Ethics
This discussion of ethics is a continuation of the discussion of Morality
Ethics is a generally thought of as a philosophical concept - an often secular attempt at rationalizing morality. Morality is generally thought of as a religious concept, originating as a revelation from God. Both morality and ethics address the same issues, and the terms are often used interchangeably. It is often difficult to discern whether a tenet originated as a moral or ethical concept. Morality and ethics are our sense of right and wrong, good or evil, fair and unfair, just and unjust, and what is a reward or punishment.
From a psychological standpoint. morality is a left-brain actor that is engaged on an emotional level, while ethics is a right-brain actor that is engaged on an intellectual level. individual vary in their preponderance to act from emotion or from intellect. Most of us act through our emotions, but some act primarily through intellect. Whatever moral or ethical tenant we might propose for our society or culture, it must be able to affect our compatriots through both sensible and emotional avenues.
Laws are moral and ethical issues codified by the state, and are generally defined, processed, decided, and enforced by the state. The most extent ancient written legal code that survives until today appeared about 1,800 years before Christ, when Hammurabi, the sixth king of the first dynasty of Babylonia, cast in stone the Code of Hammurabi. We may argue as to whether it was law based on moral codes or ethical codes, but practically it makes no different, as Hammurabi claimed divine ascendance to the throne.
The written history of ethical and moral codes continues some five hundred years after Hammurabi, when the Ten Commandments was revealed by Moses (around 1,300 years before Christ). About 600 years before Christ, Confucius preached ethical tenets eventually published after his death as the 12-volume Analects. Confucius himself could be considered a philosopher, but his followers consider him to be inspired.
Lao-Tzu may have published the Tao-te-Ching (The Way and the Virtue) containing ethical and moral guidance perhaps 500 years before Christ, And the Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama) delivered his moral and ethical tenets about 500 years before Christ.
The Golden Rule is ascribed To Jesus of Nazareth (the Christ), even though it was stated in the negative 500 years before by Confucius. By the time of Christ, the Jewish Torah was essentially formed.
Some six hundred years after Christ. Mohammed revealed the somewhat similar Quran - a moral code that became the foundation of Islamic law.
Interspersed in the above instances, and between then and now, succeeding civilizations
have struggled with the concept of setting forth acceptable social interactions and regulating human behavior in furtherance of group coherence and social harmony.
Modern Perspective
Today’s attempts at regulating human behavior may fill voluminous tomes. Modern treatment of morality and ethics employ a narrowed definition of terms and divide the issues into classes according to sanctions more or less as follows:
o Laws – codifications of moral and ethical tenets, often imposing specific consequences for violations, and enforced by the police power of the state.
o Ethics - recommended behavior to promote harmonious social relations and desirable natural consequences. Much of ethics is formalized in laws, particularly civil codes pertaining to business and financial redress.
o Morals - percepts of social and personal behavior that are believed to have divine consequences. Much of moral belief is formalized in laws, particularly in criminal codes with punishments for transgressions.
o Mores - expected social behavior that affects the voluntary desire of groups to associate with an individual. Mores are typically not part of the codified laws, but nonetheless may have considerable impact on non-complying individuals.
o Norms - characteristic social behavior of a group which help define it and/or distinguish it from other groups.
Morality is primarily a religious concept involving faith, while ethics is largely a secular concept derived from logical argument. Both morality and ethics address the same behavioral concepts in terms of human beings – an attempt to relate individual and group behavior to consequences – in a moral sense to an often divinely-defined sense of good or evil, and in an ethical secular sense as good or bad consequences.
Historical moral codes are faith-based and typified by the Jewish Torah, the Christian Bible, and the Moslem Quran. Historical ethical codes are based in logical argument and typified by the tenets of various philosophical schools of thought such as Aristotelian, Epicureanism, Stoicism, Confucianism, Buddhism, Hedonism, and so forth.
Secular and religious advocates often clash on the relevancy and utility of particular morals or ethics. However, the evolutions of morality and ethics are intertwined, and in modern times the terms are often used interchangeably without a distinction as to their roots. Both moral beliefs and ethical philosophy permeate legal codes.
