THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD: Who knows the difference between ethics and morality? Belgium does, for one. Technically, there's not a lot in it. The dictionary makes ethics and morality synonyms, each relating to our cumulative attempts to tell right from wrong and act accordingly.
Aristotle's Ethics examines what it means to be good; for him, and many thinkers since, ethics and moral philosophy are one.
In everyday life, though, we tend to distinguish on a public-private basis. ''Morality'' tends to imply a code that is personal, often sexual and, just as often, religious in origin. ''Ethics'' meanwhile, denotes a public and generally secular amalgam of these values. The baked crust, if you will, atop the pie. Hence talk of professional and corporate ethics, ethical investing and, of course, ethics taught in religion's place in schools.
The St James Ethics Centre's chief, Simon Longstaff, argues similarly, defining ethics as ''a conversation . . . [on] the question, 'what ought one to do'?'' Moralities, he says - and he stresses the plural - are the voices in that conversation; one Jewish, one Christian, one Hindu, one Muslim and so on.
Ethics, in this sense, come into play where there is conflict between moralities, or between rules within a morality - as when the truth imperative cuts across kindness. >>> Elizabeth Farrelly | Thursday, May 13, 2010
