It troubles me when someone proclaims such glib ease. I read maybe 10
different sources, philosophy books, old and modern, and numerous
debates on the subject precisely because some people think "oh that's
easy" - a symptom of our deflationary society which itself is an
interesting predicament.
What do those Greek and Latin words mean? Mos comes from "mores and
customs" whereas ethics (from Ethikos) means character in the mind of
an individual. That sets a distinction between normative and
subjective standpoints. However "Western" sense this is reversed. We
are comfortable talking about "your morals"my morality" as subjective,
relative positions, but reserve the word ethics for something
supposedly more objective, scientific, and therefore presumably more
widely agreed.
And that's just the surface of it. Resolving the actual documented
uses of "morality" versus "ethics" in case studies reveals a whole
lot more. Some distinctions assign the qualities of rightness and
wrongness to morality, but the terms goodness and badness to ethics.
And then the are are the entirely subtle but profound distinctions
Plato and Emmanuel Kant make about the mental/spiritual realm of
ethics versus Aristotle's primary focus on how actual people might
behave. Or a modern moral philosopher like Jonathan Haight's
distinctions between morals and ethics.
The bottom line is it's not that important so long as you're
consistent. However it is useful to have different concepts and to
set them out as philosophical tools. So "especially easy" - I don't
think so :)
I gave you the correct source. The -ic- in ethikos forms an adjective from the noun, just like the Latin form -alis that you see in "morals". There is of course zero semantic distinction between a noun and its own adjectival form.
If you look up "moralis" in Lewis and Short, you'll see a citation noting that the word was coined by Cicero as part of a protest against the idea that Latin was unsuited to the purpose of discussing philosophy (popular opinion at the time being that you had to use Greek for that purpose). It begins by noting that "mores [are what] the Greeks call ethe".
The Greek and Latin words are translations of each other, and both refer to habits and norms. It is true that in modern English norms are a distinct concept from ethics. (Not true in Greek!) But it is not true that in modern English morals and ethics are distinct from each other.
It troubles me when someone proclaims such glib ease. I read maybe 10 different sources, philosophy books, old and modern, and numerous debates on the subject precisely because some people think "oh that's easy" - a symptom of our deflationary society which itself is an interesting predicament.
What do those Greek and Latin words mean? Mos comes from "mores and customs" whereas ethics (from Ethikos) means character in the mind of an individual. That sets a distinction between normative and subjective standpoints. However "Western" sense this is reversed. We are comfortable talking about "your morals"my morality" as subjective, relative positions, but reserve the word ethics for something supposedly more objective, scientific, and therefore presumably more widely agreed.
And that's just the surface of it. Resolving the actual documented uses of "morality" versus "ethics" in case studies reveals a whole lot more. Some distinctions assign the qualities of rightness and wrongness to morality, but the terms goodness and badness to ethics. And then the are are the entirely subtle but profound distinctions Plato and Emmanuel Kant make about the mental/spiritual realm of ethics versus Aristotle's primary focus on how actual people might behave. Or a modern moral philosopher like Jonathan Haight's distinctions between morals and ethics.
The bottom line is it's not that important so long as you're consistent. However it is useful to have different concepts and to set them out as philosophical tools. So "especially easy" - I don't think so :)