Chains of Consequences
Human behavior generally consists of a complex series of actions – each prior action affecting the subsequent act. Greatly complicating this is that each action in a series is also influenced by external persons, actors, natural forces, and circumstances. Establishing a causal path from beginning to end is a daunting and difficult task at best. Most ancient adjudications of legal and ethical issues brought before a judge only addressed the last actions that could reasonably be identified or recognized, and a judgment rendered in a days time. More modern adjudications might spend months or even years trying to unravel the actions and circumstances of the parties to a complaint.
Moral and Ethical Consequences
Morality and ethics deal with the social interactions of humans, specifically the actions of one human individual, whose actions affect another individual, or please or offend the public sense, often couched in terms of a deity. Codes of morality and ethics, whether formalized in writing or verbal in extant, proclaim that natural or divine consequences are attached to specific actions of individuals. To encourage behaviors with natural beneficial consequences, rewards are given to the acting individual, which are in addition to the natural consequences. Likewise, to discourage behaviors with natural harmful consequences, punishments are given to the actor, which are in addition to the natural consequences.
Thus consequences are natural (emanating naturally of actions caused or initiated by a human purportedly in control acting or not), divine (offending the public sense, often personified as a deity), or they are artificial (made as a reward or punishment, either to encourage or discourage specific acts).
Artificial consequences are also called sanctions, and are intended to modify human behavior – either to promote desirable behavior, but more often to discourage undesirable behavior. Sanctions are usually imposed on the offending individual, but may extend to the spouse, children or extended family (corruption-of-blood). Sanctions are in addition to whatever divine or natural consequences may exist or be imagined. The ultimate goal of sanctions is the beneficial modification of natural consequences, and the means to achieve that are sanctions on individual human behavior. Sanctions may be rewards or punishments, although modern usage generally implies punishment.
Divine consequences are those to be received or imposed by a supernatural force or entity, usually after death, and are tenets of religious beliefs. Religious proscriptions of behavior are most often presented as edicts of God (delivered thru the prophets, or philosopher founders) with little, if any, logical explanation or scientific demonstration of a causal relation of behavior to consequence – or if such explanation was originally given in the older religions, such explanations have been lost and are now subjects of blind faith. In most religions, divine consequences sometimes occur while the offender is alive, but usually after death, as some form of everlasting torment in retribution for wicked deeds performed while alive (example: going to heaven or hell after dying, based on one’s good or bad deeds while alive.) Despite the fact that little or no proof exists of the truth of divine consequences, belief in them does appear to have a modifying effect on human behavior, at least among believers.
Natural consequences are those that are a result of natural forces that can be investigated and verified using scientific methodology. The causative chain begins with a specified human behavior (the cause) and ends in natural consequences (the effect.) Despite the allusion to natural consequences, many existing sanctions have little or no scientific investigation to establish a causal chain of regulated behavior to supposedly beneficial or harmful social consequences, and even less to the interposing sanction.
Morality and Ethics in Transcendent Reality
Transcendent Reality does not offer too many new definitions of morality or ethics, generally accepting most of those touted millenniums past. But upon all morality tenets is imposed a duty to test the efficacy of those that in place or proposed. Thus it is important not to rely only on divine authority or logical argument, but to actually measure the efficacy of sanctions using established scientific methodology. Those tenets that cannot be substantiated must be considered for elimination, those that are substantiated, can be retained, and if the results so indicate, even strengthened.
The causal test must past the following minimum standards:
1) A significant and strong causal relation must be established between the human action to be circumscribed and the presumed natural consequences, as measured by standard statistical inference tests implying causation.
2) The sanctions imposed or intended must actually result in a significant social benefit commensurate with the social cost of the sanction, as measured by standard statistical inference tests reasonably implying causality.
3) The codification of a tenet passing the first two standards must not be extended beyond the reasonable implications of the statistical tests performed.
Related Issues: The discussion of ethics is intertwined with morality, Visit the Morality page for further discussion.
The discussion of morality and ethics is developed further on the Laws page