Getting Started: Distinctions That Matter

This lesson introduces the basics of ethics, clarifies key distinctions, explains why being ethical matters, and explores what it means to commit to an ethical life. Think of this as your jumping-off point into the world of ethics.

Knowing the Right Words: Ethical Vocabulary

Although ethics and morality are essential parts of human life, not many people understand how to talk about them. Good, evil, right, wrong, great, and bad: Who could possibly sort through all that mess? Getting a firm grasp on these words and distinctions is important so you don’t fall into any misunderstandings later. The following sections explain important ethics vocabulary words and how to use them.

Focusing on Should and Ought

Fortunately you don’t really need to sort through lots of different terms. In fact, most of ethics and morality can be boiled down to one simple concept that can be expressed using the words should and ought. “Good” or “right” actions are actions that you ought to do. “Bad” character traits are ones you should try not to develop. “Evil” traits are those you should really try to avoid. Isn’t it cool how just these two words can unify so many ethical concepts?

To clearly understand what ethics means in terms of should and ought, consider this example: Most people are comfortable considering what science is about. Science tries to figure out the way the world is, was, or will be. The following are all scientific questions (some easier to answer than others):

• What will be the effect of detonating a nuclear weapon in a major city?
• What led to the extinction of the dodo bird?
• Is there a beer in the fridge?

Ethics isn’t just about the way the world is. Sure, you have to know a lot about how the world works to answer ethical questions, but ethics is about something a little more ambitious than science. It’s about the way the world ought to be or should be. Focusing on how the world should be gives ethical questions a different nature altogether. Ethical questions look more like this:

• Ought we to be detonating nuclear weapons around large numbers of people?
• Should endangered species be protected from human hunting?
• Should I really have that last beer in the fridge before driving home?

Lots of people miss the point about ethical discussions because they assume “ought” questions are really “is” questions. How many times have you heard someone defend his unjust actions by saying “Yeah, well, life isn’t fair?” That person may be right about how the world works, but that doesn’t mean it should continue to work that way. And in all likelihood, he’s contributing to keeping the world in a way that it ought not to be. The world may not be fair, but it should be.

You probably have a big question dawning on you right about now: How do I find out what I ought to do? It’s a great question; it’s the subject of the rest of this lesson.

Avoiding the Pitfall of Separating Ethics and Morality

Although the terms ethics and morality have two different definitions in the dictionary, throughout this lesson we use them interchangeably and don’t make any effort to distinguish between the ideas. The truth is that you can argue all day about whether something is immoral or just unethical, whether someone has ethics but no morals, or whether ethics is about society but morality is about you.

The reason these arguments don’t go anywhere is that in the end, both ethics and morality are actually about the same: What you ought to be doing with your life. If it’s true that an act is immoral, then you ought not to do it. The situation doesn’t change if the act is unethical instead. It’s still something you ought not to do.

Some people think, for instance, that Robin Hood’s stealing to feed the poor was unethical but still moral. That thought may be true — words do get used in that way. But in the end, what do you really want to know about Robin Hood? You want to know whether he ought to have been doing what he did. Ditto with something that seems immoral but may still be ethical, like selling goods at hugely inflated prices. If ethics and morality say different things, you need to find out what the relationship between you and your customers should be and how you should act, feel, and think toward them based on that relationship.

So, seriously, don’t worry about the difference between ethics and morality. Your ethical conversations will make a lot more progress if you just concentrate on the “oughtiness” of things. Professional philosophers don’t bother distinguishing between the two lots of the time, so you shouldn’t either.

Putting Law in Its Proper Place

Even though you don’t need to differentiate ethics and morality, you should distinguish between the concepts of ethics (or morality) and legality. If you don’t, you may end up confusing the ethical thing to do with the legal thing to do. There’s some overlap between ethics and the law, but they aren’t always in line with one another. For example, consider speeding. Speeding is illegal, but that doesn’t mean it’s always unethical. It seems ethically acceptable to speed in order to get someone to the hospital for an emergency, for instance. You may still be punished according to the law, but that doesn’t automatically make your act unethical.

The law also sometimes permits people to do unethical things. Cheating on your partner is usually ethically wrong, for instance. But breaking romantic commitments isn’t typically illegal (and even where it is, laws against adultery aren’t usually enforced).

Should all unethical things be illegal? Probably not, but it’s worth noting that unless ethics and legality are separate concepts, it’s not even possible to ask that question. The law may be inspired by ethical standards, but in many cases it’s better not to make laws about unethical behaviors. People usually sort out these kinds of things on their own. Besides, it could simply be too expensive to enforce some laws. (Lying is usually unethical, but how full would prisons be if they had to hold all the liars in addition to the thieves, tax cheats, murderers, and rapists?)

If ethics and legality were the same thing, all laws would be ethical, and all ethical acts would be permitted under the law. In other words, an unjust law couldn’t exist. But this thinking seems to be false. If, for example, Congress passed a law that all brown-haired people had to wear polka-dotted pants on Thursdays or go to prison, this law would be terribly unjust. But it could only be labeled unjust if an independent ethical standard existed against which laws can be evaluated. Because ethical standards can actually be used to judge laws, ethics and legality must be separate concepts.

Perhaps the best historical example of an unjust law would be the slavery of blacks in the South before the Civil War. Whether or not people knew it then (and it’s a fair bet they had some idea), by today’s standards this law is seen as deeply flawed and immoral. But without the separation between ethics/morality and legality, such justification wouldn’t be possible.

Requiring, Forbidding, Permitting: The Most Useful Ethical Vocabulary

Even when you know what ethics is, you still need a way of explaining your position on issues. Sure you can use words like “right,” “wrong,” “evil,” “bad,” “good,” and so on, but they’re not very precise. It’s best to be as precise as you can in ethical matters, because they’re hard enough to solve without confusing words.

The best vocabulary for classifying any position is…