Integrity of Administrators and Employees' Job Satisfaction

Damianus Abun

Introduction

The performance of the organization does not depend on how much capital (money) you invest in the school/organization. Or it does not depend on the managerial skills the administrators/managers have but it depends on many aspects of organization life. Pay attention to the details of organization life is necessary, not only on physical matters or tangible things but the things that we cannot see. Small things, if they are not given attention, can be a big hindrance to the development.  Along this line, people often focus on big things such as efficiency, managerial skills, leadership skills together with their technical skills in carrying out their duties and responsibilities but one  aspect that people often undermine are the values, the values of those who lead, those who are on the top. Values can be a motivating factor that can improve satisfaction of their employees and finally lead to higher performance of the company.

One value that is often undermined is integrity. Value of integrity may seem to be small in our eyes but it has a tremendous power to bring down or up the organization. The bankruptcies of businesses and organizations around the world are caused by the value integrity. Just mention for a few like ENRON and WorldCom. They committed fraud in their financial reporting to the public, misled the investors and then the result was their bankruptcy. Such value, how small it is, it can bring up or down the organization.

Since value is important part of running the organization, thus the paper would focus on the value of integrity and how it affects the satisfaction of employees. The purpose of the paper is to open the eyes of everybody, particularly administrators, to see the importance of values in running the school or organization. The value of integrity has been posted under the vision and mission statement of any organization and the purpose is for the employees and management to live by it. Some literatures and related studies will be presented to support the idea that integrity and job satisfaction is related.  

Integrity

Integrity has been part of core values in any organization. However, not many organization’ members really understand the meaning of integrity and how integrity works and influence the organization. Integrity is a value which is abstract and can be seen in action. Through action, we can understand the difference between integrity and dishonesty.

However to provide a basis for our discussion, let us find out the meaning of integrity and how it affects the organization and how integrity affects the satisfaction of employees.

The word “Integrity” can mean many things. Integrity can be applied to person and object. When integrity is used as a virtue, it refers to a quality of a person’s character. But when integrity is applied to objects, then integrity refers to the wholeness, intactness or purity of a thing. These meanings that are supposed to be used for objects; they are used for human beings or persons. An object has integrity when it has not been corrupted or damaged. Such meaning is carried over when we call a person as a person of integrity which means that the person has not been damaged inside –out by wrong doing or immoral act. Along the concept of integrity, we are going to see different concepts of integrity offered by different philosophers.

Lucaites, Condit & Caudill (1999) defines integrity as consistency of actions, values, methods, measures, principles, expectations and outcomes. In ethics, they argued, integrity is regarded as the honesty and truthfulness or accuracy of one’s actions. Such word (integrity) stems from Latin word “integer” (whole, complete). In this context integrity is the inner sense of wholeness deriving from honesty and consistency of character. Philosophers have been trying to understand integrity in relation to a person’s character and life. What is it to be a person of integrity? Answering such a question, we are going to discuss two fundamentals intuitions: first, that integrity is primarily a formal relation one has to oneself. Second that integrity is connected in an important way to acting morally. In this case, there are some substantive constraints on what it is to act with integrity (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2011).  Talking of substance of integrity means that integrity is not just the image of integrity but its substance. The substance of integrity is about what you see from the outside is a reflection of what is inside you. Inside and outside of you is integral part of you. Your action must be a reflection of your inner values.

Latest discussion on integrity, integrity is related to the integration of self, integrity as maintenance of identity, integrity as standing for something, integrity as moral purpose and integrity as a virtue. Integrity as self-integration is a matter of keeping the self intact and uncorrupted (wholeness/intactness). In this sense, integrity is a formal relation to the self. According to Frankfurt (1987) a wholly integrated person is a person who acts without any conflicting desires or person who constitute themselves without ambivalence. He bases his arguments on his ideas on desires and volition (act of will). He argued that desires and volition are arranged in hierarchy. First order desires are desires for goods. Second order desires are desires that one desire certain goods or that one act on one first order desire rather than another. Similarly one may will a particular action (first order volition) or one may will that one’s first order volitions are of particular sort (second order volition). Second order desire and volition pave the way for third order desires and volitions, and so on. According to Frankfurt, wholly integrated people bring these various levels of volition and desires into harmony. There is not no conflict of desires. 

