Ethics, Morals & Values

It is a daunting task to accentuate the differences between values, morals and ethics? This is because they all portends behavioral rules that guide individuals or organisations. As a matter of fact, differentiating Ethics, Morals and Values may seem like splitting hairs, but the differences can be important when persuading others.

Ethics
Ethics exist in all facets of life. It is commonly used in the professional settings than the other two. In other words, there is often professional ethics, codes and rules. Ethics seems to be much accommodated in the formal system where a group of people adopt sets of rules as their ethics. For instance, we have code of ethics for professional accountants. According to Changing Minds.com, ethics are thus internally defined and adopted, whilst morals tend to be externally imposed on other people.

Values
According to the Encarta dictionary value is defined as the accepted principles or standards of a person or a group. They are beliefs of a person or social group in which they have an strong emotional attachment. Values are the rules by which we make decisions about right and wrong, should and shouldn't, good and bad.

Morals
Moral is a derivation of conscience. It suggests what is right or wrong and how people should behave. Morals have a greater social element to values and tend to have a very broad acceptance. Morals are far more about good and bad. In other words, they are judgmental. People are judged on moral and behavioral grounds than values.

When dealing with other people, we need to uphold these three phenomena as they all play major role in human interaction. The onus is on you to understand the ethics, values and morals of other people so that we can always experience peaceful co-existence among one another as God's own creature.