What are individual beliefs about what is right and wrong or good and bad referred to as group of answer choices?

Have you ever deemed someone’s behavior to be unethical? Have you ever questioned their moral code or the values upon which they base their decisions? When our minds wander to these places, the terms ethics, morals and values tend to feel very similar, but they are not quite the same. Keep reading for explanations and values, ethics and morals examples to learn how they are different.

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Consistency and Flexibility
Conflicts Between Ethics and Morals
Videos Explaining the Differences

difference between ethics morals and values

Values are the foundation of an individual person’s ability to judge between right and wrong. Values include a deep-rooted system of beliefs that guide a person’s decisions. They form a personal, individual foundation that influences a particular person’s behavior.

There are examples of values everywhere in your daily life. For example, if your value system is founded upon honesty, you would probably choose to study for a difficult test rather than cheating for a passing grade. However, if you value achievement and success over honesty, you may decide to cheat on the exam instead. This relates to which value is “worth more” to the individual.

Other examples of values include:

a person who values integrity admits that they stole a piece of candy
someone who values friendship drops everything to help a friend
people who value a healthy lifestyle make sure they have time to work out in the morning
a person who values success works late nights to achieve a promotion
someone who values commitment may be more willing to go to marriage therapy than to file for divorce

These values form our personality types. They also help us make decisions that affect the course of our lives. When these values are shared by others in our community, they are known as morals.

Morals, also known as moral values, are the system of beliefs that emerge out of core values. Morals are specific and context-driven rules that govern a person’s desire to be good. They can be shared by a larger population, but a person's moral code may differ from others' depending on their personal values.

We make moral decisions based on personal values all the time. An example of a moral in the example above is determined by a person's value of honesty: cheating is bad. Someone who values success more than honesty may behave by another moral: cheating is fine.

Additional examples of morals include:

It is bad to steal candy (based on a value of honesty).
Helping a friend is a good thing to do (based on a value of friendship).
It is bad to skip a workout (based on a value of a healthy lifestyle).
Working late at night is a good thing to do (based on a value of success).
Saving your marriage is a good way to move forward (based on a value of commitment).

Moral dilemmas occur when morals conflict with each other. For example, what if a daughter couldn’t afford the life-saving medicine her dying mother needed, but she had access to the medicine storeroom?

Her core values might tell her stealing is wrong. However, her morality would tell her she needs to protect her mother. As such, the daughter might end up doing the wrong thing (stealing, as judged by her values) for the right reasons (saving her mother, as judged by her morals).

Ethics and morals are very similar. In fact, many ethicists consider the terms to be interchangeable. However, there are slight differences in how they affect our lives.

While morals are concerned with individuals feeling "good" or "bad," ethics determine what behaviors are "right" or "wrong." Ethics dictate what practical behaviors are allowed, while morals reflect our intentions. Consider morals as the rulebook and ethics as the motivator that leads to proper or improper action.

You're most likely to see a code of ethics in the business or legal fields. These areas are much more black and white than personal values or morals since they set rules for employees and citizens in a society. For example:

Doctors are held to a strict code of ethics when they swear the Hippocratic Oath. They are bound to the rule "do no harm," and can be held accountable if they do cause harm to their patients.
An organization like PETA, which stands for “People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals," pursues legal action against those who do not treat animals in an ethical way.
Employees often sign a code of ethics, which includes keeping important matters confidential and not stealing from the workplace — both of which would be fireable offenses.
Defense lawyers are ethically bound to defend their clients to the best of their ability, even if they are morally opposed to their clients' crimes. Breaking this ethical code could result in a mistrial or disbarment.
A student who helps another student cheat on a test is breaking their school's ethics. Even though they are doing it for a moral reason (helping a friend), they are committing an ethical violation and can be punished.

Ethics are basically an institution's attempt to regulate behavior with rules based on a shared moral code. Violating ethics has the same consequence as breaking a rule, while violating one's morals results in personal guilt and shame instead of a societal consequence. Ethical dilemmas occur when an institutional set of ethics conflicts with one's personal moral code.

Sound moral judgment is rooted in strong values and acted upon by our ethics. It seems like the three are the same, but they’re different enough to warrant a closer study. Whether you're acting on your personal values, following your moral code or obeying ethical rules, it's important to know what to do next. For more examples of morals in our lives, check out these examples of morals in society and literature.

Staff Writer

Ethical Dilemma Examples
Ethical dilemmas are situations in which there is a difficult choice to be made between two or more options, neither of which resolves the situation in a manner that is consistent with accepted ethical guidelines. When faced with an ethical dilemma, a person is faced with having to select an option that doesn’t align with an established code of ethics or societal norms, such as codes of law and religious teachings, or with their internal moral perceptions of right and wrong. Explore ethical dilemma examples to see how you might handle these difficult situations.
Code of Ethics Examples: From Personal to Professional
A code of ethics is a set of principles and rules used by individuals and organizations to govern their decision-making process, as well as to distinguish right from wrong. They provide a general idea of the ethical standards of a business or organization. However, people can have their own personal code of ethics as well. Keep reading for a more thorough explanation of a code of ethics, as well as several code of ethics examples.

Ethics and morals relate to “right” and “wrong” conduct. While they are sometimes used interchangeably, they are different: ethics refer to rules provided by an external source, e.g., codes of conduct in workplaces or principles in religions. Morals refer to an individual’s own principles regarding right and wrong.

Ethics are external standards that are provided by institutions, groups, or culture to which an individual belongs. For example, lawyers, policemen, and doctors all have to follow an ethical code laid down by their profession, regardless of their own feelings or preferences. Ethics can also be considered a social system or a framework for acceptable behavior.

Morals are also influenced by culture or society, but they are personal principles created and upheld by individuals themselves.

Consistency and Flexibility

Ethics are very consistent within a certain context, but can vary greatly between contexts. For example, the ethics of the medical profession in the 21st century are generally consistent and do not change from hospital to hospital, but they are different from the ethics of the 21st century legal profession.

An individual’s moral code is usually unchanging and consistent across all contexts, but it is also possible for certain events to radically change an individual's personal beliefs and values.

Conflicts Between Ethics and Morals

One professional example of ethics conflicting with morals is the work of a defense attorney. A lawyer’s morals may tell her that murder is reprehensible and that murderers should be punished, but her ethics as a professional lawyer, require her to defend her client to the best of her abilities, even if she knows that the client is guilty.

Another example can be found in the medical field. In most parts of the world, a doctor may not euthanize a patient, even at the patient's request, as per ethical standards for health professionals. However, the same doctor may personally believe in a patient's right to die, as per the doctor's own morality.

Origins

Much of the confusion between these two words can be traced back to their origins. For example, the word "ethic" comes from Old French (etique), Late Latin (ethica), and Greek (ethos) and referred to customs or moral philosophies. "Morals" comes from Late Latin's moralis, which referred to appropriate behavior and manners in society. So, the two have very similar, if not synonymous, meanings originally.

Morality and ethics of the individual have been philosophically studied for well over a thousand years. The idea of ethics being principles that are set and applied to a group (not necessarily focused on the individual) is relatively new, though, primarily dating back to the 1600s. The distinction between ethics and morals is particularly important for philosophical ethicists.