Morality v.

Ethics

"Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right." (Isaac Asimov)

YOU ANIMAL. A soap opera staple. Although when someone has these two words said
to them in real life? It’s safe to say that they did something terribly wrong. Immoral? Unethical?
Whatever. Ethics, morals, however one might want to refer to it. It is basically our mental
capacity to discern what actually acceptable human behavior is and what is not. Alongside the
faculty of speech, we humans have the ability to reason—to discern right from wrong. And
surprisingly, there’s no sign of redundancy in the quote from Asimov. Because morals, doesn’t
necessarily dictate what is right. For you, at least, but for the next guy? I’d bet on the probability
of you not seeing eye to eye. We live in a world where idealistically, differences in perspectives
on morality are respected, in adherence to the principle of universal love—or that quote from
Confucius: “Don't do unto others what you don't want done unto you.” or from according to
Kant (1785) in his Groundwork of the metaphysics of morals, humans ought to act only
according to that maxim by which one can will at the same time to become a universal law. This
essay shall further stand with reason rather than that of ramblings of a still extraordinary belief
while aiming to provide reason for why the two concepts of ethics and morality are often times
interchanged. The paper further stands that the interchangeability between the two is ineffective
in providing context in an ever-progressing global scene.

Religion and morals always go hand in hand. All that is deemed right by God is moral. In
the passage of time, the discussion between religion and morality has proven to be a contentious
topic. (Mckay &Whitehouse, 2015) As the most intelligent forms of life in earth, why is it that
we rely on mere hear-say from writings of a time realistically is supposed to be obsolete to the
modern world? Setting Christianity as an example, isn’t it so detestable how ironic it is that the
word morality is so closely tied to the concept of Church, divinity and whatnot? Hidden from
public sight (I guess not anymore) is that behind closed doors, inhumanity prevails within the
corrupted minds of these clerics, the very same people who—through most of their adult lives—
do nothing but to live in service of the Lord? The very same ones who appear every now and
then on every facet of contemporary media for taking part in deplorable, and utterly disgusting
cases of abuse. If it does not suppress—or wholly discard—a person’s belief of the notion that
morality is championed through religion, I guess nothing ever will. Religion, through the course
of centuries, rather than its ideals of love and good morals, has only set the world ablaze with
each difference in religious ideologies generating clashes in morals and normative values which
ultimately result to “ripples” that we feel until now. Rather than the accustomed reliance in
religion for moral checking, humanity as a whole should turn to settling differences set by
differing religious teachings by social conversation. And as Sam Harris has said, “society has
two options: either conversation or war. And usually, faith is a conversation stopper.”

Morality varies from each individual. Morals are by-products of customs, beliefs and
tradition and from where I stand, the distinguishing factor of morality and ethics is present in the
field that they are greatly applied to. In reality, the unwary may find pointlessness in the
endeavor to state differences between the two concepts since it the two are usually
interchangeably used by philosophers. However, outside philosophy, stark distinctions are given
to the two concepts and are mainly relative to what scope they apply to. Morality is given the
definition of what the individual thinks is right and wrong. On the other hand, ethics are based on
societal norms. External factors greatly affect ethics for it does not care for the perspective of the
individual but an everlasting conquest for the greater good of society as a whole. In most
readings that find authors tasking themselves to offer enlightenment to the philosophical area of
human thinking, the two terms are often interchanged since they generally refer to the same
principles of good and bad.

With the assertion of the distinctions between ethics and morals, it can be also said that
just because something is deemed ethical does not immediately justify its morality and vice
versa. In the modern world, the value of ethical thinking lies prevalent in almost--if not all--
professional fields. Since, between the two, ethics is seen as more practical than morals because
ethics are drawn from the need of a set of guiding principles to create conformity within an
established organization of humans. Take for example the job of the common defense attorney.
A lawyer’s moral thinking may get in the way of defending the client to the best of his/her
abilities when it’s clear that the client is guilty. Thus proving to be of violation of certain ethical
practices of lawyers.

Admittedly, we owe it to the bounds of religion for setting the grounds of moral thinking.
Though it should be realized that when we enclose our minds to innovation through scientific
and philosophical changes, we stay confined to the teachings of mere groundwork which is
reflective of an oppressive and hateful behavior now that times have changed. It is kind of
disheartening that a majority of countries still believe that in order to be moral, one has to believe
in God. (Pew Research center, 2007). Without the groundwork set by religion however, we may
never have realized the need to move from such oppressive thinking. Distinctions from ethics
and morals may never have been conceptualized.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Ahmed, A., & Salas, O. (2011). Implicit influences of Christian religious representations on
dictator and prisoner’s dilemma game decisions. The Journal of Socio-Economics, 40, 242–246.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socec.2010.12.013.

Kant, I., Gregor, M. J., & Kant, I. (1998). Groundwork of the metaphysics of morals. Cambridge
University Press.

McKay, R., & Whitehouse, H. (2015). Religion and morality. Psychological Bulletin, 141(2),
447-473. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0038455.

Zuckerman, P. (2008). Society without God. NYU Press.