Resident Theologian
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Ethics primer
There are two sets of fundamental distinctions in ethics. The first concerns the kind of ethics in view. The second concerns the difference between morality and other terms or concepts we are prone to confuse with morality.
There are two sets of fundamental distinctions in ethics. The first concerns the kind of ethics in view. By my count, there are four such:
First is descriptive ethics. This is, as the name suggests, ethics in a descriptive mode: it does not propose what is good or evil, what actions to pursue or avoid, but rather offers an account, meant to be accurate but not evaluative, of what individuals, groups, religions, or philosophies believe to be good or evil, etc.
Second is metaethics. This is a philosophical approach to ethics that takes a bird’s-eye view of the very task and concept of ethics, asking what is going on when we “do” ethics. If first-order ethics is the exercise of practical reason in real time on a daily basis by ordinary people, and if second-order ethics is critical rational reflection on the reasoning processes and resulting behaviors embodied in those daily habits of moral living, then metaethics is third-order ethics: critical rational reflection on what we’re up to when we engage in second-order reasoning about first-order living. Metaethics asks questions like, “What does the word ‘good’ have in common as between its use in, e.g., Thomist and Kantian discourses?” Or: “Is all second-order ethics ineluctably teleological?” So on and so forth.
Third is normative ethics. This is the second-order ethics mentioned above: critical rational reflection on what the good life consists in and what behaviors conduce to it. Put differently, normative ethics is prescriptive; it wants, at the end of its labors, to arrive at how you and I should live if we would be good persons. The mood or mode of normative ethics is the imperative (though not only the imperative): Thou shalt not murder, steal, lie, covet, and what not. Only rarely does anyone but academics do metaethics or descriptive ethics. More or less everyone does normative ethics, at least in terms of making appeals to concrete traditions of normative ethics on appropriate occasions: faced with a hard decision; helping a friend work through a problem; teaching a child how to behave; etc.
Fourth is professional ethics. This is the code of conduct or statute of behaviors proper to a particular profession, institution, job, business, or guild. It is a contingent set of recommendations for what makes a fitting or excellent member of said sphere: If you would practice law/medicine/whatever, then you may (not) do X, Y, Z … It is important to see that professional ethics is a derivative, secondary, and belated species of ethics. It is derivative because its principles stem from but are not synonymous with normative ethics. It is secondary because, when and where it requires actions that are (normatively) wrong or forbids actions that are (normatively) right, a person “bound” by professional ethics not only may but must transgress the lines drawn by his or her professional ethics, in service to the higher good required by normative ethics. By the same token, much of professional ethics consists of “best practices” that are neither moral nor immoral, but amoral. They aren’t, that is, about right or wrong in themselves, only about what it means to belong to this or that career or organization. Finally, professional ethics is belated in the sense that late modern capitalism generates byzantine bureaucracies beholden to professional ethics not as a useful, if loosely held, revolving definition of membership in a guild, but instead as hidebound labyrinths by which to protect said members from legal liability. In this way professional ethics partakes of a certain mystification, insofar as it suggests, by its language, that persons formed by its rules and principles will be good or virtuous in character, whereas in truth such persons are submitting to a form of ideological discipline that bears little, if any, relationship to the good in itself or what makes for virtuous character.
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Having made these distinctions, we are in a position to move to a second set. The following distinctions concern the difference between morality (which is what ethics proper, or normative ethics, is about) and other terms or concepts we are prone to confuse with morality. By my count there are five such:
1. Morality and legality. This is the difference between what one ought to do and what one is permitted by law to do. So, e.g., it is morally wrong to cheat on your spouse, but in this country, at this time, adultery is not illegal. Or consider Jim Crow: “separate but equal” was legal for a time, but it was never moral. If a black person jumped into a public swimming pool full of white people, he did nothing wrong, even if the police had a legal pretext by which to apprehend or punish him.
2. Morality and freedom. This is the difference between what one ought to do and what one is capable of doing. E.g., when I ask student X whether it is morally permissible (or “ethical”) for student Y to cheat on an exam, eight times out of ten the answer is: “He can what he wants.” But that’s not the question. No one disputes that he, student Y, “can do what he wants.” I’m asking whether, if what he wants is to cheat on an exam, that action is a moral one, i.e., whether it is right or wrong.
3. Morality and convention. This is the difference between what one ought to do and what one’s community (family, culture, religion) presupposes one ought to do. If I ask, “Is it right for person A to perform action B?” and someone answers, “Well, that’s the sort of thing that’s done in the community to which person A belongs,” the question has not yet been answered. Cultural assumptions are just that: assumptions. They may or may not be right. Ancient Rome permitted the paterfamilias of a household to expose a newborn infant who was unwanted or somehow deemed to be defective. But infanticide is morally wrong, regardless of whether or not a particular culture has permitted, encouraged, and/or legalized it. That is why we are justified in judging the ancient Roman practice of exposure to be morally wrong, even though they could well have responded, “But that’s the sort of thing that’s done here by and among us.”
4. Morality and beliefs-about-morality. This is the difference between what one ought to do and what people think one ought to do. In other words, no one is morally infallible; each of us, at any one time, has and has had erroneous ethical beliefs. This is why, from childhood through adulthood and onward, to be human is to undergo a lifelong moral education. It is likewise why it is intelligible for someone, even in midlife or older, to say, “You know, I used to believe that [moral claim] too; but recently my mind was changed.” This distinction also makes clear that relativism is false. It is not morally right for a serial killer to murder, even if he genuinely believes it is good for him, the serial killer, to do so. It is wrong whatever he believes, because murder is objectively wrong. The truth of murder’s wrongness is independent of his, your, or my beliefs about murder. If it is wrong, it is wrong prior to and apart from your and my agreement with its wrongness—though it is certainly desirable for you and I to come to see that murder is objectively wrong, and not merely wrong if/because we believe it to be wrong.
5. Morality and behavior. This is the difference between what one ought to do and what people actually do. No one believes human beings to be morally perfect; further, no one believes human beings to be perfectly consistent in the application of their moral convictions. E.g., whether or not you would lie in such-and-such a situation does not (yet) answer whether or not it would be right to do so. My students regularly trip up on this distinction. I ask: “Would it be morally justified for you knowingly to kill an innocent person in order to save five innocent persons?” They say: “I guess I would, if I were in that situation.” But as we have seen, that isn’t an answer to my question. The question is not whether you or I would do anything at all, only whether the behavior in question is morally right/wrong. Jews, Christians, and Muslims are doubly committed to the importance of this distinction, between we believe that all human beings are sinners. Our moral compass is broken, and although we may do good deeds, our proclivity runs the other direction: to vanity, pride, selfishness, sloth, self-loathing, lust, envy, deceit, self-justification. If that belief about human sinfulness is true (and it is), then on principle we should never suppose that what anyone would do in a given situation, real or hypothetical, reveals the truth of what one ought to do. The latter question must be answered on other grounds entirely.
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In my experience, these two sets of distinctions, if imbibed thoroughly or taught consistently, make a world of difference for students, Christians, and other persons of good will who are interested in understanding, pursuing, and deliberating on what makes for good, ethical, or moral human living. If we agreed on them in advance, we might even be able to have a meaningful conversation about contested ethical matters! Imagine that.