Relation between Ethics and Psycology.

1. Similarities, differences, and inter-connections

2. Definitions and scopes
 Ethics is the science of the ultimate good. It searches for the
ideals of human behavior; it decides the good or bad of our
volition. In the light of the ultimate good, it tells us about the
volitions we should practice and the ones we should abstain
from.
---- But before we know this we must know how we do come to
have our volitions. This is where psychology comes in. It tells us
how we will.
 Psychology is a positive science that study about human mind
and behavior. It is about the process of feeling, desiring, and
willing. As a rule it deals mainly with the growth of the
individual consciousness and only refers indirectly to the facts of
social relationship.

3. Similarities
The Possible major analogies between ethics and
psychology are:
1. Ethics enquires how we ought to will, not how we actually
do will. Psychology on the other hand, deals only with the
process of volition, as it actually occurs without reference
to the rightness or wrongness, or to the ultimate conditions
which make rightness and wrongness possible.(volition)
2. Psychology studies what is, while ethics contents itself
with ‘what ought to be. (human action)
3. Psychology is a factual and positive science while ethics is
an axiological and normative one. (descriptive outlook)
4. Psychology examines facts for formulating general laws
while ethics describes them in the light of ethical good.
(general or universal laws/ rules)
5. Psychology is studying the mind, while ethics is simply the
morality of the choices you make. (mind and moral sense)

4. Differences
However, there is a basic difference between Ethics and
Psychology:
1. Both study human behavior but their view-points are different.
Psychology studies ethical ideals only in the form of mental
facts. But Ethics studies psychological facts from the ethical
view.
2. Psychology is not concerned with the morality of man’s action
rather how a human behave. Ethics studies human experience in
the form of activity inclined towards some ethical ideals.
3. Psychological egoism is define as everyone always act selfishly.
(Factual Theory). Ethical egoism is define as everyone always
OUGHT to act selfishly (Evaluative Theory).
4. The scope of psychology is wider than ethics, including the study
of knowledge, emotion and volition, while Ethics restricts itself
either to will or the process of volition. And even if it does study
knowledge and emotion it is only in the context of volition or
activity.

5. Inter-connections (general)
The relationship between psychology and ethics is determined by
whether psychology is conceptualized as a natural or a human
science.
• If the former, then psychology is incapable of identifying universal
moral imperatives because of the fact/value dichotomy that rejects the
possibility of logically deriving moral principles or social policies from
factual statements.
• In addition, the inevitability of moral pluralism raises the question as
to how natural science methodology can select moral truths or social
policies from a variety of presumed alternatives. In contrast, human
science psychology, which emphasizes phenomenological experience
as a source of psychological truths, has attempted to bridge the
fact/value gap.
• Upon close examination, this approach has failed to suggest a rule as to
how the "correct" set of values can be identified. The conclusion is that
facts cannot dictate moral principles or social policies but they can
help illuminate their consequences.

6. Interconnections(psychology to
ethics)
 The relation between these two sciences is based upon the
comparison on their basic aim that is to study man, its nature
and its behavior. Psychology is indispensable as a discipline in
addressing a host of ethical concerns:
- the reasons or motives of action,
- the sanity of a wrong-doer,
- the presence of the guilty mind,
- the extent to which an agent acted on the basis of good reasons
• the contribution of psychology for addressing family matters,
civic, public policy, inter-cultural relations, matters of gender,
ethnicity, and more.
• The discipline or practice of psychology can itself also be an
interesting object of ethical inquiry:
- how might human subjects be used (with or without their
consent)?
- How should nonhuman animals be used in the practice of
psychology?

7. Inter- connections (ethics to
psychology)
 For some reason, Ethics is also related to the science of
Psychology.
- ethics depends upon psychology for knowing the psychological
basis of ethical sense.
- before arriving at the ethical ‘ought’ it is necessary to have a
psychological study of the nature and structure of volition, and
its relation to the motivating causes of activity, desire, reason,
intentions, difference between ethical and unethical acts, nature
of conscience, relation between intelligence and volition,
freedom of will and other activities.
- it is difficult to make ethics practical and to understand the
ethical situation without knowledge of psychology.
- correct ethics can be based only upon correct psychology. In this
way, ethics and psychology are intimately related. A complete
psychological analysis of the ethical situation is essential for
ethical decision.
- ethics presents man with the ideals; psychology suggests
methods for making them practical.

8. Similarities, differences, and inter-connections

9. Definitions and subject-matter
 Ethics, which is a major branch of philosophy,
encompasses right conduct and good life. It is
significantly broader than the common conception of
analyzing right and wrong. A central aspect of ethics is
"the good life", the life worth living or life that is
simply satisfying.
 “Religion may be defined as the belief in a
supernatural reality which affects the believer
emotionally in such a way as to impel him to perform
certain acts directed towards the supernatural reality.”
(Lillie, p.303)

10. Similarities
 The existence of God is a postulate of both ethics and
religion. Ethics postulate the reality of what the
religionist calls God.
 Both ethics and religion postulate the immortality of
the soul
 both ethics and religion take man, by the path of
volition and emotion respectively to the ultimate good,
beauty, and knowledge.
 The idea of same duties of men but with different
explanations.

