Ethics (Meaning and Explanation)

We explain what ethics is as a philosophical discipline, its history, types and examples. Also, what is an ethical code and what is morality.

Applied ethics interprets real-life ethical cases and controversies.

What is ethics?

Ethics, also called moral philosophy, is the discipline that studies human behavior. Ethical discussions revolve around moral good and evil, right and wrong, virtue, happiness, and the idea of duty.

While morality is the set of principles, judgments or guidelines that regulate human behavior, ethics is the discipline that studies and reflects on these same precepts. Where there is a moral dilemma, there is an ethical question.

Ethical studies are divided into three main branches:

The metaethics. Study the nature, origin and meaning of basic ethical concepts. For example, the question about happiness.
normative ethics. Study and interpret the principles that govern the systems that regulate human behavior. For example, civil codes.
Applied ethics. Study and interpret specific real-life ethical cases and controversies. For example, disputes over animal consumption.

Ethics is not limited to philosophical exercise, but also participates in the professional field of other sciences and disciplines such as medicine, economics, politics or psychology.

Etymology

the word ethics comes from Greek ēthikos (ἠθικός) meaning “relating to one's character” and it has its roots in the word ethos (ἦθος). Êthos It has different translations, among which we find “character” and also “custom”. From this follows the idea that ethics is the study of character and customs.

It is often used ethics either moral as if they were the same thing. Although ethics is the study of moral conduct, it is true that morality has its etymological origin in a loan from Latin, moraliswhich was used to talk about customs. Moralis comes from mor and diewhich translate as “use or custom” and also “way of living.”

History of ethics

During the Middle Ages the role of ethics was to interpret the sacred scriptures.

Ethics as a philosophical problem is object of study of thinkers and philosophers since Antiquity. Philosophers such as Plato (c. 427-347 BC) and Aristotle (384-322 BC) studied human behavior and the codes under which it is governed. Works like Gorgias, Phaedo and Republicby Plato, work on ethical problems such as hedonism, life after death and public ethics, respectively.

In your Nicomachean ethics, Aristotle presents the first proper treatise on ethics in history. Aristotelian ethics deals with the way in which happiness should be achieved as the ultimate goal of the human being, and relates happiness to virtues and material and physical autonomy.

In the Middle Ages, ethics united the search for happiness with Christian doctrine according to the Ten Commandments. The role of ethics during this period was to correctly interpret the sacred scriptures. Thanks to this, the idea of charity appeared as the ultimate goal of the human being, acquired by living through the Gospel and having God as the supreme good and maximum plenitude. The works of religious thinkers such as Augustine of Hippo (354-430) and Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274) stand out.

Types of ethics

Ethics is applied in all those fields of life in which the possibility of raising a moral judgment or dilemma appears. Applied ethics is classified according to the area in which it is developed, and can be:

Professional ethics. It is the ethics that pertains to the exercise of a profession. For example: medical ethics or psychological ethics.
Military ethics. It is the ethics that has to do with the use of military forces, especially in times of war or conflict.
Economic ethics. It is the ethics linked to economics, commerce and finance, and that asks questions regarding how it is right and how it is wrong to make money.
religious ethics. It is the ethics that emerge from an organized religion and that follows a specific moral and cultural tradition. For example: Christian, Islamic or Jewish ethics.
Environmental ethics. It is the ethics linked to human beings and the relationship they establish with the natural environment that surrounds them.
Bioethics. It is ethics that reflects on the ethical conflicts that arise as the development and advancement of science and technology in the area of medicine.
Social ethics. It is ethics linked to the relationships between individuals and the social consequences of their actions.

You may be interested: Divergent Thinking

Ethics and morals

Ethics and morals are closely related concepts that, however, do not mean the same. The simplest distinction between them is that ethics is the discipline that studies morality, that is, that reflects on moral problems.

Morality is the set of rules and dilemmas that regulate human behavior within a certain context or society. Ethics, for its part, is a theoretical approach that reflects through reason and states ethical principles that deepen the nature of moral dilemmas.

Often it is morality that determines whether a practice is accepted or not in a given society, while ethics is what reflects on these behaviors.

