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Essay on Critical Analysis of Ethical Code
Many writers regard ethics as any scientific treatment of the moral order and divide it into theological, or Christian, ethics (moral theology) and philosophical ethics (moral philosophy). What is generally understood by ethics, however, is philosophical ethics, or moral philosophy. Moral philosophy is a division of practical philosophy (which concerns itself with what ought to be, or with the order of acts which are human and which therefore depend upon our reason). Practical philosophy is also divided into logic and ethics.
The former rightly orders the intellectual activities and teaches the proper method in the acquirement of truth, while the latter directs the activities of the will; the object of the former is the true; that of the latter is the good. Hence ethics may be defined as the science of the moral rectitude of human acts in accordance with the first principles of natural reason. Logic and ethics are normative and practical sciences, because they prescribe norms or rules for human activities and show how, according to these norms, a man ought to direct his actions.
A distinction must be made between ethics and morals, or morality. Every people, even the most uncivilized and uncultured, has its own morality or sum of prescriptions which govern its moral conduct. Nature had so provided that each man establishes for himself a code of moral concepts and principles which are applicable to the details of practical life, without the necessity of awaiting the conclusions of science. Ethics is the scientific or philosophical treatment of morality. The subject-matter proper of ethics is the deliberate, free actions of man; for these alone are in our power, and concerning these alone can rules be prescribed, not concerning those actions which are performed without deliberation, or through ignorance or coercion...............
