routledge.
 Anscombe, G. E. M., 1958, “Modern Moral Philosophy”, Philosophy, 33(124): 1–19.
doi:10.1017/S0031819100037943
Doris, John M. and The Moral Psychology Research Group (eds.), 2010, The Moral Psychology
Handbook, Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199582143.001.0001
Brink, David, 1997, “Kantian Rationalism: Inescapability, Authority, and Supremacy”, in Ethics
and Practical Reason, Garrett Cullity and Berys Gaut (eds.), Oxford: Oxford University.