ethics is just the name of the subfield that studies moral questions.
The distinction is needed precisely because “moral philosophy” studies ‘moral’ questions (“how should we live?”) from a rather peculiar point of view, which does not quite fit with any descriptive morality.
Real-world moralities are of course referenced in moral philosophy, but only as a source of “values” or “rights” or “principles of rational agency”. Most philosophers are not moral absolutists, by and large: they take it for granted that moral values will need to be balanced in some way, and perhaps argued for in terms of more basic values. However, in actual societies, most of that “balancing” and arguing practically happens through ethical disputes, which also inform political processes (See George Lakoff’s Moral Politics, and works by Jane Jacobs and by Jonathan Haidt for more on how differences in moral outlook lead to political disputes).
I agree that the usage of “ethics” in the sense of “ethical code” (for a specialized profession) can be rather misleading. In all fairness, using “ethics” here sort of makes sense because the codes are (1) rather specialized—given the complexity of these professions, non-specialists and the general public cannot be expected to tell apart good decisions from bad in all circumstances, so “ethical” self-regulation has to fill the gap. (2) with limited exceptions (say, biological ethics) they are informed by generally agreed-upon values, especially protecting uninformed stakeholders. More like a case of “normative ethics” than a contingent “code of morality” which could be disagreed with.
The distinction is needed precisely because “moral philosophy” studies ‘moral’ questions (“how should we live?”) from a rather peculiar point of view, which does not quite fit with any descriptive morality.
What peculiar point of view?
Real-world moralities are of course referenced in moral philosophy, but only as a source of “values” or “rights” or “principles of rational agency”.
I don’t know what this means.
Ethics is divided into three subfield: meta-ethics, normative ethics and applied ethics. Meta-ethics addresses what moral language means, this is where debates over moral realism, motivational internalism, and moral cognitivism take place. Normative ethics involves general theories of how we should act, utilitarianism, Kantianism, particularism, virtue ethics etc. Applied ethics involves debates over particular moral issues: abortion, euthanasia, performance enhancing drugs etc. Then there is moral psychology and anthropology which study descriptive questions. Political philosophy is closely related and often touches on moral questions relating to authority, rights and distributional justice. Obviously all of these things inform one another. What exactly is the conceptual division that the proposed ethics-morality distinction reveals?
Ethics is divided into three subfield: meta-ethics, normative ethics and applied ethics. Meta-ethics addresses what moral language means, this is where debates over moral realism, motivational internalism, and moral cognitivism take place. Normative ethics involves general theories of how we should act, utilitarianism, Kantianism, particularism, virtue ethics etc. Applied ethics involves debates over particular moral issues: abortion, euthanasia, performance enhancing drugs etc.
And most people who claim to follow some sort of morality in the real world would care little or not at all about these subdivisions. Sure, you could pidgeon-hole some of them as “moral absolutists”, and others as following a “divine command theory”. But really, most people’s morality is constantly informed by ethical debates and disputes, so even that is not quite right. Needless to say, these debates largely occur in the public sphere, not academic philosophy departments.
Conflating “morality” and “ethics” would leave you with no way to draw a distinction between what these common folks are thinking about when they reason “morally”, vs. what goes on in broader ethical (and political) debates, both within academic philosophy and outside of it. This would seem to be a rather critical failure of rationality.
They’re not “different things”, in that public ethical debate (plus of course legal, civic and political debate as well) is often a matter of judging and balancing disputes between previously existing “rights”. Moreover, inner morality, public ethics and moral philosophy all address the same basic topic of “how we should live”. But this is not to say that either “morality” or “ethics” mean nothing more than “How should we live?”. Indeed, you have previously referred to ethics as ‘the… stud[y of] moral questions’, implying some sort of rigorous inquiry. Conversely, philosophers routinely talk about “descriptive morality” when they need to refer to moral values or socially-endorsed moral codes as they actually exist in the real world without endorsing them normatively.
The distinction is needed precisely because “moral philosophy” studies ‘moral’ questions (“how should we live?”) from a rather peculiar point of view, which does not quite fit with any descriptive morality.
Real-world moralities are of course referenced in moral philosophy, but only as a source of “values” or “rights” or “principles of rational agency”. Most philosophers are not moral absolutists, by and large: they take it for granted that moral values will need to be balanced in some way, and perhaps argued for in terms of more basic values. However, in actual societies, most of that “balancing” and arguing practically happens through ethical disputes, which also inform political processes (See George Lakoff’s Moral Politics, and works by Jane Jacobs and by Jonathan Haidt for more on how differences in moral outlook lead to political disputes).
I agree that the usage of “ethics” in the sense of “ethical code” (for a specialized profession) can be rather misleading. In all fairness, using “ethics” here sort of makes sense because the codes are (1) rather specialized—given the complexity of these professions, non-specialists and the general public cannot be expected to tell apart good decisions from bad in all circumstances, so “ethical” self-regulation has to fill the gap. (2) with limited exceptions (say, biological ethics) they are informed by generally agreed-upon values, especially protecting uninformed stakeholders. More like a case of “normative ethics” than a contingent “code of morality” which could be disagreed with.
I don’t understand this comment.
What peculiar point of view?
I don’t know what this means.
Ethics is divided into three subfield: meta-ethics, normative ethics and applied ethics. Meta-ethics addresses what moral language means, this is where debates over moral realism, motivational internalism, and moral cognitivism take place. Normative ethics involves general theories of how we should act, utilitarianism, Kantianism, particularism, virtue ethics etc. Applied ethics involves debates over particular moral issues: abortion, euthanasia, performance enhancing drugs etc. Then there is moral psychology and anthropology which study descriptive questions. Political philosophy is closely related and often touches on moral questions relating to authority, rights and distributional justice. Obviously all of these things inform one another. What exactly is the conceptual division that the proposed ethics-morality distinction reveals?
And most people who claim to follow some sort of morality in the real world would care little or not at all about these subdivisions. Sure, you could pidgeon-hole some of them as “moral absolutists”, and others as following a “divine command theory”. But really, most people’s morality is constantly informed by ethical debates and disputes, so even that is not quite right. Needless to say, these debates largely occur in the public sphere, not academic philosophy departments.
Conflating “morality” and “ethics” would leave you with no way to draw a distinction between what these common folks are thinking about when they reason “morally”, vs. what goes on in broader ethical (and political) debates, both within academic philosophy and outside of it. This would seem to be a rather critical failure of rationality.
Why should we think that what common folks are reasoning about and what gets argued about in the public sphere are different things?
They’re not “different things”, in that public ethical debate (plus of course legal, civic and political debate as well) is often a matter of judging and balancing disputes between previously existing “rights”. Moreover, inner morality, public ethics and moral philosophy all address the same basic topic of “how we should live”. But this is not to say that either “morality” or “ethics” mean nothing more than “How should we live?”. Indeed, you have previously referred to ethics as ‘the… stud[y of] moral questions’, implying some sort of rigorous inquiry. Conversely, philosophers routinely talk about “descriptive morality” when they need to refer to moral values or socially-endorsed moral codes as they actually exist in the real world without endorsing them normatively.