Defining Ethics: Ancient Greek Latin

Defining ethics
The English word ethics is derived from the Ancient Greek word ēthikós (ἠθικός), meaning
"relating to one's character", which itself comes from the root word êthos (ἦθος) meaning
"character, moral nature".[4] This word was transferred into Latin as ethica and then into French
as éthique, from which it was transferred into English.
Rushworth Kidder states that "standard definitions of ethics have typically included such phrases
as 'the science of the ideal human character' or 'the science of moral duty'".[5] Richard William
Paul and Linda Elder define ethics as "a set of concepts and principles that guide us in
determining what behavior helps or harms sentient creatures".[6] The Cambridge Dictionary of
Philosophy states that the word "ethics" is "commonly used interchangeably with 'morality' ...
and sometimes it is used more narrowly to mean the moral principles of a particular tradition,
group or individual."[7] Paul and Elder state that most people confuse ethics with behaving in
accordance with social conventions, religious beliefs, the law, and don't treat ethics as a stand-
alone concept.[8]
The word ethics in English refers to several things.[9] It can refer to philosophical ethics or moral
philosophy—a project that attempts to use reason to answer various kinds of ethical questions.
As the English moral philosopher Bernard Williams writes, attempting to explain moral
philosophy: "What makes an inquiry a philosophical one is reflective generality and a style of
argument that claims to be rationally persuasive."[10] Williams describes the content of this area
of inquiry as addressing the very broad question, "how one should live".[11] Ethics can also refer
to a common human ability to think about ethical problems that is not particular to philosophy.
As bioethicist Larry Churchill has written: "Ethics, understood as the capacity to think critically
about moral values and direct our actions in terms of such values, is a generic human
capacity."[12] Ethics can also be used to describe a particular person's own idiosyncratic principles
or habits.[13] For example: "Joe has strange ethics."
Meta-ethics
Main article: Meta-ethics
Meta-ethics is the branch of philosophical ethics that asks how we understand, know about, and
what we mean when we talk about what is right and what is wrong.[14] An ethical question
pertaining to a particular practical situation—such as, "Should I eat this particular piece of
chocolate cake?"—cannot be a meta-ethical question (rather, this is an applied ethical question).
A meta-ethical question is abstract and relates to a wide range of more specific practical
questions. For example, "Is it ever possible to have secure knowledge of what is right and
wrong?" is a meta-ethical question.
Meta-ethics has always accompanied philosophical ethics. For example, Aristotle implies that
less precise knowledge is possible in ethics than in other spheres of inquiry, and he regards
ethical knowledge as depending upon habit and acculturation in a way that makes it distinctive
from other kinds of knowledge. Meta-ethics is also important in G.E. Moore's Principia Ethica
from 1903. In it he first wrote about what he called the naturalistic fallacy. Moore was seen to
reject naturalism in ethics, in his Open Question Argument. This made thinkers look again at
second order questions about ethics. Earlier, the Scottish philosopher David Hume had put
forward a similar view on the difference between facts and values.
Studies of how we know in ethics divide into cognitivism and non-cognitivism; this is quite akin
to the thing called descriptive and non-descriptive. Non-cognitivism is the view that when we
judge something as morally right or wrong, this is neither true nor false. We may, for example,
be only expressing our emotional feelings about these things.[15] Cognitivism can then be seen as
the claim that when we talk about right and wrong, we are talking about matters of fact.
The ontology of ethics is about value-bearing things or properties, i.e. the kind of things or stuff
referred to by ethical propositions. Non-descriptivists and non-cognitivists believe that ethics
does not need a specific ontology since ethical propositions do not refer. This is known as an
anti-realist position. Realists, on the other hand, must explain what kind of entities, properties or
states are relevant for ethics, how they have value, and why they guide and motivate our actions.

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