Morality, Ethics, Human Behavior, and Determining Moral Behavior

Understanding the differences between morality and ethics is critical to understanding human behavior. Knowing the differences and how moral behavior is determined helps one recognize what is unethical and immoral. Such comprehensions enable people to identify and resolve ethical dilemmas.

After completing this lesson, you should be able to:

• Explore how discretion permeates every phase of the criminal justice system and creates ethical dilemmas for criminal justice professionals
• Explain why the study of ethics is important for criminal justice professionals
• Define the terms morals, ethics, duties, supererogatories, and values
• Describe behaviors that might be subject to moral/ethical judgments
• Explain the difference between ethical issues and ethical dilemmas
• Define deontological and teleological ethical systems, and explain ethical formalism and utilitarianism
• Describe how other ethical systems define what is moral – specifically, religion, natural law, ethics of virtue, and ethics of care
• Discuss the argument as to whether egoism is an ethical system
• Explain the controversy between relativism and absolutism (or universalism)
• Identify what is good according to each of the ethical systems discussed