This document defines ethics and discusses different types of ethics. It addresses: 1) Ethics is the study of what is good/bad, right/wrong, and morally acceptable/unacceptable in human actions. It deals with morality and human behavior. 2) There are two main types of ethics - normative ethics, which studies what is right/wrong, and meta ethics, which studies the meaning and justification of ethical terms. 3) Moral values and norms guide human behavior but they vary between groups and societies and change over time. Mores are strongly held cultural norms while folkways are everyday norms. Laws are codified rules enforced by institutions, unlike informal social norms.

1. ALPHA UNIVERSITY
FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCE
Department of Hrm
Course: Civics & Ethical Education
Chapter Two:
Ethics
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Meaning And Definition of Ethics
 Ethic is Greek word which mean character, the term good refers to something that has
valuable end. This valuable end is commonly known as supreme good.
 Ethics is the study of what is good or bad, what is right or wrong, what is acceptable and
not acceptable, and what is immoral or morally sound in human activities and deeds.
Our experience tells us that there are three supreme values, these are :
Truth, Beauty and Goodness, and these values correspond to the three aspects of our
conscious life:
Knowing, Feeling andActing.

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• We learn to know what is true, to appreciate what is beautiful, and to do what is right.
• Thus, Ethics is science which studies morality that is what is good or bad, what is acceptable or not
acceptable.
• On the other hand it could be considered as a part of philosophy which studies the acceptable values
in a given society.
It also deals with human actions as good and bad.
Types of Ethics
•We have said that ethic studies morality
Example:
its subject matter is morality, which deals with the good or bad side of people’s
behavior.
Thus it can be divided into two branches:
• 1. Normative Ethics and
• 2. Meta Ethics.

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1. Normative Ethics:
 This is a branch of ethics that studies what is right or wrong it guides people in the
right way.
• For this we can say that it studies three main areas :
 One area is that it studies human nature in general it tries to answer the questions like:
 Why does a person steal someone’s property?
 Why does a person lie?
 Why does man kill another man?

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The second area of normative ethics is studying what is good and bad, it
tries to answer that following question:
 What is good?
 What is bad?
Why do we say that someone is good or bad?
What are the inherent qualities in the person?
The third area of normative ethics is to study that significance of morality
to man.
It studies the effects of good and bad morality.
Good morality results respect in the society, on the contrary.

6. Bad morality result in being rejected by the society or it could become a
threat for the person’s survival.
Thus, normative ethics enables people to know what is right or wrong
bad or good and lead them to the right direction.
Meta Ethics:
This is sometimes called analytical ethics; it studies the meaning of the
ethical terms.
I.e. good, bad, right or wrong, It studies the justification for saying that
someone is good or bad, right or wrong,
 What is the justification used?
 Is the justification acceptable or not?
 Is the justification used sound or is it based on emotion or impression?
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7. • Thus, Meta ethics studies the judgement. The judgements we use to say that
someone is right or wrong good or bad.
Moral values and the conformity to individuals
• Moral values are the standards that guide us what to do or not do. these
values enable us to say and do what we should say and do in certain
circumstances.
Generally our activities are guided by these values.
• The moral values we follow tell us that we should not steal someone’s
property or we should not tell lies.
• On the other hand. Norms vary from group to group and from society to
society.
Norms are specific to circumstances.
• Example:
• while eating with people, once should not cross one’s territory of food to
snatch a bread or meat from the other side of the plate.
However when one eats alone, this norm is not there so.
Therefore we say this norm is circumstance specific. 7

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• Norm can also be governed between groups of people
Example: the young could jump while walking but not the old man.
Similarly it is a norm for a man to ask the hand of a woman (propose) for
marriage, not for a woman to propose of a man she would like marry.
However one thing should be noted that norms, like values change or improve
over the period of time and the development of the society.
• Moral Norms would be divide into two :
• 1. Mores
• 2. Folkways
1.Mores: these are types of norms which are believed to be very important. They
are based on strong cultural values.
they are universally respected by all societies.
for example : Marriage between brothers and sisters or mother and son is
prohibited in all forms of human society.

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if a person violates this norm he will be condemned or become outcast for the
society, he could even be killed or imprisoned depending upon the situation in
which the actions was done.
2. Folkways: these are the type of norms that we are supposed to show in our day
to day activities
for example:
we are required to follow certain norms while eating; the way we dress should
conform with way people dress.
Example: If a man wears a women’s dress it will be unacceptable or if a women
wears very short skirt.
it would be unacceptable by the community.
However violation of such norms would not result in death or imprisonment.
the member of a society who violates such norms would be laughed at, ridiculed
etc.

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The Difference between Laws and Norms is that laws are codified
rules; they are written and enforced by the institutions like Police,
Courts, etc.
Whereas Norms are unwritten rules that are enforced by the public
and it is a culture.
not by the Police or Court.
Professional Ethics and Morality
• Professionals to execute their duties effectively and responsibly, they
need to have work ethics.
this would help them establish certain rules and procedures, it makes
them create conductive environment for work.

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• However all professionals do not have the same set of values and
standards in absolute terms, but there are some common standards that
could be followed by all people irrespective of their profession, Such
as :
Punctuality, being on time at work.
Not to waste work time by putting things for tomorrow which could
be don’t to day
Workers are expected to properly utilize the equipment and other
resources of the organization.
Voluntary absenteeism is also considered un ethical.
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