ETHICS is the systematic study of the ultimate problems of human conduct (from Greek
character, or Egos, custom) ; also called Moral Philosophy (from Lat. mores, customs).
Human conduct may be studied in many different ways. It may be observed and described in a purely external manner, in the way in which the behaviour of lower animals is sometimes studied; and this is the way in which behaviourism (q.v.) deals with human conduct. It may be stud ied in relation to the mental processes which precede or accom pany it ; this is the way in which psychology and common sense usually deal with it. It may be studied in relation to physical and social environment, as is done to some extent in biology, anthropology and sociology. The results of these and similar stud ies are important for ethics. But the problem of ethics is essen tially different. Unlike the above-mentioned studies, it is not concerned mainly with bare facts but with values, with estimates. This is usually expressed by saying that ethics is not a positive science but a normative science—it is not primarily occupied with the actual character of human conduct but with its ideal, not so much with what human conduct is as with what it ought to be. It should be noted, however, that even ideas of what human conduct ought to be may be studied in a positive or natural history spirit. They are so studied to some extent in sociology (q.v.) and comparative ethics (q.v.), in which moral ideas as well as customs are correlated with other cultural conditions. In ethics proper the standpoint taken is, as far as is humanly possi ble, that of an ideal humanity capable of rising above the com mon limitations of time and place. To maintain such a point of view is no easy matter, even for philosophers, whose special busi ness it is to rise above the prejudices of the multitude. And Nietzsche has complained, not without some justice, that the moral philosophers of Christendom have attempted little, if any thing, more than a rational systematization of Christian preaching (the practice of Christendom would baffle any such attempt at rational systematization). Many moral philosophers, indeed, have stated explicitly that the business of ethics merely consists in clear ing up current moral conceptions and unfolding the ultimate pre suppositions involved in them, and that it is not its function to discover new moral ideas. It may be remarked that even the ethics of Aristotle attempted no more, although he was not bound by anything like this authority, and the traditions of the Chris tian Church. It is only occasionally in the history of ethics that Sophists or Sceptics impugn the validity of traditional moral ideas, or that a Spinoza or a Nietzsche ventures to proclaim new ideals of conduct. The present article, however, is not concerned with the history of ethics (q.v.) but with the main problems of ethics. These problems turn chiefly on the following conceptions: (I) the highest good of human conduct, or its ultimate ideal aim, which may serve as the ultimate standard of right conduct ;
the origin or source of our knowledge of the highest good or of right and wrong; (3) the sanctions of moral conduct ; (4) the motives which prompt right conduct. Another problem discussed by moral philosophers is that of the freedom of the will; but as this is dealt with under FREE-WILL it will not be considered in the present article.
