What does the word ethics most closely mean as it is used in paragraph 6

Manuel Velasquez, Claire Andre, Thomas Shanks, S.J., and Michael J. Meyer

Ethics is based on well-founded standards of right and wrong that prescribe what humans ought to do, usually in terms of rights, obligations, benefits to society, fairness, or specific virtues.

Some years ago, sociologist Raymond Baumhart asked business people, "What does ethics mean to you?" Among their replies were the following:

"Ethics has to do with what my feelings tell me is right or wrong."
"Ethics has to do with my religious beliefs."
"Being ethical is doing what the law requires."
"Ethics consists of the standards of behavior our society accepts."
"I don't know what the word means."

These replies might be typical of our own. The meaning of "ethics" is hard to pin down, and the views many people have about ethics are shaky.

Like Baumhart's first respondent, many people tend to equate ethics with their feelings. But being ethical is clearly not a matter of following one's feelings. A person following his or her feelings may recoil from doing what is right. In fact, feelings frequently deviate from what is ethical.

Nor should one identify ethics with religion. Most religions, of course, advocate high ethical standards. Yet if ethics were confined to religion, then ethics would apply only to religious people. But ethics applies as much to the behavior of the atheist as to that of the devout religious person. Religion can set high ethical standards and can provide intense motivations for ethical behavior. Ethics, however, cannot be confined to religion nor is it the same as religion.

Being ethical is also not the same as following the law. The law often incorporates ethical standards to which most citizens subscribe. But laws, like feelings, can deviate from what is ethical. Our own pre-Civil War slavery laws and the old apartheid laws of present-day South Africa are grotesquely obvious examples of laws that deviate from what is ethical.

Finally, being ethical is not the same as doing "whatever society accepts." In any society, most people accept standards that are, in fact, ethical. But standards of behavior in society can deviate from what is ethical. An entire society can become ethically corrupt. Nazi Germany is a good example of a morally corrupt society.

Moreover, if being ethical were doing "whatever society accepts," then to find out what is ethical, one would have to find out what society accepts. To decide what I should think about abortion, for example, I would have to take a survey of American society and then conform my beliefs to whatever society accepts. But no one ever tries to decide an ethical issue by doing a survey. Further, the lack of social consensus on many issues makes it impossible to equate ethics with whatever society accepts. Some people accept abortion but many others do not. If being ethical were doing whatever society accepts, one would have to find an agreement on issues which does not, in fact, exist.

What, then, is ethics? Ethics is two things. First, ethics refers to well-founded standards of right and wrong that prescribe what humans ought to do, usually in terms of rights, obligations, benefits to society, fairness, or specific virtues. Ethics, for example, refers to those standards that impose the reasonable obligations to refrain from rape, stealing, murder, assault, slander, and fraud. Ethical standards also include those that enjoin virtues of honesty, compassion, and loyalty. And, ethical standards include standards relating to rights, such as the right to life, the right to freedom from injury, and the right to privacy. Such standards are adequate standards of ethics because they are supported by consistent and well-founded reasons.

Secondly, ethics refers to the study and development of one's ethical standards. As mentioned above, feelings, laws, and social norms can deviate from what is ethical. So it is necessary to constantly examine one's standards to ensure that they are reasonable and well-founded. Ethics also means, then, the continuous effort of studying our own moral beliefs and our moral conduct, and striving to ensure that we, and the institutions we help to shape, live up to standards that are reasonable and solidly-based.

This article appeared originally in Issues in Ethics IIE V1 N1 (Fall 1987). Revised in 2010.

Close Calls in U.S. Election History

By Jessica McBirney

2016

Democracy and power to the people are celebrated as key American values, but sometimes democracy is

more complicated than one might think. This informational text investigates some close calls in U.S.

elections and what caused their complications. As you read this text, identify the diference between the

Electoral College and the popular vote to better understand those complications.

[1] The United States Constitution is designed to

make presidential elections relatively easy and

smooth. This has usually been the case, but

throughout American history, some elections

have been so close that they have been anything

but smooth.

The Electoral College

Before learning the stories of famous close

presidential elections, it is important to

understand how elections in the United States

work. In November every 4 years, American

citizens cast their votes for the candidate they

want to be president. But it is more complicated than that.

Each state has a group of people called electors who represent the voters in their state. Electors from

every state are part of the Electoral College, which holds its own smaller election for president. The

candidate who gets the most votes in a given state getsall of the Electoral College votes. So, for

example, in 2012 President Barack Obama beat Mitt Romney in Ohio by just 2% of the vote. Even

though it was really close, he still wonall of that state’s 18 Electoral College votes.

In the end, the Electoral College result is the one that determines who becomes president, not the

direct “popular vote” that regular voters participate in. The system is confusing, but usually people do

not pay much attention to it because the Electoral College outcome usually matches the popular vote

outcome. A few times in American history, however, presidential races have been so close that the

electoral and popular results have been unclear, resulting in some major controversy.1

Adams versus Jackson

[5] In 1824, more than two men competed for the presidency. A war and an economic crisis had led to the

dissolution2of old political parties, so four candidates thought they had a good shot at winning.

William Crawford, Henry Clay, Andrew Jackson, and John Quincy Adams all ran. Jackson had the widest

support around the country.

"I Voted" by Dan McCullough is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

1. Controversy (noun): something that creates a lot of discussion and disagreement

1