What is ethics?

Ethics takes moral phenomena as the research object, including not only moral consciousness (such as personal moral feelings), but also moral activities (such as moral behavior) and moral norms.

Ethics distinguishes moral phenomena from human activities, and discusses the essence, origin and development of morality, the relationship between moral level and material living standard, the highest principle and standard of moral evaluation, the system of moral norms, moral education and cultivation, the meaning of life, human values and attitudes towards life.

Extended data

The emergence and development of human ethical thought has its relatively independent history. From the perspective of the whole history of ethical thought, there are mainly three different forms of development:

(1) The ancient Confucian ethical tradition in China took benevolence as the core, filial piety as the main content, attached importance to personal moral cultivation, and linked self-cultivation with housekeeping, governing the country and leveling the world;

(2) The ethical thoughts from ancient Greece and Rome to the modern West have formed an ethical tradition characterized by emphasizing personal happiness, that is, human perfection;

(3) The ethical thoughts that took place in ancient Egypt and India mainly discussed the meaning of life and people's spiritual life, and were often combined with religion, from which the requirements of religious precepts were implemented and strongly supported by religious forces.