When we look up ethics in the dictionary the words ‘principles’ and ‘standards’, are used to describe its meaning; two words which the socialist party has no quarrel with.

Moral
Of or pertaining to character or temperament (good or bad), from O.Fr. moral, from L. moralis "proper behavior of a person in society," lit. "pertaining to manners," coined by Cicero. from L. mos (gen. moris) "one's disposition," in pl., "mores, customs, manners, morals," of uncertain origin. The Greek translation is ethikos which gives us ethic.

Ethics and morals are both concerned with:
Systems of ideas, theories, or principles of right and wrong or good and bad conduct.
Conforming to or being in accord with standards of behavior and character based on values and principles.

ethics: The study of the general nature of morals and of the specific moral choices to be made by a person; moral philosophy.
ethics: The rules or standards governing the conduct of a person or community, e.g. medical ethics.
ethics: The disposition, character or fundamental values peculiar to a specific person, people, culture, or movement. The distinctive beliefs and attitudes of a people, culture, etc. From Greek ethos meaning character.

Both moral and ethical also have a value-neutral sense in which they are used to mean ‘Virtuous conduct’ or ‘good’.

So the meaning of ‘moral’ and ‘ethical’, as with the meaning of ‘justice’, can be relative to context; they can be used to describe different personalities/cultures etc. ‘His ethics were this’, ‘their ethics were that’ etc.
AND they are used to generally refer to what is or would be right or good. Neither of these meanings prevents us from examining and deciding for ourselves what our morality/our ethics should be, or what constitutes justice.







The words ethics, morality, justice and other similar words are generally used in two different ways:
1) The words can be used to refer to any cultural mode or personal practice that is specified by the context. In this type of usage the truth value/benefit of the ethics, morality or justice referred to is a matter of opinion (whether people accept that or not). So we can have, for example, ‘capitalist morality’, or ‘divine justice’ (as dictated by the church for instance). Notably these must be specified by having the type put before ‘morality’ or ‘justice’. We can also have ‘socialist ethics’ which would primarily be about destroying the class system and creating a truly democratic system – but since this is because we want to end suffering and oppression and to facilitate the healthy development life, it also clearly involves morals concerning the treatment of sentient beings and the management of the conditions of life.

2) The words are also used to express our concepts of universal law or objective truth about what is good for life, or our common humanitarian values. These concepts exist to the extent that it has been realized that there are matters of fact about the common good according to the criterions of healthy development of life. Along with this realization comes the realization that it is useful to increase our knowledge of the truth (and in particular to study cause and effect), and that for our well being we have to hold the truth above our desires (until we know enough to know what we truly want).

The coexistence of these two uses is shown by the fact that the following sentences have an equivalent meaning: ‘He had the morals of a mass murderer’, and, ‘He had no morals’ or ‘was amoral’. The first sentence uses the idea that morality can be subjective alone, i.e. that it refers to whatever our beliefs and behaviour happen to be. And the second sentence uses the idea that there is an objective morality; that there are common truths to be found about what is and is not virtuous.

These two different meanings may overlap, but are distinguishable. For example, as with ‘divine justice’ (as dictated by the church) mentioned above. According to the criterion in 2), not everything that issues from religion is right, and not everything is wrong. There are agreements between what can be called religious beliefs and behaviors and true humanist or humanitarian morality. However, in religious doctrine, much that is actually a matter of opinion has simply been made to sound like ultimate truth by claiming that has issued from an all knowing, all powerful, but insubstantial god. It is thus claimed to be beyond human power of understanding or beyond human right to question. The priests of course could relay messages and interpretations, but the insubstantial bit was very convenient for them because it meant that no one could check if that was what ‘god’ had actually said. This is usage I) parading as usage 2). I would add however that I think that the idea of divine justice or law was originally a form of the idea of universal law or objective truth, and has since been purloined by certain religious people/groups, in the service of an hierarchical establishment, who betray that ideal in order to impose their capitalist, and other subjective desires. The word ‘divine’ still has the meanings ‘ideal’ or ‘true’, and perhaps one day it will be fully claimed back into common ownership. Then what is claimed to be divine can then be properly checked by our science and art so as to relieve it of those beliefs and behaviors that do not make the grade. – Especially since the word originated from the shamanic use of wine.

