I've been thinking about this thread a lot lately. I have to agree with
CC about his ethymology and his definitions. I love ethymolody (BTW where do you have any good online ethymology dictionaries? I've been looking and never found anything worthwhile).
I think people that find ethics/morals interesting might enjoy reading about
Evolutionary Stable Strategies (ESS) and
Game Theory. One author I found remarkable regarding this was Richard Dawkins a Zoologist who uses mathematics to explain how a group, when cooperating can actually achieve way more than if they didn't cooperate. I see this as proof that cooperation is better than rampant selfishness.
Many of the basis we have for ethics and morals are based on the greater good of the whole rather than the selfish gain of an individual. When someone does something selfish we often hear "What if everyone started doing that?". Dawkins presents us with mathematical models explaining what happens with different balances of altruism and egoism.
Morals I see as being the principles to which people abide in order to define their actions. These are mainly religious, handed down by family or simply something thought of on your own. It usually comes from a mixture of different sources and (thankfully in some instances) can change over time. For example it used to be considered immoral for a lady to have a social drink. Today it is considered normal for a woman to have a drink (and some men seem to encourage it even though their ancestors bemeaned women that would do such an evil thing).
Morals is all about what is
good and what is
bad in the generally accepted term in a
period of time.
Ethics is the rationalisation of it all and is
meant to be impossible to refute. For example an ethical rule saying doctors should not harm but heal their patients is hard to refute (though admitedly there are exceptions when they prick that needle in your arm but we'd understand it is for the greater benefit of the whole body). The rule means that doctors should see what they can do to fix a problem doing the least damage to your body. For example if your finger hurts they don't immediatly cut your arm off. They first see what is wrong with your finger, attempt to reduce pain and fix the problem as best they can.
Morals are actually hard to rationalize into ethics because what is considered good or bad at one time can be completely irrelevant or immoral in another (women not being allowed to vote, slavery, taking over a country for their ressources, etc...).
In this forum we often get into arguments and discuss for long periods of time. We actually talk more about morals than about ethics here.
I hope my post doesn't confuse but rather clears things up. I'm in favor of discussion and dialogue and believe consensus cannot always be reached in the world of morals. Ethics is a hopeful place for a cynic witness like myself.
Gary
Haran
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