Morality, Politics, &

Ethics
Know Your Rights Unit

Morality

Morality refers to the concept of human ethics which pertains to matters of good
and evil also referred to as "right or wrong", used within three contexts:

individual conscience;
systems of principles and
judgments sometimes called moral values

shared within a cultural, religious, secular, Humanist, or philosophical community; and

codes of behavior or conduct.

Personal morality defines and distinguishes among right and wrong intentions,
motivations or actions, as these have been learned, engendered, or otherwise
developed within each individual.

Individual conscience

System of principles

I want to drive my sister to her friends house because it would be the right thing to do.

Susan is a good catholic because she lives by catholic beliefs.

Judgments/Moral Values

Those who give to the poor are kind hearted and have good moral values.

Politics

Politics is the process by which groups make

decisions. Although the term is generally applied
to behavior within governments, politics is
observed in all human (and many non-human)
group interactions, including corporate,
academic, and religious institutions.
A government is the body that has the authority to
make and enforce rules or laws.

-What are some examples of academic politics?

-NCLB Act
-Teacher Unions.
-What are some examples of corporate politics?
-Enron Scandal

Ethics

Ethics (from the Ancient Greek "ethikos",

meaning "arising from habit"), a major branch of
philosophy, is the study of value or quality.
It covers the analysis and employment of
concepts such as right, wrong, good, evil, and
responsibility. It is divided into three primary
areas:
meta-ethics (the study of what ethicality is),
normative ethics (the study of what ethical truths
there are and how they are known), and
applied ethics (the study of the use of ethical
knowledge).

Moral and Ethical Dilemmas in

Decision Making
Ethics

has been applied to war, leading to

the fields of pacifism and nonviolence
Brainstorm some ethical dilemmas with the
War on Iraq:
-Innocent people are killed with the mass destruction that war brings.

-Many Americans do not understand why we are in Iraq and feel that
the war was a forced decision made by the president.
-Fighting the War on Iraq for oil?
-The current military strategy causes unnecessary deaths; more
Americans are being killed than enemies.
-What do we do about the War on Terror?
-Imprisonment of innocent Iraqi are proven innocent.

Moral and Ethical Dilemmas in

Decision Making
A

moral dilemma usually involves a

difficult decision that challenges your
beliefs.
There was a man who murdered your wife
and children. He was eventually caught
and now he has a disease. You are the
only one skilled enough to operate and
save his life; would you?
What would you do?