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The 6 differences between ethics and morals

The 6 differences between ethics and morals

February 29, 2024

In everyday speech we usually use the words "ethical" and "moral" as synonyms; however, there are important differences between the two terms, or at least that is how it was during the story.

Although they are closely related, there are at least 6 differences between ethics and morality , and it is convenient not to confuse these concepts with each other. These refer to multiple characteristics, both conceptual and epistemological.

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Definition of ethics

Ethics is a branch of philosophy that studies and systematizes the concepts of good and evil, as well as related ones. This discipline aims to rationally define what constitutes a good or virtuous act, regardless of the culture in which it is framed.


Ethical systems, consisting of prescriptions regarding the behavior patterns that people should follow, have traditionally been proposed from philosophy and religion.

Ethics is considered originated in the time of Ancient Greece ; the philosophy of Plato and that of Aristotle, as well as Stoicism or Epicureanism, are some of the first manifestations of the use of this term.

During the Middle Ages, Christian ethics predominated in the western world, later expanding to a large part of the world. Later philosophers like Descartes, Hume or Kant would recover ideas from the Greek masters and contribute in a key way to the conception of the ethics of the following centuries.


Definition of moral

Morality is defined as the set of rules that govern the behavior of people who are part of a certain society, so that they can contribute to the maintenance of stability and social structure .

The concept of morality is usually related to conformity with the implicit and explicit laws of a social group, which are transmitted to individuals within the process of socialization to which they are subjected throughout their development. In this sense, the moral part of the traditions and values ​​of the context in which we grew up.

Morality arose in all probability as a natural consequence of the organization of human beings in groups. As societies became more complex, the rules of interaction that structured them would have been progressively transformed into moral rules and explicit laws, especially with the appearance of writing.


The religions have had a great historical weight in the establishment of moral codes. While in the western world Judaism and Christianity have largely determined social norms, in Asia Buddhism and Confucianism have done so.

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Differences between ethics and morals

Many people think that today the concepts 'moral' and 'ethical' mean basically the same, at least from the point of view of colloquial language.

However, from a theoretical and historical point of view we can find several differences between these two terms.

1. Object of interest

Morality is responsible for determining which behaviors are appropriate and which are not in a given context, while ethics refers to the general principles that define what behaviors are beneficial for all people.

Ethics is a normative discipline and morality is descriptive ; thus, ethics differs from morality in that it seeks to define the correct behaviors, rather than those accepted by a society.

In other words, if ethics is a rather static element that serves as a reference to understand the type of behaviors that regulate the functioning of society in a given context, morality is applied, taking into account everything that intervenes in the decision to act in one way or another.

2. Scope of application

Ethics is situated at the level of theory, trying to find general principles that favor harmony between people. On the other hand, the moral try to apply the standards determined by ethics to a large number of concrete situations, according to the description of what happens in each case.

Therefore, ethics has a theoretical, abstract and rational character, while morality refers to the practical, telling us how we should behave in our daily life through more or less explicit rules and affirmations.

3. Origin and development

Ethical standards are developed by specific people through reflection and evaluation of what is meant by human nature. Subsequently, these individuals will apply the rules to their behavior.

In some cases individual ethics can influence a large number of people, even becoming a tradition ; this has happened frequently in the case of religions, systematizations of the ideas of their prophets. Once this point has been reached, we would speak of morality to refer to the intergenerational transmission of such an ethical system.

In a synthetic way we can say that ethics has an individual origin , while morality is derived from the norms of our social group, determined in turn by a previous ethical system. Morality is the generalization of that kind of descriptions about what is good and what is bad, its way of forming an abstraction about what should be done and what should be avoided.

4. Ability to choose

As we have said, ethics starts from individual reflection, while morality has a more taxing and coercive nature : if a person does not comply with social norms is likely to receive a punishment, whether social or legal, because morality can not be created by a single person, but has to do with the shared ideas of what is good do and what is bad or what, even, should be a reason for punishment.

Ethics is based on the intellectual and rational value that individuals attach to their attitudes and beliefs, as opposed to moral, which is determined by culture and therefore is rather irrational and intuitive. We can not choose morality, just accept it or reject it; therefore, it has to do with compliance with the norms of our social group.

5. Mode of influence

Moral norms act on us from the outside or from the unconscious, in the sense that we internalize them non-voluntarily as we develop within a given social group. We can not remain outside of them; we always take them into account, either to defend them or to reject them.

Ethics it depends on voluntary and conscious choices , since this concept defines the identification and follow-up of some determined norms for acting in the way that seems right to us from a personal point of view. In addition, being of a rather individual nature, it gives a certain margin to reflect on whether something is good or not, depending on the circumstances.

6. Degree of universality

Ethics has the pretension of being universal, that is, of being able to be applied in any context, since ideally it starts from the guided use of thought, not from blind obedience to rigid norms. This discipline seeks, therefore, to establish absolute truths that remain as such regardless of the context in which they are applied, as long as the person has the ability to act rationally. Kant, for example, tried to pose objective ethical principles, above culture or religion.

By cons, morality varies according to society; Behaviors that may be accepted in some social groups, such as gender violence or child exploitation, would be considered immoral by people from other societies, as well as from an ethical point of view. In this sense we can say that morality is influenced to a large extent by cultural relativism.


Ethics vs Morals (February 2024).


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