Knowing the difference and relationship between them is important though, because they can conflict with one another. If the law conflicts with our personal values or a moral system, we have to act – but to do so we need to be able to tell the difference between them. Show EthicsEthics is a branch of philosophy that aims to answer the basic question, “What should I do?” It’s a process of reflection in which people’s decisions are shaped by their values, principles, and purpose rather than unthinking habits, social conventions, or self-interest. Our values, principles, and purpose are what give us a sense of what’s good, right, and meaningful in our lives. They serve as a reference point for all the possible courses of action we could choose. On this definition, an ethical decision is one made based on reflection about the things we think are important and that is consistent with those beliefs. While each person is able to reflect and discover their own sense of what’s good, right, and meaningful, the course of human history has seen different groups unify around different sets of values, purposes and principles. Christians, consequentialists, Buddhists, Stoics and the rest all provide different answers to that question, “What should I do?” Each of these answers is a ‘morality’. MoralityMany people find morality extremely useful. Not everyone has the time and training to reflect on the kind of life they want to live, considering all the different combinations of values, principles, and purposes. It’s helpful for them to have a coherent, consistent account that has been refined through history and can be applied in their day to day lives. Many people also inherit their morality from their family, community or culture – it’s rare for somebody to ‘shop around’ for the morality that most closely fits their personal beliefs. Usually the process is unconscious. There’s a challenge here: if we inherit a ready-made answer to the question of how we should live, it’s possible to apply it to our lives without ever assessing whether the answer is satisfactory or not. We might live our whole lives under a moral system which, if we’d had the chance to think about, we would have rejected in part or in full. LawThe law is different. It’s not a morality in the strict sense of the word because, at least in democratic nations, it tries to create a private space where individuals can live according to their own ethical beliefs or morality. Instead, the law tries to create a basic, enforceable standard of behaviour necessary in order for a community to succeed and in which all people are treated equally. Because of this, the law is narrower in focus than ethics or morality. There are some matters the law will be agnostic on but which ethics and morality have a lot to say. For example, the law will be useless to you if you’re trying to decide whether to tell your competitor their new client has a reputation for not paying their invoices, but our ideas about what’s good and right will still guide our judgement here. There is a temptation to see the law and ethics as the same – so long as we’re fulfilling our legal obligations we can consider ourselves ‘ethical’. This is mistaken on two fronts. First, the law outlines a basic standard of behaviour necessary for our social institutions to keep functioning. For example, it protects basic consumer rights. However, in certain situations the right thing to in solving a dispute with a customer might require us to go beyond our legal obligations. Secondly, there may be times when obeying the law would require us to act against our ethics or morality. A doctor might be obligated to perform a procedure they believe is unethical or a public servant might believe it’s their duty to leak classified information to the press. Some philosophers have argued that a person’s conscience is more binding on them than any law, which suggests to the letter of the law won’t be an adequate substitute for ethical reflection.
There is no meaningful difference between the concepts of ethics and morality, but I’ll explain why you should choose one word or the other and stick to it in business and beyond. Better yet, avoid using either word and speak instead about doing the right thing, acting honorably or leading with high character. I briefly discuss the ethics/morality debate in my book Ethical Intelligence, but when I wrote it, I didn’t have empirical evidence, other than anecdotal experience, to support my argument. Now I have evidence, thanks to a survey of 55 people who are LinkedIn connections, newsletter subscribers and Facebook friends. Here are the results of that survey. True Or False: There Is A Difference Between Ethics And Morality I first asked respondents to say whether the statement, “There is a difference between ethics and morality,” is true or false. The chart reveals that 76% respondents said that there is a difference between ethics and morality, 18% believe there is no difference, and about 5% don’t know. I then asked people to explain their responses. Of the people who believe there is a difference, there was no agreement about what that difference might be. Here’s a sample:
What do these responses tell you? There may be a consensus that ethics and morality are different in some way, but there is far from a consensus about precisely what that difference is or even how people define the two terms. A Brief History Of The Words “Ethics” And “Morality” “Ethics” comes from the ancient Greek word “ethikos,”derived from "ethos," which means custom or habit. The Roman politician, lawyer and bon vivant Cicero coined the term “moralis” as a Latin equivalent of “ethikos.” Historically, then, the roots of the words “ethics” and “morality” meant the same thing. One was a translation of the other. Asking an ancient Roman, “What’s the difference between ‘ethics’ and ‘morality’?” would be like asking a bilingual friend today, “What’s the difference between ‘caliente’ and ‘hot’ or ‘chapeau’ and ‘hat’?” Still, the meaning of words and phrases can and does change, so the fact that "ethics" and "morality" used to refer to the same idea doesn't necessarily mean that it's wise to use them this way today. The Upshot In practical terms, if you use both “ethics” and “morality” in conversation, the people you’re speaking with will probably take issue with how you’re using these terms, even if they believe they’re distinct in some way. The conversation will then veer from whatever substantive ethical point you were trying to make (“Our company has an ethical and moral responsibility to hire and promote only honest, accountable people”) to an argument about the meaning of the words “ethical” and “moral.” I had plenty of those arguments as a graduate student in philosophy, but is that the kind of discussion you really want to have at a team meeting or business conference? You can do one of three things, then: 1. Use “ethics” and “morality” interchangeably only when you’re speaking with people who believe they’re synonymous. 2. Choose one term and stick with it. 3. Minimize the use of both words and instead refer to what each word is broadly about: doing the right thing, leading an honorable life and acting with high character. As a professional ethicist, I’ve come to see #3 as the best option. That way, I don’t have to guess whether the person I’m speaking with believes ethics and morality are identical concepts, which is futile when you’re speaking to an audience of 5,000 people. By minimizing the use of the word “ethics,” I also sidestep a big problem: this word often strikes fear into the heart of the listener, because it’s usually linked with the word “violation.” Although I call myself The Ethics Guy, I avoid using "ethics" in the titles of my speeches, because I've learned that the word is more off-putting than engaging for many people. There’s a time and a place to argue about words, but if your goal in talking about ethics is to make a point about why you think someone at your company did the right thing or who the high-character leaders at your organization are, it makes sense to use one of the two words consistently and judiciously or just say what you want to say and leave “ethics” and “morality” out of it altogether. Now let's have a little bit of fun with all of this via a clip from the great NBC show, "The Office":
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