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 DEFINITIONS OF ETHICS
1.The practical science of morality.
2. The scientific inquiry into the principles of morality
3. The science of human acts with reference to right and
wrong.
4. The study of human conduct from the standpoint of
morality.
5. The study of the rectitude of human conduct.
6. The science which lays down the principles of right
living.
7. The practical science that guides us in our actions
that we may live rightly and well.
8. A normative and practical science , based on reason,
which studies human conduct and provides norm for
its natural integrity and honesty.
9. According to Socrates, ethics is the investigation of
life.
 (a) Science
Systematic study or a system of scientific
conclusions clearly demonstrated, derived from
clearly established principles and duly coordinated.
Ethics is a philosophical science
(b) Morality
The quality of right and wrong in human acts.
(c) Human Acts
Acts done with knowledge and consent.
 RELATION OF ETHICS WITH OTHER SCIENCES
1. Ethics and Logic
Logic is the science of right thinking
Ethics is the science of right living.
2. Ethics and Psychology
Both deal with the study of man, human nature and human behavior.
There is, however, a basic difference.
Psychology is not interested in the morality and human behavior, unlike
ethics. Psychology studies how man behaves, ethics studies how man
“ought” to behave.
The word “ought” is emphasized to show the difference .
Ethics is concerned with moral obligation while psychology is not.
RELATION OF ETHICS WITH OTHER SCIENCES
3. Ethics is related to Sociology.
Ethics deals with the moral order which includes the social
order. Whatever does violence in the social order does
violence also to the natural and moral order.
Society depends on ethics for its underlying principles:
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 regulates the action of men in a
community.
RELATIONS OF ETHICS WITH OTHER SCIENCES
4. Ethics and Economics.
Man is also an economic being because he has to
support himself by earning a living.
Economics and morality are two aspects of one and
the same human nature.
Economics deals with such topics as wages, labor,
production and distribution of wealth.
MORALITY AND THE OTHER PHASES OF HUMAN
LIFE
• Ethics and Education
Education develops the whole man: his moral,
intellectual and physical capacities.
Education (a great educator said) is life: it is co-
extensive with life. With greater reason and emphasis we
can even say that ethics is life because ethics is the very
science and art of human living, one that gives life its
direction, goal, worth, and meaning.
Ethics is both co-extensive and co-intensive with life.
MORALITY AND HE OTHER PHASES OF HUMAN
LIFE
• Morality and Law
Morality and Law are intimately related. Right and
wrong, good and bad in human actions presupposes 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(man’s thoughts and desires).
MORALITY AND HE OTHER PHASES OF HUMAN
LIFE
• Ethics and Art
Ethics stands for moral goodness ; Art for beauty.
But as transcendental the beautiful and the good are
one. Evil always implies ugliness or defects and the good
is always beautiful since it is the very object of desire
and therefore, like beauty pleases when perceived.
MORALITY AND HE OTHER PHASES OF HUMAN
LIFE
• Ethics and Politics
Man owes allegiance to the State. Politics aims at
good government for the temporal welfare of the citizens.
But between the temporal and the spiritual and external
welfare there is no conflict. The two are inspirable in
man’s present state of existence, where the material and
the spiritual, the body and the spirit , form one person.
Politics has often become very dirty and the reason is
precisely because it is divorced from ethics.
 MORALITY AND HE OTHER PHASES OF HUMAN
LIFE
• Religion and Ethics
We have the closest relation between these two phases of
human activity religion and ethics. This is evident from the
following considerations:
(a) Both of these are based on the same
postulates:
1. The existence of the Creator
2. Freedom of the will in man
3. Immortality
 (b) Both have the same end – the attainment of man’s
supreme purpose or man’s ultimate end.
(c) Both prescribe the same means for attaining the
goal of man: right living.
The question sometimes arises whether there can really ethics
apart from religion. The answer is that, true ethics can
never be separated from God.
Reason: Ethics implies morality and morality presupposes a
distinction between right and wrong in human actions. But
what is the ultimate ground of distinction between right
and wrong?
 If there is morality, there must be a moral law , and if
there is a law, there must be a lawgiver and ultimately a
first lawgiver. But who is the first law giver, who is the
source of all moral laws and the obligations?
Rightly an English moralist said: “Some would divorce
morality from religion, but religion is the root without
which the plant of morality will die”
 THE IMPORTANCE OF ETHICS
The importance of the study of ethics follows immediately
from the importance of ethics itself.
1. Ethics means right living and good moral character, and it is in
good moral character that man fits his true worth and
perfection. All the great teachers of the ages maintain that the
supreme purpose of human living lies not in the acquisition of
material goods or bodily pleasures, nor in the attainment of
bodily perfections such as health and strength; not even in the
development of intellectual skills but in the development of the
moral qualities which lift man far above brute creation.
 THE IMPORTANCE OF ETHICS
2. Education is the harmonious development of the whole man – of all
man’s faculties: the moral, intellectual, and physical powers in man.
The highest of man’s power are his reason and will.
The primary objective of education is the moral development of the
will.
Knowledge is good, bodily health and strength are good, but first and
above all – good character.
In the words of George Washington’ “morality and religion are the
two indispensable pillars to human prosperity and happiness.”
THE IMPORTANCE OF ETHICS
3. According to Socrates, “the unexamined life is not
worth living for man. “
Now ethics, as we already said before , is the very
investigation of the meaning of life . That is why Plato
calls and consider ethics the supreme science , the
science par excellence, as it is the science that deals
with the Summum Bonum, the supreme purpose of
human living.