Oxford English Dictionary Ethics and Morals and Radio Lab

The Oxford English Dictionary (1989) seems to show that, from the earliest times, the words had very similar meanings.

"Ethic" as a noun has the senses "The science of morals" and "A scheme of moral science", and these are treated as parts (a) and (b) of a single meaning. The earliest citation is from 1387.

"Ethics" (in the plural) divides into a number of meanings. The sense of "The science of morals; the department of study concerned with the principles of human duty" dates from 1602. The sense of "The moral principles or system of a particular leader or school of thought" dates from 1651.

"Morality" in the sense of "The doctrine or system concerned with conduct or duty; moral science" dates from 1449. In the sense of "Moral conduct; usually, good moral conduct; behaviour conformed to the moral law; moral virtue" it dates to 1609.

And finally, "morals" in the sense of "Moral habits or conduct; habits of life in regard to right and wrong conduct" dates to 1613. And the sense of "Moral science; moral doctrine; ethics" is said now to be rare, but dates at least as far back as 1651.


I personally find this to be unhelpful in sorting this out
Thus I turn to my favorite internet source that I can share with you
the Stanford Encyclopedia
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/morality-definition/




upon further reading I guess it depends on which camp you like as to how you define morality and ethics. So I guess as the semester goes on we will figure out where we stand.


I am going to play a radiolab podcast on the way to the prison for us tomorrow. Should shake things up a bit more in terms of making things more interesting...
http://www.radiolab.org/blogs/radiolab-blog/2009/nov/16/killing-babies-saving-the-world/

http://www.radiolab.org/2007/aug/13/