In the case of capitalist ethics or morals, they demonstrably do not coincide with objective truth about the common good, whereas socialist ethics or morals demonstrably do – to a large extent anyway; and socialism has the inner democratic structure that allows for itself to be improved in the light of further knowledge/changing circumstances.







In ‘The conditions of the working class in England’ (the chapter on factory hands), Friedrich Engels writes of

"the barbarous treatment of the operatives, the destruction of their health, the social, physical, and mental decay of whole generations."

On the next page, Engels writes of the ‘demoralisation’ of the workers. [NOTE: with reference to the piece above,‘Two Uses’ – the use of the word ‘demoralization’ is usage 2.] The implication is that according to objective, largely measurable criterion of health and wellbeing, a good condition had existed previously in comparison. With democratically organised use and development of technology by workers to supply directly for their needs this could of course exist again in a renewed and better form.

The type and global distribution of poverty and barbarity has changed somewhat since this was written, but the capitalist class still conduct and oversee war and deprivation, including mass starvation to maintain their positions of privilege. People have not yet properly realized that their suffering and the suffering of their fellow workers is caused by the system. Despite having little say in how things are done, because power belongs to the minority of owners, and despite being exploited by these owners for profit, where they have a vote, the majority have so far kept voting for capitalism and generally supporting it. Capitalism has a horrible momentum. As well as the more obvious outer poverty and conflict, it causes inner poverty and conflict; it produces poverty of information and education, encourages us to be selfish and engenders fear of each other and of change. But the question remains:

…….and I should care about this because??............This is our response if we have no ethics, and it is significant that this is precisely the amoral capitalist attitude. The inherent goodness of health, of healthy development, makes this something that we care about, i.e. have ethics about. We also have ethics concerning the inherent goodness of democratic equality, but this is so important because the lack of it is so damaging to health and healthy development.

The area of consciousness concerning the treatment of sentient beings and the management of the conditions of life is a moral area, which means it is the area of standards and ideals of attitude and behaviour. For socialism to be successful we need majority awareness of the class system and of the potential for a different system of common ownership and equality democracy, but also our moral beliefs need to largely coincide. It may be that the ethical development is already present – but the problem is that, as yet, most of humanity do not recognize or understand the fundamentally abusive nature of the system of capitalism, and/or are resigned to it because they do not know of or understand the alternative.

It can be demonstrated that capitalism is economically exploitative, and there is endless evidence that it is harmful to us, but it conversely it may be the case that people are now too damaged by it - too separated from each other and from everything of true value to know what it is worth having equality democracy for. As communications increase in capitalist society, it sometimes seems that there is increasingly no society – only isolated psyches cut off from each other and their ever more polluted and destroyed environment; lost in virtual worlds of quantity rather than quality of interaction, only gathering to further obliterate their consciousness with substance abuse in situations where the noise is anyway too loud to be able to talk. Bodies that touch but do not think or feel. Anesthetized. But there are those who have not yet succumbed, and there are movements that are using technology differently, and there are signs that the dead can come to life.

If the majority do arise to vanquish capitalism, and to create a new democratic and cooperative world of common ownership, it will be because of the vigilant devotion of some and the waking up of others to both the class analysis and to moral values. It will be because practical moral concepts about how to live find socialism/communism as the way that they can be put into action; the most salient ideal being the health of all or the common good. The area of common morality is the socialist arena. This is where we appeal to the majority of our fellow human beings to become sensible to their situation and to what they really want, and to act to achieve it.

The realization that an action brings mutual wellbeing does not mean that it must then be totally individualistically selfish and non-moral in that sense! Likewise the fact that socialism is in the interests of the working class does not make it particularly selfish or non-moral to choose it on those grounds; rather it makes it the moral choice, for one thing because it is at the very least the greatest good for the greatest number. In both of these cases we are just making a more informed moral choice than we would without these realisations.

All that is required is that we care about something. Even ‘What is best for me?’ has no meaning if we do not care about what is good and what is bad for life in however limited a way. It is the beginning of a search for truth, and morality will develop as we learn about life. The crucial choice has already been made before the question above is asked; and it is not ‘me or us?’ - which anyway profoundly lacks awareness - but ‘health or illness?’ ‘life or death?’ If we hold that life is good, meaning it is worth having, worth loving, worth working to make it well, then the choice has already been made to seek the truth, because we need to know what is healthy for us. We need truth for loving life. And given time the truth will out; we will find out how to do it.