morals are 'identified' as right and wrong - ethics are 'doing' the right thing.

I am writing a paper on business ethics and have found I have run out of things to compare ethics to. What else is it quite similar to but also different?

Ethics refers to professional conduct.

Morals refers to personal conduct.

Does anyone disagree?

What about ethics/morals regarding taxes? What if you're paid in cash and you morally have a problem with the way the federal government dispenses your tax dollars: federally-funded abortions, needle-exchange programs, welfare, etc. You see your family's needs first and see yourself as a better steward of the money you have as opposed to the government and their fiscal wisdom? What are your thoughts?

I stumbled across this when looking for a good definition of morals vs. ethics for my Same-sex marriage research paper. I think that The points used are a little faulty, but I can see what point the writer is trying to make. Morals are things that individuals apply to other individuals or themselves, where ethics is more of a doing-best-by-everyone sort of approach, That whole Golden rule thing, which calls for people to treat each other with courtesy no matter who they are.

This is not to say that they don't influence each other--far from it--but that morals can be more exclusive.

My point of view is that people can be represented as dots: all the same color, size, etc. You should treat each dot just like every other dot. That might sound a little wacky, but it makes sense to me. (Oh, and a good diff. using religious morality, most Jews don't eat pork because they feel it's immoral to eat animals with cloven feet [tell me if I'm wrong here], where as in wide culture it isn't seen as any worse than eating a cow, or mutton).

Gwen

Sunshipball... I understand your point of view. However, I think that you are wrong. You can't place everyone into one category.

I agree with this post on morals/ethics, especially along the lines of homosexuality and abortion. We all have different opinions on what the laws are meant for. Your assumptions can only account for a few individuals in this country(USA). You can't speak for as a whole or even a majority for that matter.

I have a question about morals. Is there a moral example for lying, stealing or cheating?

Looking at the Oxford English Dictionary reveals amazing overlap of meaning. Moral is defined in terms of ethical and vice versa.

The article seems to make some shaky assumptions: first, that social ethical systems are arbitrary and changeable while personal morals are unchanging. Neither is true: the Golden Rule has been around for centuries, while people frequently turn away from rank hedonism when they have children. Second, that personal morals are based on something other than social systems of morality/ethics. Not so--it's a rare individual whose morals don't derive from one or more cultural commonplaces [especially religion]. I'd be more comfortable about a distinction saying ethical judgments are based on reasoning from conscious basic premises [Golden Rule], while morals come from other sources--religion, sympathy, exemplary acts. Obviously, basic premises can be generated by reflection on moral resources. Also, this distinction partly overlaps the article's--socially adopted "ethical systems" are likely to come from, and be applied by, conscious reasoning.

This is a good explanation. To the other poster, regardless of whether or not the two words come from different roots (Greek and Latin) and originally meant the same thing, that is not to say the words have no evolved in our language and developed two separate meanings that pinpoint separate meanings that the word word otherwise require a modifier (ie, personal ethics, or social morality).

I do think that using the legality defining doctors ethics may have been a bad choice. For instance, even though it is legal to kill prisoners on death row, doctors will not do it because it violates the Hippocratic Oath, which is the source of doctor ethics. Abortion would fall under the clause which does not allow doctors to interfere with something a person wants done to their own body, and in this case legally, yes, fetuses are seen as part of the woman's body. Personally I would have mentioned the Hippocratic Oath, which is the essence of medical ethics.

There is a failure to understand the basic roots of these two words. Ethics and morals are exactly the same in English, one has a Greek root, the other a Latin root. To try to assign any other interpretation as fact is to miss the point, although there is no problem in wishing to distinguish between sections of society and how they behave.

I concur RE: medical ethics. Ethics are derived from an authority, such as the defense lawyer and the constitution, workers and a corporate ethos, etc. For medicine, that is generally considered the Hippocratic Oath. As the previous commenter pointed out, as a doctor, you could make surgery illegal, but I'd still do it. My ethical obligations are not to the law but to the good of my patient.

I think this is a good explanation. I disagree, however, with most of the examples, which are likely true in specific instances, but generally false.

I believe most defense lawyers, though they do presumably believe murder (and other crime) is wrong, hold a moral value akin to the social-ethical value that "demand the accused client be defended as vigorously as possible" and believe it outweighs his moral opposition to murder. Same for most prosecutors and the need to prevent jury bias from the introduction of evidence of prior crimes. These examples are overstatement by the author: the situations where morals and ethics clash in the manner described in the article are likely rare.

Similarly, the author overstates the gay rights issue: individuals who believe homosexuality is wrong, but also believe in laws supporting equal rights express their own moral values by determining whether to promote or adhere to social norms protecting gay rights or adhere to their underlying moral value that homosexuality is wrong.

I also disagree with the conclusion that "Abortion is legal and therefore medically ethical." I do not think the concept of medical ethics is tethered so tightly to the law as the author describes. The mere fact that something is legal does not make it medically ethical. And the mere fact that something is illegal does not make it medically unethical. There are other sources of social ethics, particularly in the medical field. (I do not intend this to be a comment about abortion; I could say the same thing about heart surgery or wisdom teeth removal.)

I do think the employment issue hits the nail on the head. And, as I said, I think the explanation of the difference between morals and ethics is good. But most of the examples are artificial.