Ethics vs Values
Every person has certain set values and a certain code of ethics which are very much valued. Some people who do not know the exact difference between ‘values’ and ‘ethics’ often use the two words interchangeably. Though these two are different, these two together form the basis for making decisions.
What are values? They are the basic beliefs that an individual thinks to be true. Every individual has a set of values through which he looks at all things and also at the world. It can be said that most of the people will never deviate from their values. The values can be said to be the guiding principles in one’s life. ‘Value’ can be defined as a bridge by which an individual makes a decision regarding good and bad, right or wrong, and most important or less important.
Ethics is guidelines or rules that are set for a society or an organization rather than for an individual. Ethics can be defined as a set of rules formulated by a country or a company or some institutions. Ethics is mainly based on moral values. Ethics is not that it is set for any particular society, but it is mainly based on virtues, rights, and obligations. For example, the obligation to refrain from crimes, killings, and rape is an ethical aspect. Ethics has also been built on loyalty, honesty, and compassion.
Values are very much personal while ethics is very much societal. One can also see that values and ethics sometimes can be in conflict. Even if one has certain values, he will not be able to entertain certain decisions based on the ethical codes. Though abortion is considered to be legal, most people do not approve of it morally.
Summary:
1. Values are the basic beliefs that an individual thinks to be true. Every individual has a set of values through which he looks at all things and also at the world.
2. Ethics is guidelines or rules that are set for a society or an organization rather than for an individual.
3. Values can be said to be the guiding principles in one’s life. ‘Value’ can be defined as a bridge by which an individual makes a decision regarding good and bad, right or wrong, and most important or less important.
4. Ethics can be defined as set of rules formulated by a country or a company or some institutions. Ethics is mainly based on the moral values.
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This whole article is extremely convoluted and ill stated. First you state that values are “basic beliefs that an individual thinks to be true.” If I believe that that the grass is green, or that my house is 2.34 miles from my school, what does that have to with values or something being good or bad??? This makes absolutely no sense! Wouldn’t is make more sense to call a value something like a “judgement of worth”? Therefore we decide what we should and shouldn’t do based on judgments of worth? This makes wayyy more sense when discussing right and wrong, good and bad, important and non important.
You then go on to define Ethics as rules of conduct formulated by a society or organization. What the heck are you talking about?! What is a society, except an aggregate of individuals? How can individuals not have ethics and codes of conduct but an aggregate society can? This is nonsense. You then simplify ethics to “a set of rules”. What does ethics have to do with driving on the right/left side of the road?? You can make the argument that logistical uniformity is of inherent value, but that is a much different statement then “its morally right to drive on the right side of the road”!
Lets have a thought experiment and say that: I as an individual I believe that honesty is a good thing and is therefore something I should actively participate in. There are a number of reasons one would believe this; maybe because I believe in a divine mandate; maybe I believe that honesty makes my life easier; maybe I believe that something terrible will happen to me if I lie. In any case scenario, it doesn’t matter which, one believes that honesty has some kind of VALUE, I choose honesty over dishonesty because I believe the former to be of higher value than the latter. Now what happens when I decide that I should always be honest, say because I believe that honesty will always have a higher value than dishonesty? You have created a sustained and uniform pattern of belief, basically a code of conduct for yourself. Doesn’t it make sense to just call your sustained code of conduct your ETHICS?
I think what you want to say is this: Values are INDIVIDUAL judgments of worth. Ethics is a sustained system of belief REGARDING what we should and should not do, COMPOSED of non contradicting value judgments.
Of course not everyone would agree with what I just said, but I think it makes a lot more sense than the gobbledygook you wrote. Also one should be very careful when using terms like morality, but that is a whole other issue.
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Interesting.
So I live in a society where ethically, bullying and name calling are considered to be wrong. Take a poll and the majority will hold this to be so.
I also live in a society where some individuals have values around bullying and name calling that are at odds with this broader ethic. For instance, posting replies to someone’s attempt to explain something and including disparaging or offensive references to the author rather than responding to the argument. Examples might include “gobbledegook” or other terms that imply a criticism upon the skill, character of knowledge of the author rather than directly addressing the argument.
Critical thinking in philosophy teaches us that it is a fallacy to attack the messenger.
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I was quite excited when I came across this website since it tries to differentiate between terms that should be differentiated. Academics are usually too busy admiring themselves than to answer the sets of important questions which you listed.
However as the person of 27 March 2011 said, you are not doing a good job. The matters you attempted to address cannot be thumb suck just like that. A number of issues should be balanced at the same time.
Discussion:Difference Between Ethics and Values
a. The problem is that a country or an organisation also formulates a set of values. It is common practice nowadays in all organisational development.
b. I think this discussion
• confuses an “ethic” with ethics.
• fails to differentiate ethical values from other values.
• Neglects to mention that the “science” of ethics is a reflection on how
values are used,
people construct their own hierarchy of values and
one should be accountable for both the values one chooses as well as how one constructs a hierarchy of values for a specific decision.
ethical values are related to other kinds of values (this is my own little tail).
I tried to read some other items of this unique set of differentiating little rubrics. Unfortunately it did not get any better. Hence I advise that you retract all comparisons rubrics that has to do with ethics, morals and values and either do some homework first – I advise you to start with the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy which is freely available online. I trust that you also will find people engaged enough to participate because as I have implied, this is a valuable focus you created but it has to be more sensitive to all the nuances, varieties overlaps and ambiguities inherent in the field you are touching.
One last piece of advice: when comparing two concepts it is always real to mention the areas which they share as well. It is very seldom that two concepts live in completely different worlds.
Good luck.
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I’m quite impressed by all the scholarly pros and cons….For me it’s no harm to use them interchanging by layman….. Especially when two scholars are not universally clear and have opposite opinions…
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