ETHICS and MORALS
The term "ethics" is used in several different ways. First, it may mean the study of morals, meaning individual or social forms of behavior. It is also the name for that branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of morals and moral evaluation: what is right and wrong, virtuous or vicious, good and bad, and beneficial or harmful (to oneself or others).
Second, ethics or morality may be used to mean the standards for ethical or moral behavior of a particular group, such as "Buddhist ethics" or "nursing ethics" or "Roman Catholic morality" or "the professional ethics of engineers in the United States." To give a description of such ethical codes and standards is descriptive ethics. Descriptive ethics does not include a judgment as to whether the code or standards of behavior are ethically justification. The examination of the adequacy of moral or ethical values, standards, or judgments is normative ethics.
Third, some authors even use the terms "ethics" or "morality" more loosely to refer to any code of behavior, even one that no one regards as having any moral justification. For example, Robert Jackall describes what he calls the "ethics" or "morality" of a corporation and takes it to include such judgments as, "What is right is what the guy above you wants from you." Such a judgment is about the most immediate way to survive in the organization, but does not pretend to be a statement about what is morally or ethically justified. It may be important to examine such codes of behavior and see how they affect the opportunities for moral action, but not every code of behavior has, or is even claimed to have moral or ethical justification.
The term "moral" tends to be used for more practical elements, such as "moral problems" and "moral beliefs," and "ethical" tends to be used for more abstract and theoretical elements, such as "ethical principles," but the distinction is by no means hard and fast.