Ethics Development Understanding and Application Term Paper

Ethics, Morality, Values, And Beliefs

According to "the ethics site," an Internet resource for college instructors regarding the teaching of different ethical systems, ethics may be defined as "the explicit, philosophical reflection on moral beliefs and practices. The difference between ethics and morality is similar to the difference between musicology and music. Ethics is a conscious stepping back and reflecting on morality, just as musicology is a conscious reflection on music." ("Glossary," The Ethics Site, 2005) In other words, ethics is the philosophy of what is right and wrong, while morality is the practice of ethics, or virtue in action.

The analogy between a musician and a musicologist proposed by the positioning of ethics vs. morality is interesting, because one might understand music very well, and be able to explain its theory and teaching as a musicologist. However, a great musicologist might be only a middling musician. In contrast, there are sixteen-year-olds who are virtuosos at the violin, and even tiny children can be taught to play music, and appreciate music with great feeling an insight, without being able to articulate what pitch is, or why certain sounds appeal to the human ear. Someone can lead a moral life by instinct, without ever having an articulated concept of ethics. But having a formal code and system of articulated ethics, for those of us without such innate goodness or ethical compasses is helpful, just as classes in music theory are helpful for individuals with less than perfect 'ears.'

But simply knowing about ethics is not 'doing ethics.' After all, one could be a great ethics professor, and deconstruct the Kantian categorical imperative with great alacrity, but never volunteer in one's community, never say hello to one's neighbors, ignore one's children when one got home, and promptly refuse to leave one's insurance information upon the windshield of a car one blindsided in a parking lot. 'I know these things are unethical,' the immoral ethicist might say, 'yet I do them anyway.' The average person might say that such actions, even if one could, create Objectivist ethical justifications for them in theory, are just simply, instinctively immoral because they 'feel' wrong. Even though feeling is not always right, this sense of morality and feeling stresses that what we feel are moral actions often depend a constellation of emotional, instinctive, and community-based credos that may or may not be ethical according to a professional code of right and wrong. 'Just give me a hint,' begs a friend who wants a stock tip, 'I'm really struggling to put the kids through college.' The ethical broker must say no, even if it 'feels' immoral in terms of his friendship, and his knowledge that corporate bigwigs who don't need the money will benefit from a pending merger.

This is not to discount the importance of ethical, professional study and standards, merely to suggest that ethics is the thought or philosophy and morality is often the personal and emotional actions that come from one's ethics but also one's community and early teachings. Furthermore, ethical systems, one could even argue, can be immoral -- the legal code of ethics demands that one represent a client, once one has agreed to do so, even if one suspects the client's guilt. A lawyer cannot lie, but he or she must represent the client to the best of his or her ability once he or she agrees to be an advocate in the adversarial American legal system of justice. And if lawyers did not often agree to…