Moral Behavior - Codes A Human/Social Product

Codes of Ethics The Family Code / Pledge The Cowboy Code It is traditional and more poetic to say "the moral of the story is...",

Ethics is the field that deals with defining what is good and bad, and the moral obligations that ensue.

ethics. From the Greek ethos for character, disposition, values. moral. From the Latin moralis for custom, habit, way of life, conduct.

It is important to know these words thoroughly because they have many connotations and many an argument can go awry by simple miscommunication. Many people say that ethics and morals are synonyms and for general usage they are. However if I am going to get deep into the subject, then I might as well use the words more precisely.

Ethic (n.), ethics (n.), ethical (adj.), ethically (adv.), ethicalness (n.), and ethicality (n.). Ethics may be then a set of principles, or a study, or a system, or a theory that deal with the values, the ideas of good and bad conduct. o Unethical (adj.) will refer to values contrary to ethical values. Morals (n.), moral (n. & adj.), morally (adv.) will refer to behavior based upon ethics. o Immoral (adj.) and immorally (adv.) will refer to behavior contrary to moral behavior. o Amoral (adj.), amorally (adv.), amorality (n.), and amoralism (n.) will refer to behavior that is not based upon or related to ethics. Good (adj.). Positive, desirable, maximizing its nature, high quality, complete, leading to imperfection, etc. Bad (adj.). Negative, unfavorable, not true to its nature, low quality, incomplete, leading to imperfection, etc.

It is impossible to escape the flexibility and ambiguity of these terms in the English language but we'll have to make do. These distinctions should be pointed out:

The terms unethical and immoral are imprecise. o EG: Choosing to wear brown or blue is not an immoral decision, rather it is an amoral decision.

EG: It is not precise to say that Hitler had an unethical system of ethics, rather he had a bad system of ethics. I will use variations of the word "ethics" more for the ideas and the word "moral" more for the behavior. o EG: Confucianism is a pragmatic system focused on moral behavior than the ethical reasoning. o EG: Kant's system of universal imperatives is more focused on ethical judgments than the moral behavior. It is traditional and more poetic to say "the moral of the story is...", but the anal would say "the lesson of the story is...".
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http://www.georgehernandez.com/h/xzmisc/Philosophy/Ethics.htm Morality - If we wish to survive we must act in certain ways. Moral behavior is that which tends to promote our survival. Immoral behavior is that which tends to promote our destruction. Where survival is not at issue, moral behavior will tend to promote security and happiness, immoral behavior insecurity and unhappiness. There are different levels of value. The higher values are those which make the lesser values possible. At the higher levels of value there is a community of interests among all rational, civilized human beings. The question of self versus others is irrelevant, in that one's self-interest and the interests of others are in fundamental harmony. The rational pursuit of one's interests promotes the interests of others, while the good of others promotes one's own good. As a practical matter, the good of all is best served when individuals pursue their own legitimate interests as they each see fit.

Marc D. Hauser, a Harvard biologist, has built on this idea to propose that people are born with moral grammar wired into their neural circuits by evolution. In a new book, Moral Minds (HarperCollins 2006), he argues that the grammar generates instant moral judgmentsThe moral grammar too, in Dr. Hausers view, is a system for generating moral behavior and not a list of specific rules. It constrains human behavior so tightly that many rules are in fact the same or very similar in every society do as you would be done by; care for children and the weak; dont kill; avoid adultery and incest; dont cheat, steal or lie.