Ethics

The word Ethics is derived from the Greek

adjective ethica which literally means the science
of customs or habits of men. It is the science of the
habitual conduct of men which is the expression of
settled disposition of the will or character.
Thus, ethics is the science of character and conduct
which evaluates the voluntary actions and habitual
actions of persons and considers their rightness
and wrongness.
Ethics evaluates the character of human beings
and consider their virtuousness and viciousness.
Ethics is the science of human character which
expressed in rightness and wrongness of conduct.
So behaviour is purposive action, which involves
choice and will. Rightness and wrongness refers to
the God which is the ideal of human life.
Ethics is the science of the highest good which is
the science of morality. Ethics seeks to determine
the supreme ideal involved in human conduct
which teach us how we can pass correct moral
Judgements upon human conduct. Consider it as
right or wrong, with reference to the supreme ideal
of human life. Thus ethics is the science of the
Highest Good or the fence of the supreme ideal of
human life.
Ethics is a Normative Sciencewhich deals
with human conduct together with the inner
valuations and their motives systematically. It
spends upon observation, classification and

explanation of human conduct with reference of an

ideal.
It is not concerned with behaviour as a fact or
event in space and time determined by ancestor
event and determining a succeeding event. It is
concerned with Judgement upon human conduct,
its Tightness or wrongness Ethics passes
judgement of value upon human actions with
reference to the moral ideal. It is not concerned
with judgements of fact, but with judgement of
value. Judgement of what is, where as judgements
of value are judgements of what ought to be.
Ethics interprets and explain our judgements of
moral value. Logic is the science of truth. Ethics is
the science of Good and the science of Beauty.
Truth is the ideal of knowledge, Good is the ideals
of will and Beauty is the ideal of feeling or
emotion. Of the three parts of the universe-God,
world and man. Ethics is particularly concerned
with man. It is the business of Ethics to determine
what human good is and not what cosmic good is.
Thus ethics determines the moral ideal or the
highest good of man.
Ethics differs from the natural sciences, because it
treat man as a self-conscious being who is
conscious of his relation to the physical and social
environment, whereas the latter treat man as a
biological animal who is originally related to his
physical environment. Man is a self-conscious
being. He is conscious of his relation to nature and

society. He is not a part of nature. He cannot

spring out of nature, nor merge in nature. He is a
spiritual being seeking of realize ideals. So human
conduct and character which involve the moral
ideal, cannot -be explain by their antecedent
physical, physiological or natural events. Hence
Ethics is not a natural, positive or descriptive
science