11. Differences
 God is the central idea of religion, and man is the central idea of
ethics.
 Religion is based upon belief/faith/emotion but ethical sense is
based upon reason.
 Religion satisfies the emotional aspect of man. Ethics satisfies
the volitional aspect of man.
 It is possible that in some circumstances religion may be
unethical, in which Case if would be inappropriate to call it a
true religion, such as irreligious practices, rites, sacrifices etc.
 Blind faith can left a man exploited by the supernatural power.
 Non-religious people take responsibility for their own ethics and
conduct, with no additional help from church or temple. That
they are able to achieve the same standards of ethics as most
religious people, means that in practice there is no real
relationship between ethics and religion.

12.  The idea that a society with more religious person means more
moral person can be proved as wrong concept.
 Religion includes a wider range of duties than morality. But
morality concerns with only those duties that effect other
persons.
 According to Mathew Arnold, “Religion is nothing but morality
touched with emotions.” But morality is about good action of
persons or individuals.
 According to De Burgh, religion implies conduct and knowledge;
God, men, and world. But knowledge in ethics means to better
action.
 It is true that God cannot be bound by any law of ‘ought’ but
even then ethics is not subjective or a mere faith. A fundamental
postulate of ethics is the moral order of the universe. Morality is
objective.

13. Religion precedes ethics
 Initially, moral customs were integrated in religious customs.
 Descartes, Locke, Paley and others believe that religion precedes
morality, the latter arising from the former. It is God’s will or veto which
decides good or bad.
 God’s laws are the ethical criterion. God creates ethics of his own desire
and is not bound by any ethical law.
 God himself is a treasure house of ethical qualities. He orders good and
rejects evil. Ethics is based not on his absolute desire but on his ethical
nature.
 Activities are not good or bad because religious texts explicit that the
goodness or badness of activities lies in the recognition or knowing of
God’s order and dictate.
 It is the urge for realization of God, the first step towards which is
ethical attitude. God exists not only in the soul but also in the world.
 the aspirant must serve living beings because all the living creatures
and their order are God’s creation. Its indicates that, God is the source
of moral obligation.
 A person is first religious and then ethical but he is both ethical
and religious at the same time. Only an integral outlook can
carry man to perfection. Unless ethical laws are founded in truth,
they cannot become obligatory.

14. i
 Morality implies certain metaphysical outlook and this
outlook is provided by the religion. A man without
complete metaphysical knowledge can understand it.
 Religion gives objectivity to moral values. The moral
concept of good, evil, fear etc got objective support
from religion such as all these law or order of God.
 Morality implies something beyond of natural world.
For example: the urge of man towards higher being,
the voice of consciousness etc.
 Morality implies a personal loyalty rather that
obedience to an impersonal law. The obscurity of such
personal obligation can be reasonably explained by the
religion.

15. ethics precedes religion
 According to Kant, religion is based upon ethics and the
existence of God is due to existence of ethics. Kant believes
that happiness invariably accompanies virtue in complete
good. Virtue is of course the ultimate good but without
bliss it is not complete good.
 It is seen quite often that while good people suffer in a
number of ways, the bad enjoys themselves. But if the
ethical order is true it should not be so.
 It is God who conjoins pleasure with virtue because while
virtue depends upon our volitions, pleasure depends upon
the concord of external conditions. Thus according to
Kant, God is a postulate of ethics.
 According to Mathew Arnold, “Religion is nothing but
morality touched with emotions.”

16. Ethics and religion are interdependent.
 The individual is the source of moral obligation when he realizes
and truly recognized the true soul, no difference between it and
god remains; everything in the world is also appearing to be God.
At that stage man spontaneously becomes ethical. Moral
obligation becomes the normal law of everything internal and
external.
 In such stage the volitions of the individual become identical
with God’s will. But this does not destroy his freedom. Real
freedom lies in becoming God’s instrument because God is the
self. His law is the law of self and real freedom is in proceeding
along the law of self.
 Being based on emotion rather than reason, the religious, state
maybe beyond the ethical one but it is still a state of good. Its
path passes through ethics.
 A man with bad qualities cannot be religious. Unethical religion
is merely a blind faith. An immoral God is the nature of the
devil.

17.  Religion satisfies the emotional aspect of man. Ethics satisfies
the volitional aspect of man. If the complete and all round
development of human personality, ethics and religion should be
complementary.
 Religion is the ideal basis of the ethics. Moral is the expression,
in society, of our spiritual consciousness.
 A true religion is faith in the realization of God and the state of
God realization cannot be unethical. Religious fulfillment
satisfies our whole personality. Thus, it must be ethical, because
without being ethical it cannot satisfy our volition aspect.
 ethics acts upon religion and makes it pure and refined. Religion
reacts upon ethics and motivates it. Neither ethics can replace
religion nor can religion substitute ethics. Both religion and
ethics are indispensable for the complete and integral
development of the relations between the individual, society and
God.