Understanding Morality: Life, Ethics, and Values
The Moral Life and Thought
Experienced morality is what people and societies do daily. Ethics is the reflection on moral concerns that philosophers undertake. Morality is life, while ethics is moral philosophy.
What Does It Mean to Be Moral?
Morality is not a science, but a dimension of individuals and societies. This moral dimension involves action and purpose:
- Acquiring good manners.
- Forging a character from which to devise and plan one’s life.
- Being trained to respond appropriately to any challenge.
An evil person can be psychologically lively, yet immoral. In forging a good character, we must recognize the elements involved.
Learning to Live
Unlike animals, whose existence is determined by their nature, people are naturally clueless. We can live in many different ways, so we need to conduct our lives and learn how to live. This is a necessary and essential knowledge.
Morality and Its Goal
Morality helps us build ourselves from within and in relation to others, with a view to achieving self-respect. To achieve this, we propose ideals of human life, tips, and experiences, as embodied in values and norms. Thus, we conduct our lives to develop ideas for our lives.
How Does Religion Guide Us?
Morality, politics, and law pursue our self-realization and the common good.
However, we also have other aspirations, such as the desire for immortality and ultimate meaning. Religious experience addresses the pain and misfortune caused by suffering, pain, disease, and natural disasters, requiring compassion and loving support.
Strengths
Life has a goal: to be a person in fullness. To achieve this, we must acquire good habits. In Greek thought, virtue (aretē) was understood as the virtuous character that stood out from the rest, especially through exercise for good. In the Middle Ages, it meant the soul’s strength for good.
Definition of Virtue
Virtue is a predisposition to act or behave in a certain way through practice, e.g., solidarity. The moral life has a goal: to fully become people. To achieve this, we need to acquire habits. Virtue is excellence of character that must be considered in exercising the soul’s power to do good.
Attitudes
Attitudes and actions are learned and relatively fixed dispositions that guide our conduct. Attitudes and virtues are expressions of deeper aspects of people, made up of feelings, intelligence, and reason.
They are hard to change, but it is possible. Virtues and attitudes are key in the moral life; we tend to act according to the predispositions we have acquired.
Values
Values are very important for defining our identity. We know a person’s values by how they choose and what they prefer daily. Values have an emotional, intellectual, and experiential component.
There are different types of values: aesthetic, economic, religious, etc. But moral values are especially important for individuals.
Definition of Values
Values are qualities of things or people that attract us. Positive values attract us, while negative values repel us. Some values are superior to others.
Requirements of Moral Values
Moral values are those that we can incorporate into our lives, with more or less effort, to be fully realized persons. Examples include solidarity and sincerity.
Moral values are personal because they are qualities of persons or their actions. Moral values only belong to free people.
Moral values are universal and should be appreciated by all people.