Ethics and Morality
Although many use the terms ethics and morality interchangeably, we will distinguish the formal discipline of ethics from the common morality that guides everyday actions and behavior. Morality refers to a society’s shared, stable beliefs about what is good and bad, right and wrong. Through upbringing and socialization, each generation passes this common morality to the next. Common morality envelopes the individual like an ecosphere of shared customs, rules, and values. For most circumstances, people habitually rely on this common morality to guide their conduct, and it serves them well, just as standard practice generally serves professional practitioners well. Still, common morality can fall short where its rules conflict, where it inadequately illuminates novel moral problems, or where intense disagreement prevails among rival stakeholders. In such instances, the formal discipline of ethics offers a deliberate, systematic way of addressing troubling moral issues, conflicts, and dilemmas.
Ethics can assist in:
- Recognizing ethical issues and distinguishing them from factual issues
- Providing a vocabulary to systematically discuss ethics
- Identifying appropriate ethical principles to guide action in a particular context
- Using these principles to analyze actions in regard to their ethical acceptability
- Understanding the competing moral claims and values of stakeholders
- Designing alternative courses of action that incorporate these claims and values
- Evaluating which alternative best fits a given context, all things considered
- Establishing a procedurally just, transparent process for decision making
- Justifying decisions regarding recommendations, policies, or interventions
