MORAL PROBLEMS IN THE WORLD

THE ORIGINS OF THE MORALS

  I.- BASIC DEFINITIONS
Moral: A moral is a message or a lesson to be learnt from a story or event.

Morality: It is the system of principles and judgements- moral values- shared within a cultural, religious, secular or philosophical community. Morality defines the accepted code of behaviour or conduct in a particular space and time.

Ethics: It is a mayor branch of philosophy and it is the explicit, philosophical reflection on our moral beliefs and practices. Ethics includes taking into account not only my own values but the values of OTHERS (other cultures, societies or religions) inside my own perspective.

It is divided into three primary areas:

1.- Meta-ethics: the study of ethical concepts.

2.- Normative ethics: the study of how to determine ethical values and rules.

3.- Applied ethics: the study of the use of ethical values in particular situations or current problems, such as discrimination, poverty, environmental issues or globalization.

POLITICS: It is the study and reflection about the government of a society, its principles and values. Its aim is to determine the better organization of the community, based on ethical considerations.

MORAL AUTONOMY: From Greek auto (self) and nomos (rule, command).

Autonomy is the human ability to give ourselves our rules of behaviour. The capacity of reflecting and choosing those values, rules or commands that we believe to be right.

MORAL HETERONOMY: From Greek hetero (other, different) and nomos  (rule, command). It means to accept other´s values and rules (tradition, authority, culture, religion) without further considerations.