Key Concepts: Moral Standards, Moral

Dilemmas, Freedom, Reason and

Impartiality
• Ethics deals with principles of ethical behavior
in modern society at the level of the person,
society, and in interaction with the environment
and other shared resources. (CMO 20 s 2013).
• Morality pertains to the standards of right and
wrong that an individual originally picks up
from the community.
• The word ethics comes from the Greek
“ethos” which means customs or
habits.
• Ethics is also often called moral
philosophy.
• The word moral is from the Latin
“mores” which also means customs or
habits.
• (the characteristic conduct of an individual human life)
• Thus, ethics means the science of
customs or habits of society.
 • While morals or morality refers to
customs, ethics extend to mean
habitual conduct or character.
• Morality deals with our reasoning and
ethics with our doing.
• Ethics can also mean ‘the science of
rightness and wrongness of character
and conduct.’
• Ethics is also the ‘science of the
highest good.’ It is the science of
morality.
• It is the science of the supreme ideal of
human life.
• Ethics is the study of what is right
or good in human conduct or
character.
1.) What are moral standards, and how do
they differ from other rules of lives?
2.) What is a moral dilemma?
3.) Why is freedom crucial in our ability to
make moral decisions?
4.) What is the advantage of owning moral
standards (morality and ethics) over
merely abiding by moral standards?
• The norms about the kinds of actions believed
to be morally right and wrong.
•Values placed on the kinds of objects believed
to be good and bad (e.g. “always tell the truth”,
“honesty is good”, “injustice is bad”)
•Moral standards come from:-
– Family – Religion - State - School
• Moral standards contrasted with standards we hold
about things that are not moral.
• Examples of Non-moral standards include:
– Standards of etiquette by which we judge
manners as good or bad.
– Standards we call the law by which we judge
legal right and wrong.
– Standards of aesthetics – good or bad art.–The
athletic standards – how well a game is being
played.
2.) MORAL
3
The advantage of owning moral standards
(morality and ethics) over merely abiding by
moral standards follows immediately from the
importance of ethics itself:

Ethics means right living and good moral

character.
• - The supreme purpose of human living lies
not in the acquisition of material goods or
bodily pleasure, but in the development of the
moral qualities which lift man far above brute
creation.
• Education is the harmonious development of the
whole man – the primary objective of education is
the moral development of the will.
• - Knowledge is good, bodily health and strength
are good, but first and above all – Good Character.
• - Ethics is the very investigation of the meaning of life.