What is ethics? What is moral? What is the relationship between the two?
There is great confusion in understanding the meaning of Ethics and Morals. Confusion is established by the emphasis on the search for differences and not similarities, the search for a definition of each of the terms and the differentiation not always made between the meaning of the terms and the thematic distinction.
First, I would like to draw your attention to the synonym of the terms ethics and morals regarding morphology. The radical difference lies in the Greek and Latin origin of the two terms. Ethics derives from the Greek Ethos and means science of customs. Moral stems from the Latin radical Mos, meaning the same thing as Ethos. Therefore, in etymological terms there is no difference between the two, they are synonymous. Second, there is a possible distinction between ethics and morals, the thematic. Everything indicates that this is the root of the confusion. It appears with the not always correct reading of the writings of the eighteenth century philosophers, Kant and Hegel. This interpretation by the German idealists says that Ethics is the science of customs in society, while Moral is the science of customs (conduct) of the individual. Reading that cannot be corroborated today.
It cannot be forgotten that the problem acquires importance and intensity in the debates, since action is not an accessory issue in human life. Acting is a matter of being and remaining human. Ethics and Morals are not secondary issues, but sine qua non for human achievement as far as is possible in this life. Thus, what is in demand in the ethical-moral problem is human identity: Who am I? Who do I want to be? What do I want? And therefore, what should I do? How do I reconcile my responses and pretensions with what others are, want to be, have and do? It is, briefly, the rational orientation of action. When reason is used in order to guide action, it is called practice. This is ipseidade, an individuating principle, which underlies human identity and impregnates this being with dignity and rights. It doesn’t just make you bear something you can let go of or break up with. Dignity and rights are inherent to the practical use of reason and are constitutive of being able to use it in this way. For free, that is, capable of responsibility. Three major interpretations of what would be the orientation of action for practical reason have been elaborated in Western thought: the first says that one must act well, the second in a useful way and the third in a fair way. This specification, fixation and reduction to a principle led to the loss of the unity of practical reason as diagnosed by Hegel. Thus, a fourth, contemporary, intends to reconcile the three to return the unit to practical reason. Three major interpretations of what would be the orientation of action for practical reason have been elaborated in Western thought: the first says that one must act well, the second in a useful way and the third in a fair way. This specification, fixation and reduction to a principle led to the loss of the unity of practical reason as diagnosed by Hegel. Thus, a fourth, contemporary, intends to reconcile the three to return the unit to practical reason. Three major interpretations of what would be the orientation of action for practical reason have been elaborated in Western thought: the first says that one must act well, the second in a useful way and the third in a fair way. This specification, fixation and reduction to a principle led to the loss of the unity of practical reason as diagnosed by Hegel. Thus, a fourth, contemporary, intends to reconcile the three to return the unit to practical reason.
The question raised becomes relevant due to a characteristic very present in Western culture: the need for clarity to guide action, the choices inherent to the human condition and the perception that it is necessary to know what something is in order to achieve the clarity necessary to put the action in motion and that this clarity will be enough to make it happen according to what is meant by it. Clarity is often understood as an absolute definition or delimitation. Now, to define is to put an end. To delimit is to put a limit. How to do this with a dynamic reality like the orientation of human action? This would be nonsense, because both ethics and morals must always be open concepts under penalty of becoming their opposite, that is, instead of indicating and prescribing the path of freedom, they will lead to the domination of man through ignorance or by man himself. Which is the same.
When things are not clear, it is preferable to act with caution and precaution, even if it means to omit. In the case of ethics and morals, many actions and omissions are or are intended to be justified by the complexity of the relationship and, therefore, the agent’s apparent inability to act better. Second, it is thought that once one knows what ethics and morals are, the action will therefore be in accordance with this knowledge. That was the Socratic understanding and remains largely to confuse the unwary. It is essential understanding. But, knowing what something is is not enough to guarantee rational action. One can know what is abortion, euthanasia, murder, crime, etc. and, even so, the actions described by these terms continue to be perpetrated by the subjects aware of their meaning.
The existence of good and evil in themselves is not an ethical problem. For Baruch Espinosa, they do not exist in themselves, but in the relationship that is established with the world. And you can add, with yourself and with others. Thus, one could expand and say that good, useful or fair are attributes of a relationship. Therefore, ethics and morals are the relation, or expectation of it, of some in relation to others.
Therefore, the theoretical problem of the distinction between ethics and morals is not the most important, nor can it provide what is sought. Ethics and morals are practical science. As such, it will not be a theorization that will answer the problems of meaning and orientation of the action. It would be a contradiction to say that the problem is theoretical. This highlights one of the great contradictions in which this problem arises: it has never been written and talked about so much. There have never been so many codes of ethics. And few times, in recent history, has acted as amorally and aesthetically, read irrationally, as now.
