2nd lecture of introduction to law LL.B 1st semester 5 year program

1. Morality
Etymology:
from Old French moralite1
or late Latin
moralitas2
, from Latin Moralia or moralis3
from Latin ,Greek word ‘mos’ from mos, mor-
‘custom
Definition of morality
A set of personal or social standards for
good or bad behaviour and character4
.
Ethics
Etymology
From Old French ethique, from Late Latin ethica, , moral, expressing character”,
“character, moral nature”.
Definition of ethics
Ethics is a branch of philosophy that deals with the principles of conduct of an
individual or group or
Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that involves
systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong
conduct5
.
What’s the Difference Between Morality and Ethics?
Generally, the terms ethics and morality are used interchangeably, although a
few different communities (academic, legal, or religious, for example) will
occasionally make a distinction. In fact, Britannica’s article on ethics considers
the terms to be the same as moral philosophy. While understanding that most
ethicists (that is, philosophers who study ethics) consider the terms
interchangeable, let’s go ahead and dive into these distinctions.
1 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/morality
2 manner, characteristic, character”.
3 relating to manners or morals”
4 https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/morality
5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics
Subject: Introduction to Law
Standard: LL.B semester 1
Topic: what is morality, ethics?
MUNIR HUSSAIN
Lecturer
UNIVERSITY LAW COLLEGE
QUETTA
www.facebook.com/pages/Corridor-to-Commercial-Law
Objective
To learn
i. Concept of morality
ii. Concept of ethics
Principles concerning the distinction
between right and wrong or good and
bad behaviour.

2. Both morality and ethics loosely have to do with distinguishing the difference
between “good and bad” or “right and wrong.” Many people think of morality as
something that’s personal and normative, whereas ethics is the standards of
“good and bad” distinguished by a certain community or social setting. For
example, your local community may think smoking is immoral, and you
personally may agree with that. However, the distinction can be useful if your
local community has no strong feelings about smoking, but you consider
smoking immoral on a personal level. By these definitions of the terms, your
morality would contradict the ethics of your community. In popular discourse,
however, we’ll often use the terms moral and immoral when talking about
issues like smoking regardless of whether it’s being discussed in a personal or
in a community-based situation. As you can see, the distinction can get a bit
tricky.
It’s important to consider how the two terms have been used in discourse in
different fields so that we can consider the connotations of both terms. For
example, morality has a Christian connotation to many Westerners, since moral
theology is prominent in the church. Similarly, ethics is the term used in
conjunction with business, medicine, or law. In these cases, ethics serves as a
personal code of conduct for people working in those fields, and the ethics
themselves are often highly debated and contentious. These connotations have
helped guide the distinctions between morality and ethics.
Ethicists today, however, use the terms interchangeably. If they do want to
differentiate morality from ethics, the onus is on the ethicist to state the
definitions of both terms. Ultimately, the distinction between the two is as
substantial as a line drawn in the sand6
.
6 https://www.britannica.com/story/whats-the-difference-between-morality-and-ethics
Ethics describes a generally accepted set of moral principles. Morals describes the
goodness or badness or right or wrong of actions. Values describes individual or
personal standards of what is valuable or important