 Related to integrity as maintenance of identity, integrity means a person’s holding steadfastly true to their commitment, rather than endorsing desires as suggested by Frankfurt.  Commitment refers to different kind of intentions, promises, convictions and a relationship of trust and commitment. A person of integrity in this sense is the one who committed to people, institution, traditions, causes, ideals, principles, jobs/ duties and so on.  Since the commitment is related to many kinds of commitments, thus it is difficult to determine what kind of commitment that a person of integrity to remain true. People can be committed to a certain act that is not good or even immoral. In this case, the question is: what commitment that people hold true. Bernard Williams (1973) argued that integrity in terms of the commitment means commitment to what is most deeply, and fundamental to their life. This is what he called: “identity-conferring commitment”. To abandon the identity-conferring commitment is to abandon what is fundamental to their life, to abandon what gave them identity or character or to abandon a condition for their existence. 

Such view of integrity has still problem because it does not reflect integrity as a virtue. Defining integrity as maintenance of identity conferring commitment cannot really be a virtue. A virtue motivates a person to act in desirable ways or it enables a person to act in desirable ways.  A person of integrity in its sense of maintenance of identity means a person who can act in a way that reflects his sense of who he is/she is, to act from her/his motives, his/her interest and commitments that are her/his own (Williams, 1981). The questions here are: what are those commitments? What are those motives? What are those interests? Are they good commitments or bad commitments? In this case, people of integrity in this sense can do bad things as long as it is their own; it is their motives and interest. Defining integrity as a virtue is also presented by Cox, La Caze and Levine (2003) They argued that virtue is a quality held to be of great moral values.

Since such concept poses a problem, Colhoun (1995) defines integrity as a social virtue. As a social virtue, integrity is defined by a person’s relations to others. Colhoun (1995) argues that integrity is a matter of a person’s proper regard for their own best judgment. In this case, persons of integrity do not just act consistently with their endorsement, they stand for something: they stand for their best judgment within a community. A person of integrity treats their own endorsement as ones that matter or ought to matter to fellow deliberators. In this case, a person of integrity is committed to what is best, not only for himself but also for the community. Such person is not lying to his own statement/decision, concealing them, recanting them under pressure, selling them out for rewards or changing stand under pressure. He stands for what he/she believes to be best not only for him/herself but also for community.

Halfon (1989) argues that integrity is not just self-integration, maintenance of identity and standing up for something but integrity has a moral purpose. He describes integrity in terms of a person’s dedication to the pursuit of a moral life and their intellectual responsibility in seeking to understand the demands of such life. They are pursuing a commitment to do what is best morally. In this case, a person of integrity is the one who acts with moral purpose and display intellectual integrity in moral deliberation. However some still argue that understanding integrity only in terms of moral concern seem too narrow because there are other matters like love, friendship and personal commitments appear highly relevant to judgment of integrity.

In summary we can say that integrity is self-integration or wholeness, commitment to what is best for self and community, standing up for something and a moral purpose.  When someone is called a person of integrity, it means that she/he is considered to have a self-integration, commitment, standing up for something and have strong moral character. A person of integrity bases her/his action on well-thought moral principles. What she/he does is the same with what he/she says. Such concept of integrity is based on ethics. 

Integrity in Organization

When we talk of organizational integrity, we cannot avoid of talking personal integrity because organization is composed of individual persons. Therefore individual integrity matters to organizational integrity. Integrity conveys a sense of wholeness, as in a person of integrity who is a whole individual or a person who is somehow undivided (Adler & Bird, 1988). In this case, integrity is not just about single-mindedness but completeness. It refers to the serenity of being confident in the knowledge that one is following ethical principles despite pressures or personal temptation. By saying that, it implies that uncompromising adherence to a code of moral and other values. Such integrated self-picture of integrity, with its consistency and non-ambivalence about values and principles is often perceived as an essential of integrity. Although such integrity is considered as an individual virtue, it only gains respect in concrete situation in relationship with others and within the organization.

