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Many writers regard ethics (Gr. ethike) as any scientific treatment of the moral order and divide it into theological, or Christian, ethics (moral theology) and philosophical ethics (moral philosophy). What is generally understood by ethics, however, is philosophical ethics, or moral philosophy. Moral philosophy is a division of practical philosophy (which concerns itself with what ought to be, or with the order of acts which are human and which therefore depend upon our reason). Practical philosophy is also divided into logic and ethics. The former rightly orders the intellectual activities and teaches the proper method in the acquirement of truth, while the latter directs the activities of the will; the object of the former is the true; that of the latter is the good. Hence ethics may be defined as the science of the moral rectitude of human acts in accordance with the first principles of natural reason. Logic and ethics are normative and practical sciences, because they prescribe norms or rules for human activities and show how, according to these norms, a man ought to direct his actions.
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A distinction must be made between ethics and morals, or morality. Every people, even the most uncivilized and uncultured, has its own morality or sum of prescriptions which govern its moral conduct. Nature had so provided that each man establishes for himself a code of moral concepts and principles which are applicable to the details of practical life, without the necessity of awaiting the conclusions of science. Ethics is the scientific or philosophical treatment of morality. The subject-matter proper of ethics is the deliberate, free actions of man; for these alone are in our power, and concerning these alone can rules be prescribed, not concerning those actions which are performed without deliberation, or through ignorance or coercion. Besides this, the scope of ethics includes whatever has reference to free human acts, whether as principle or cause of action (law, conscience, virtue), or as effect or circumstance of action (merit, punishment, etc.). The particular aspect (formal object) under which ethics considers free acts is that of their moral goodness or the rectitude of order involved in them as human acts. A man may be a good artist or orator and at the same time a morally bad man, or, conversely, a morally good man and a poor artist or technician. Ethics has merely to do with the order which relates to man as man, and which makes of him a good man.
Like ethics, moral theology also deals with the moral actions of man; but unlike ethics it has its origin in supernaturally revealed truth. It presupposes man's elevation to the supernatural order, and, though it avails itself of the scientific conclusions of ethics, it draws its knowledge for the most part from Christian Revelation. Ethics is distinguished from the other natural sciences which deal with moral conduct of man, as jurisprudence and pedagogy, in this, that the latter do not ascend to first principles, but borrow their fundamental notions from ethics, and are therefore subordinate to it. To investigate what constitues good or bad, just or unjust, what is virtue, law, conscience, duty, etc., what obligations are common to all men, does not lie within the scope of jurisprdence or pedagogy, but of ethics; and yet these principles must be presupposed by the former, must serve them as a ground-work and guide; hence they are subordinated to ethics.
The same is true of political economy. The latter is indeed immediately concerned with man's social activity inasmuch as it treats of the production, distribution and consumption of material commodities, but this activity is not independent of ethics; industrial life must develop in accordance with the moral law and must be dominated by justice, equity, and love. Political economy was wholly wrong in trying to emancipate itself from the requirements of ethics. If sociology is understood as the philosophical treatment of society, it is a division of ethics; for the enquiry into the nature of society in general, into the origin, nature, object and purpose of natural societies (the family, the state) and their relations to one another forms an essential part of Ethics. If, on the other hand, sociology be regarded as the aggregate of the sciences which have reference to the social life of man, it is not a single science but a complexus of sciences; and among these, so far as the natural order is concerned, ethics has the first claim.
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 Never by hatred is hatred appeased, but it is appeased by kindness. This is an eternal truth. (Buddha, 500B.C)
 Those sciences which govern the morals of mankind, such as Theology and Philosophy, make everything their concern: no activity is so private or so secret as to escape their attention or their jurisdiction. (Michel de Montaigne)
 From the apparent usefulness of the social virtues, it has readily been inferred by sceptics, both ancient and modern, that all moral distinctions arise from education, and were, at first, invented, and afterwards encouraged ... in order to render men tractable, and subdue their natural ferocity and selfishness, which incapacitated them for society. (David Hume, 1737)
 If religion is the establishing of a relationship between man and the universe, then morality is the indication and explanation of those activities that automatically result when a person maintains one or other relationship to the universe.
Morality cannot be independent of religion, since it is not only a consequence of religion - that is, of the relationship a person has to the world - but it is also included in religion by implication. Every religion is an answer to the question of the meaning of life. And the religious answer includes a certain moral demand. (Leo Tolstoy, Confessions)
 There is nothing divine about morality; it is a purely human affair. ... If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed. ... What the individual can do is to give a fine example, and to have the courage to uphold ethical values .. in a society of cynics.(Albert Einstein, 1954)
 Fine words and an insinuating appearance are seldom associated with true virtue. ... Have no friends not equal to yourself. ... What the superior man seeks is in himself; what the small man seeks is in others. ... When anger rises, think of the consequences. ... Hold faithfulness and sincerity as first principles. ... If a man takes no thought about what is distant, he will find sorrow near at hand.(Confucius, Analects)
Life itself is neither a good nor an evil: life is where good or evil find a place, depending on how you make it for them. (Seneca)
 Moral philosophy is nothing else but the science of what is good, and evil, in the conversation, and society of mankind. Good, and evil, are names that signify our appetites, and aversions; which in different tempers, customs, and doctrines of men, are different. (Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, 1651)
There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so. (Erwin Schrodinger)
What our species needs, above all else, is a generally accepted ethical system that is compatible with the scientific knowledge we now possess. (Derek Freeman)
Editor: Haselhurst
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