THE SCOPE AND

GE 108: ETHICS – LESSON 1

MEANING OF ETHICS
PREPARED BY: TJ RIVERA
TOPIC OUTLINE
I. Definitions of Ethics
II. Relation of Ethics with other Sciences
III. Morality and the Other Phases of Human Life
DEFINITIONS OF ETHICS
o Ethics studies human acts or human conduct.
o There are indeed other sciences which also study human conduct, such as
sociology, psychology, and education; but ethics differs from each of these
in its standpoint, or in the particular aspect of human acts with which it is
particularly concerned; and this is the morality of human actions.
DEFINITIONS OF ETHICS
1. Ethics is the practical science of the morality of human actions.
2. Ethics is the study of human conduct from the standpoint of morality.
3. Ethics is the science which lays down the principles of right living.
4. Ethics is the practical science that guides us in our actions that we may
live rightly and well.
RELATIONS OF ETHICS WITH OTHER SCIENCES
1. Ethics and Logic – logic is the science of right thinking. Ethics is the
science of right living. Right living presupposes right thinking. To think
right often means to do right, as knowledge of right leads to the doing
of right.
2. Ethics and Psychology – both deal with the study of man, human
nature, and human behavior. Psychology is not interested in the morality
of human behavior, unlike ethics. Psychology studies how man behaves;
ethics studies how man ought to behave.
RELATIONS OF ETHICS WITH OTHER SCIENCES
3. Ethics and Sociology – sociology deals with human relations in a society,
but human relations are based on proper order and proper order comes only
with the proper observance of moral laws and principles which regulate the
actions of men in a community.
4. Ethics and Economics – man is also an economic being because he has to
support himself by earning a living. Economics deals with such topic as
wages, labor, production and distribution of wealth. But what will determine
the relations between employer and employee, for instance? This and all
other relations in business must be based on justice and charity which, after
all moral principles.
MORALITY AND THE OTHER PHASES OF HUMAN LIFE

Morality and Law – right and wrong, good and bad in human actions
presuppose a law or rule of conduct. There is, however, a striking difference
between what is moral and what is legal. The legal only covers the external
acts of man; the moral governs even the internal acts of man, such as the
volitional and the intentional activities of the will and mind, i.e. man’s
thought and desires.
MORALITY AND THE OTHER PHASES OF HUMAN LIFE

Religion and Ethics – lastly, we have the closest relation between these
two phases of human activity: religion and ethics. This is evident from the
following considerations:
1. Both of these are based on the same postulates:
a. The existence of the Creator
b. Freedom of the will in man
c. Immortality
2. Both have the same end – the attainment of man’s supreme purpose or man’s ultimate end.
3. Both prescribe the same means for attaining the goal of man: right living.