Morals vs. Ethics

Many people use Morals and Ethics interchangeably and for good reason; if you look up the definition of morals it will reference ethics in a somewhat circular definition, same goes if you look up ethics. I will make an important distinction. Ethics represents innate knowledge of right/wrong distinctions. Ethics transcends culture, religion, and time.

Morals are culturally and religiously based distinctions of right/wrong. The sphere of morality does overlap the sphere of ethics which makes distinctions between the two difficult. Morality claims knowledge of ethics but it does so through culturally based assertions, namely through religion. It is for this reason, morality has a religious connotation. Both terms denote a knowledge of right and wrong actions but the foundations of that knowledge are divergent.

Jonathan Haidt has come up with a definition of Morality that is quite useful. He used secular means (the scientific method) to arrive at what he considered a sound foundation for Morality (which he denotes as synonymous with Ethics). He has reduced Morality to be comprised of five basic components.

1 Harm/Care

2 Fairness/Reciprocity

3 In-group/loyalty

4 Authority/respect

5 Purity/Sanctity

This foundation of morality stretches across cultures throughout history and even is found in the animal kingdom to some extent. This definition of morality is useful in explaining why the term morality has a religious connotation. It is also useful in helping to distinguishing the term ethics from morality. The first two items (1) Harm/Care and (2) Fairness/Reciprocity are subjects within an ethical sphere. The last three elements (3) In-group/loyalty (4) Authority/Respect and (5) Purity/Sanctity while being fundamental elements of morality are not fundamental elements of ethics.

You can parse Ethics in many ways but typically Ethics requires more than one entity to exist, and the “other” typically has to have the ability to “feel” pain at a minimum, and have a concept of fair treatment to fully understand ethics. People clearly meet this criteria. Animals clearly meet the pain requirement, and concepts of fairness have been demonstrated in primates and possibly other social animals.

We do not hold inanimate objects ethically or morally responsible for causing harm to people because they can have no intention or will to do so. We do not hold most animals ethically or morally responsible for causing harm to people… although that is not always true (dogs who bits people typically get the death penalty). Even when people do harm or treat someone unfairly, the courts and public opinion weigh the intent of the person inflicting the harm in order to determine the severity of the punishment (balanced reciprocity is an ethical condition).

Creating a distinction between Ethics and Morals is more of a philosophical problem than a psychological one. I believe the definitions provided are clear. That said, understanding ethics requires knowledge of psychology. “To know thyself” is very difficult. We do not see ourselves clearly. It is difficult to hold a metaphorical mirror up to ourselves which can help us see our true selves. That said, using some very basic questions, like the golden rule helps. Selfish people hate to be cheated. So the more selfish, the more they should despise there own behavior when viewed externally. The key is to get people to “see” their behavior for how others see it; how they would see it if they were viewing it detached from themselves. That is a psychological problem to solve.

The harm/care dichotomy is relatively easy to evaluate. The fairness/reciprocity dichotomy is quite a bit different. Fairness is like Quality… hard to define but usually easy to detect. Equality and Fairness are not the same. The large debate in US politics between Equality (more of a Democratic concern) and Fairness (more of a Republican concern) is a real world example of two groups with different ways of framing the same issue colliding on HOW to best solve common issues.

Jonathan Haidt’s study on Liberal vs Conservative views on morality provides context to this debate.http://www.ethicsdefined.org/the…/conservatives-vs-liberals/. Just to be clear, there are Liberal Republicans and Conservative Democrats… so there is a range of views within both parties. I propose the hypothesis in “The Problem with Morality – Conservatives VS. Liberals” that Liberals likely have a better understanding of ethics. Conservatives likely have a shallower understanding of ethics; instead their understanding of ethics is more along the lines of “obey your authority figures”. If you look at the world through this set of “frames” or lenses and view the debates looking at it form an ethical persecutive, things get a bit more clear.

Morality is black and white. So a flat tax rate seems the fairest to conservatives. Mathematically, a flat tax rate is the fairest. Ethics exists in the gray. So a progressive tax scale that taxes the wealthy more and the poor less seems fairest to liberals. A progressive tax rate takes into consideration that to survive in a capitalist economy a person or group requires a certain base level of wealth just to exist. And beyond a certain level of wealth, wealth accumulated by one person or group has the potential to harm the greater good. Achieving a balance is tricky. Ethically minded Liberal thinkers (both Democrat and Republican) struggle to determine where these lines exist, which are circumstantial and change in realtime. Conservatives avoid the effort of trying to achieve balance by placing all circumstances into two bins, good/evil or right/wrong. If you eliminate the gray through highly polarized view of the world, sorting out the gray is easy, you eliminate it by design.

This is why ultra-concervative people tend to design a hell on earth; their fear of the slippery slope makes then build defensed against any change or progress. It is also way ultra-liberal people pave the way to hell on earth through unintended consequences; by trying to things more equal they often create many unintended consequences. The big error Liberals are prone to make is equating Fairness with Equality. We should aim to treat everyone fairly, i.e. everyone should play by the same rules, and we should enforce them. That said, we are not born equal, we do not contribute equally, we do not cause harm equally, so there will never be a perfect utopian world of equal people. Actually, given the stated reality, a world were everyone is equal would be a type of hell. It would punish people who contribute and reward those that don’t. Conservatives see the balancing act that Liberals engage in as Communist. Liberals see the authoritarian rules Conservatives favor as Fascist. Neither is correct but both are correct when brought to the extremes.

A progressive tax scale is fair because it recognizes the inherent unfairness of the struggles of those on the bottom and the ease of those at the top. We cannot say that the ultra-rich are rich because they try harder and contribute more to society than the ultra-poor because we do not start out at a zero point. We are not born equal, given the same opportunities, the same capital to start life, etc. Chances are if we were, many of the rich would be rich, and many of the poor would be poor. That said, the majority of people would surprise you. Progressive ideas try to find that elusive balance of creating fairness among unequal groups and individuals, yet treating all groups fairly. Both political parties get it wrong more often than not; both groups gauge Fairness improperly. A group of moderates has the best chance of achieving balance. Two extremes will just swing the pendulum back and forth, creating huge wakes of uncertainty and damage along the way; or creating a dangerous stalemate.

A proper understanding of ethics would solve a lot of problems. You can be ethically minded and fiscally responsible; actually fiscal responsibility would be ethically sound. You can be ethically minded and not equate fairness and equality; actually ethical understanding helps to avoid that problem. I would encourage everyone to try to understand Ethics better.