Code of ethics

A code of ethics or deontological code is a document that contains the guidelines and values essential for the ethical exercise of any collegiate profession.

In most cases these are regulatory and responsibility formulas, to which any professional who wants to practice their profession morally must adhere.

Continue in: Code of ethics

Main representatives of ethics

It is difficult to choose or postulate canonical representatives of ethics as a philosophical discipline. However, it is inevitable to mention, in its historical journey, the following philosophers:

Socrates. Without having left his own writings, we know the work of this philosopher through the testimonies of his disciples, such as Plato. He maintained that there is only one virtue, determined by the existence of absolute and universal values such as good, justice and happiness.
Plato. A disciple of Socrates, he systematized the Socratic universals as intelligible, unique and immutable ideas, according to which the entire sensible world must conduct itself.
Aristotle. A continuator and critic of Plato, he wrote the Nicomachean Ethics either Ethics for Nicomachuswhich is considered the first ethical-moral treatise in Western history.
Saint Augustine. A doctor of the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church, he emphasized interiority as one's own experience to reach God and love understood as charity and care for one's neighbor.
Saint Thomas Aquinas. Born in the 13th century, he was perhaps the most important intellectual of the Middle Ages, who integrated the teachings of the Catholic Church with the philosophy and thought of Aristotle, and placed theology as the first metaphysics.
Immanuel Kant. German philosopher, his ethics is one of the most formal systems in all of philosophical history. Author of the categorical imperative, he postulated the idea of an unconditional, universal and unique internal moral mandate.
John Stuart Mill. One of the fathers of Utilitarianism, proposed an ethical system based on the idea of happiness as the absolute good shared by all men. According to that system, happiness was that good that most affected the members of a society.
Jean-Paul Sartre. Father of existentialism, he was responsible for destroying the moral and ethical values that preceded him and presented the idea of self-responsibility as the maximum responsibility towards the rest of men.

Examples of ethical dilemmas

Ethics intervenes in numerous contemporary debates, for example:

The legalization of abortion. Different social actors in the West are calling for legislation on abortion that allows for a regulated, legal, sanitary and responsible practice. This position considers abortion as a practice that occurs regularly but clandestinely and that often leads to health problems and even deaths when those who practice it do not have adequate health care. On the other hand, those who ask that it not be legalized maintain that all abortion ends the possibilities of being born and living of the engendered human being.
The consumption of animal meat. While a part of the population feeds on products from animals, different social actors are against this practice, since they defend the rights of animal life.
The discussion is not only whether it is ethical to consume animal meat, but also the defense of animal rights.
genetic manipulation. Over the last few decades, science has studied the way DNA is constructed. This allows modifications to be made not only to eliminate congenital defects, diseases and illnesses, but also to choose eye color, build, sex and other fundamental features of the biochemical functioning of the human body. To what extent it is ethical to intervene in the genome of the species is a question that is still current and controversial in contemporary ethical discussions.
euthanasia. The interruption of the life of an individual suffering from a disease, with no prospect of a cure, is cause for an ethical dilemma. On the one hand, defenders of this practice maintain the right of an individual who suffers the consequences of an illness or pathology to end his or her life. On the other hand, detractors of this practice are against it for religious reasons (they maintain that the voluntary cessation of life goes against God's wishes) or because they understand it to be contrary to the Hippocratic Oath.

References

Butler, J. (2009). Give an account of yourself. Ethical violence and responsibility. Amorrortu.
Aristotle. (2004). Nicomachean ethics. Colihue.
Kant, I. (1998). Metaphysical foundation of customs. EUDEBA.
Camps, V. (ed.). (2002). History of ethics. Vol 1. From the Greeks to the Renaissance. Criticism.
Camps, V. (ed.). (2002). History of ethics. Vol 2. Modern ethics. Criticism.
Camps, V. (ed.). (2002). History of ethics. Vol 3. Contemporary ethics. Criticism.
“Ethics: a general introduction” on BBC.
“Ethics” in Cambridge Dictionary.
“Ethics (Philosophy)” in The Encyclopaedia Britannica.