The world around us is a smorgasbord of beliefs, claims, rules and norms about how we should live and behave. It's important to tease apart these factors so we can put them in their proper place. Otherwise it can be hard to know what to do, especially when some of these requirements contradict others. Let's talk about three different categories of demands on how we should live. Ethics, morality and law.
Laws are formal rules that govern how we behave as members of a society. They specify what we must do and more frequently what we must not do. They're upheld and applied by the state and the court system. And their role is to create a basic enforceable standard of behaviour.
But the law has a much narrower focus than either morality or ethics. Laws can be just or unjust and are subject to ethical assessment. Plus there are some matters about which the law will be silent but where morality and ethics have a lot to say.
For example, the law is of no use if you're trying to decide whether to speak up when you hear a friend make a racist joke. But ideas about what's good and right will still guide our judgment here. Morality refers to an informal framework of values, principles, beliefs, customs and ways of living. Moralities aren't usually enforced by the state but there are often social pressures to conform to moral norms.
Some people consider themselves to be so strongly bound by certain moral codes that even to question the moral system would be wrong. Some examples of moralities include Christianity, Stoicism and Buddhism. Each of these provides a set of answers to basic ethical questions like how should I live and what should I do? Many people inherit their morality from their family community or culture It's rare for someone to shop around for the morality that most closely fits their personal beliefs Usually the process of moral formation is uncommon conscious. What sets morality apart from ethics is that you can apply a morality as a matter of habit without having to think.
You can simply obey or follow instructions from those who claim moral authority. within a particular tradition. And for some people, this is enough.
Maybe a world of habitually virtuous individuals is better than one where people are habitually vicious. Plus, having a coherent, consistent account of how to live can be a source of comfort, especially in a complex and uncertain world. But there is also a risk in living what the Greek philosopher Socrates called an unexamined life.
If we just accept a ready-made answer to the question of how we should live, live, we might live our whole lives under a moral system which, if we'd thought about it, we would have rejected in part or in full. This is where ethics comes in. Ethics is a branch of philosophy that aims to answer the basic question, what should I do? It's a process of reflection in which people's decisions are shaped by their values, principles and purpose rather than unthinking habits or social conventions.
Our values are not just about what we do, we are about what we do. Values, principles and purpose are what give us a sense of what's good, right and meaningful in our lives. They serve as a reference point for all the possible courses of action we could choose.
On this definition, an ethical decision is one based on conscious reflection and which gives effect to our values, principles and purpose in pursuit of a proper goal. It can be tempting to see law, morality and ethics as more or less the same thing. less the same. We might think that so long as we're fulfilling our legal or moral obligations, we can consider ourselves ethical.
In reality, there is more to ethics than morality and law. Ethics requires us to think about issues the law can't or doesn't address. It puts moral systems under the microscope to see if they hold up.
In an ideal world, our ethical beliefs shape the kinds of laws and moral systems a society develops. develops. When our conscious, reflective, ethical views on what's good and right change, we ought to change the laws to reflect them. And likewise, our morality should evolve in response to insights generated from ethical reflection.
But we can only do this if we have a toolkit that keeps open questions to do with what is good and right. And that toolkit, that's ethics.