Definition

Many writers regard ethics (Gr. ethike) as any scientific treatment of

the moral order and divide it into theological, or Christian,ethics (moral
theology) and philosophical ethics (moral philosophy). What is usually
understood by ethics, however, isphilosophical ethics,
or moral philosophy, and in this sense the present article will treat the
subject. Moral philosophy is a division of practical philosophy. Theoretical,
or speculative, philosophy has to do with being, or with the order of
things not dependent on reason, and its object is to obtain by
the natural light of reason a knowledge of this order in its
ultimate causes. Practicalphilosophy, on the other hand, concerns itself
with what ought to be, or with the order of acts which are human and
which therefore depend upon our reason. It is also divided
into logic and ethics. The former rightly orders the intellectual activities
and teaches the proper method in the acquirement of truth, while the
latter directs the activities of the will; the object of the former is the true;
that of the latter is the good. Hence ethics may be defined as
the science of the moral rectitude of human acts in accordance with the
first principles of natural reason. Logic and ethics are normative and
practical sciences, because they prescribe norms or rules
for human activities and show how, according to these norms, a man
ought to direct his actions. Ethics is pre-eminently practical and directive;
for it orders the activity of the will, and the latter it is which sets all the
other facultiesof man in motion. Hence, to order the will is the same as to
order the whole man. Moreover, ethics not only directs a man how toact if
he wishes to be morally good, but sets before him
the absolute obligation he is under of doing good and avoiding evil.

A distinction must be made between ethics and morals, or morality. Every

people, even the most uncivilized and uncultured, has its own morality or
sum of prescriptions which govern its moral conduct. Nature had so
provided that each man establishes for himself a code of moral concepts
and principles which are applicable to the details of practical life, without
the necessity of awaiting the conclusions of science. Ethics is
the scientific or philosophical treatment of morality. The subject-matter
proper ofethics is the deliberate, free actions of man; for these alone are
in our power, and concerning these alone can rules be prescribed, not
concerning those actions which are performed without deliberation, or
through ignorance or coercion. Besides this, the scope of ethics includes
whatever has reference to free human acts, whether as principle
or cause of action (law,conscience, virtue), or as effect or circumstance
of action (merit, punishment, etc.). The particular aspect (formal object)
under which ethics considers free acts is that of their moral goodness or
the rectitude of order involved in them as human acts. A manmay be
a good artist or orator and at the same time a morally bad man, or,
conversely, a morally good man and a poor artist or technician. Ethics has
merely to do with the order which relates to man as man, and which
makes of him a good man.

Like ethics, moral theology also deals with the moral actions of man; but

unlike ethics it has its origin in supernaturally revealedtruth. It
presupposes man's elevation to the supernatural order, and, though it
avails itself of the scientific conclusions of ethics, it draws
its knowledge for the most part from Christian Revelation. Ethics is
distinguished from the other natural sciences which deal
with moral conduct of man, as jurisprudence and pedagogy, in this, that
the latter do not ascend to first principles, but borrow their fundamental
notions from ethics, and are therefore subordinate to it. To investigate
what constitutes good or bad,just or unjust, what
is virtue, law, conscience, duty, etc., what obligations are common to
all men, does not lie within the scope of jurisprudence or pedagogy, but
of ethics; and yet these principles must be presupposed by the former,
must serve them as a ground-work and guide; hence they are
subordinated to ethics. The same is tre of political economy. The latter is
indeed immediately concerned with man's social activity inasmuch as it
treats of the production, distribution and consumption of material
commodities, but this activity is not independent of ethics;
industrial life must develop in accordance with the moral law and must be
dominated by justice, equity, and love. Political economy was wholly
wrong in trying to emancipate itself from the requirements
of ethics. Sociology is at the present day considered by many as
a science distinct from ethics. If, however, bysociology is meant
a philosophical treatment of society, it is a division of ethics; for the
enquiry into the nature of society in general, into the origin, nature,
object and purpose of natural societies (the family, the state) and
their relations to one another forms an essential part of Ethics. If, on the
other hand, sociology be regarded as the aggregate of the sciences which
have reference to the social life of man, it is not a single science but a
complexus of sciences; and among these, so far as the naturalorder is
concerned, ethics has the first claim.