What is the difference between morals and ethics

[flame3132]

title says all

[SportsJunky]

Ask a lawyer. Criminal lawyers deal with the difference all the time.

[jayswin]

I could be way off, but I think an ethic is like 'coming to work and putting in an honest day's work', compared to 'getting away with as little work as possible', where as a moral would be like 'knowing better than to throw a frog off a bridge, paralyzing it, then swimming after it, to do the same again'.

[flylock shox]

Morals are way preachier than ethics, but less snobby.

[Bobblehead]

I think morals are rules decided by society, while ethics are rules decided by the individual. So there is often a strong correlation.

That's my take on it.

[Five-hole]

Isn't ethics just the study of morality?

In everyday language though this is the distinction. My morality is how I define acts or beliefs as "good" or "evil". I don't steal because of my morality. I don't advocate physical violence (outside of sport) for any reason because it's almost always morally wrong.

Whereas ethics are more grey area things like what defines honesty, a hard-day's work, how to treat your family and friends, and so forth. As a music teacher I deal with the ethics of my students a lot and almost never their morality. Most kids know stealing or lying is wrong. But not practicing while their parents spend money on music lessons? That's ethically poor but not morally wrong. Not respecting authority, be it teachers, elders, etc is not morally wrong but ethically wrong.

I guess I'd say I agree with Bobblehead. Morals are what society dictates as good or bad and ethics are what you or your close circle of friends / family determine as valuable, productive, or "honest" (in the Darryl Sutter kind of honest-to-goodness honest way).

[Calgaryborn]

Ethics are situational. They are set up by society and do change as society changes.

Morality are rights and wrongs that are self evident. They shouldn't change based on circumstances. They don't evolve with society although society sometimes adopts ethical standard that disregard what is morally evident.

[Burninator]

From Michael Shermers book The Science of Good and Evil he defines it as such:

"I define morality as right and wrong thoughts and behaviors in the context of the rules of a social group. I define ethics as the scientific study of and theories about moral thoughts and behaviors in the context of the rules of a social group."