Along with the stated idea above, we can say that integrity failure in an organization is caused by character flaws of the responsible individual. Integrity discerns what is morally appropriate and what is not, implicitly implying consideration of others with whom one lives in a community or works in an organization. By extending personal integrity into social domain, then it becomes a basic element that can be perceived as organizational integrity (Trevinyo Rodrigues, 2007). Thus, organizational integrity becomes a social virtue that emphasizes connectedness with a large purpose. A person of high integrity must act according to moral principles and values that relate to other members of the organization (Becker, 1998). Organizational integrity then is a social phenomenon that involves, not only consistency between action and principles, but adherence to reasonably accepted principles. In other words, organizational integrity is a standard of personal moral excellence (Habermas, 1998). A possible internal conflict between personal integrity and organizational integrity can not always be excluded, since an individual’s autonomous and deeply held convictions are not always completely aligned with the organizational structures or values and principles.

Organizational integrity is expressed in normative statement included in the organization’s mission statements (Paine 2003). However, even though an organization has organizational values, it does not guarantee that all employees will act according to the stated organizational values. One needs attitude of integrity that not only follows the letter of the rules but adheres to deeply held and internalized ethical values. In this case, leadership maintains organizational ethos in relation to collective mission, identity and long term objectives. The most challenging is when managers or administrators are confronted with competing and ambiguous demands. In such situation, a person of integrity needs to make a decision about right versus right, inevitably leading to certain compromises that do not undermine integrity (Badaracco, 2002). 

The importance of Integrity

We can have a lot of theories of integrity but we will still find ourselves in the dark until we see it in the action. Integrity has to be lived in reality. Not living the integrity means the collapse of the organization.  We do not need to mention all bankruptcies around the globe. We just mention several big corporations such as ENRON scandal, WorldCom, Parmalat, Waste Management, Qwest Communications, Tyco International, AIG, and Satyam Computer Services, Adelphia Communications, AOL Time Warner and many more. All these companies are brought down not because of capital inadequacy but because of fraud. The managers and the auditors are conniving to mislead the public by not telling the truth about the financial situation of their companies (Patsuris, 2002). Generally they use different methods for misusing, misdirecting funds, overstating revenues, understating expenses, overstating the value of corporate assets, underreporting of the existence of liabilities, sometimes with the cooperation of officials in other cooperation or affiliates. In other words, someone did something wrong intentionally or unintentionally and tried to cover it up by cooking the accounting books.

Just by knowing what happens to those companies and ask why, we simply say that they cheated, they lied or they were not honest. The prize of being dishonest was so expensive.

One may conclude that practicing dishonesty may cause short term and long term consequences. Short term consequences include employees dissatisfaction, employees morale are down and work performance or productivity is down.     

Job Satisfaction

There have been a lot of theories related to job satisfaction. We recall the five hierarchy needs of Maslow, Herzberg theory and many more. However, talking of job satisfaction is not simple because job satisfaction is not only physical needs but also psychological needs. In terms of physical needs, it can be identified such as basic needs and wants, however, when it comes to psychological needs, it is hard to pinpoint exactly what exactly are those needs, given the fact that humans are different in nature. Psychological needs encompass many aspects of life and many factors either internal or external can affect psychological needs. Thus the term “job satisfaction” is understood to mean everything from “making all aspects of a job easy for employees” to “making the job meaningful, significant and challenging.” Even such description is still limited because aspects of jobs are not the only ones make people happy but there are unrelated to job that makes people happy. In other words, we can say that all the factors contributing to employee motivation and effectiveness are not captured in any one of the single ambiguous concepts of job satisfaction. Thus, much of the qualitative research has not been verified by qualitative data. Research conducted by Schleicher, Watt and Greguras (2004) indicates that individuals with identical responses to questions on job satisfaction often possess entirely different behaviors relating to job performance. Additionally, differing factors relating to job satisfaction hold varying degrees of importance to individuals. Thus, a proven model showing the relationship between job satisfaction and performance has been elusive despite the vast quantity of qualitative data supporting the relationship. These issues are very complex and have simply not been fully deciphered by researchers.

Kevin Scheid (2010) argued that although job satisfaction, employee motivation and productivity are complex and confusing issues, management should not back away from facing them. Understanding that some parts of job satisfaction and motivation are simply an attribute of the employee over which you have no influence should temper your approach to improving job satisfaction. Managers should focus on two areas to improve job satisfaction, motivation and productivity: how employees are treated and the content of their work. A good employee survey should help management focus in on areas which are creating dissatisfaction or which are not providing adequate motivation.

