Or “ethical” vs “moral”

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    41 year ago

    Morality is the evolutionary selection pressure that human societies place on themselves.

    Ethics is an attempt to calculate the optimal response to an event, for some definition of “optimal”.

    It’s kinda like the difference between natural language and formal language. One is not designed, not static, and often not self consistent, but consistency isn’t the goal. The other is a rigorously defined system that is scrutinized for inconsistencies, because consistency is the goal.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      31 year ago

      If I were to concisely put it with a fews word each, would it be a close approxmation to say morality is an automatic response and ethics is a rational response?

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        21 year ago

        Hah, I felt I was already trimming it down to be as concise as I could get it. Maybe ethical systems are always rational, but I wouldn’t take that to mean automatic responses are not rational.

        I think the important part is that morality doesn’t have a central goal and isn’t designed, and ethics does and is.