There have been few essays discuss about integrity and job satisfaction on how integrity affect job satisfaction. Along this interest, Narasimhan & Lawrence (2011) argued that employees’ perception that their leader’s actions and words are consistent leads to desirable workplace outcomes. However, they further explain that although BI (behavioral integrity) is a powerful concept, the role of leader referents, the relationship between perceived BI of different referents, and the process by which BI affects outcomes are unclear.

The Relationship between Integrity and Job Satisfaction

Several literatures have been written along this line. However, we try to examine some available literature along the relationship of job satisfaction and integrity. Integrity is an essential value in the organization. Integrity is an umbrella term that covers all other values such trust and honesty. Practicing such values naturally will improve organizational climate and finally job satisfaction. Callaway (2006) argues that without trust or lack of it among organizational members and between management and employees, organizational communication and organizational performance may decline. Trust has been identified as a crucial ingredient for organizational effectiveness. A linkage between trust and job satisfaction in private organizations has been established by researchers.  

Manager’s integrity is interpersonal relationship of manager.  A manager who helps employees, listen to their innovative ideas, motivates them, directs them, remain open and friendly with them is known to possess integrity. Manager’s integrity helps an organization in achieving short term and long-term goals. Due to manager’s integrity, organization can better respond to internal and external needs. Manager’s value play a significant role in employees involvement. Ethical code set by the manager must be acceptable for the employees. Managers have the authority to make decisions and implement them. Such decisions affect on the performance of an organization in both positive and negative means. Implementation and outcome of these decisions show the intensity of integrity of manager (Allen, Eby &Lentz, 2006).  

Job satisfaction and manager’s integrity has direct relationship. Actions and words of manager govern the action of employees. If manager’s words depict trust and honesty, employees will follow the rules and principles of manager. In other words, integrity is significant to the employer-employee relationships. Employees behave ethically and use ethical ways to complete their task and achieve organizational objectives. Lack of integrity can weaken the performance of an organization by making employees dissatisfied and demotivated. If employees perceive unfairness and inequality, they will adopt unethical behavior (Kosgaard, 2006)   

Social exchange theory is based upon trust that is built between two persons. Building a trust between two persons, builds a social relationship also, known as social exchange. This theory identifies the factors that initiate trustworthy and fair relationships. It also identifies the motivational factors that are involved in creating social relationships. This theory can be applied between any two individuals in the world (Cropanzano and Mitzchel, 2005)

Social exchange theory also works in an organization. Employees and employers work together to achieve the objective of the organization as a team. Team work creates a friendly and cooperative environment that makes employees and employer emotionally attach with each other. Emotional attachment builds a trust based relationship between employees and manager. In the light of this theory, manager and employees share a formal relationship. Both work for the betterment of the organization. Social exchange theory exchanges social benefits such as support, advice, etc. (Grant & Sumanth, 2009)

Related Studies on the relationship between Integrity and satisfaction

 Several studies have been made to demonstrate the relationship between Integrity and job satisfaction.

The value of Integrity cannot be undermined after all. It affects the organization positively and negatively depending on how integrity is exercised by those who lead the organization. Along this line, there have been a lot of studies along integrity and how it affects job satisfaction of employees. Some researchers argue that leaders need integrity to be effective, while others argue that only results matter, not how you get them. Few have empirically examined the impact of integrity on leadership effectiveness. Hooijberg and Lane (2005) examine the impact of leadership behaviors on effectiveness as well as values such as integrity, flexibility and conformity, using a sample of top-level public service managers. They find that the values of Integrity and Flexibility have a significant impact on effectiveness over and above the impact of various leadership behaviors: Integrity for managers and their peers and flexibility for direct reports and peers.

Going into the same line of interest of study, Davis & Rothstein (2006) conducted a study entitled  The Effect of the Perceived behavioral Integrity of Managers on Employee Attitudes: A Meta-Analysis. This meta-analysis examined the relationship between perceived behavioral integrity of managers and the employee attitudes of job satisfaction, organizational commitment, satisfaction with the leader and affect toward the organization. Results indicate a strong positive relationship overall (average r = 0.48, p<0.01).

Other studies conducted along the value of integrity and employee attitude. Prottas (2007) conducted a study on “Perceived Behavioral Integrity: Relationship with Employee Attitudes, Well-Being and Absenteeism. The study concluded that perceived behavioral integrity (PBI) was positively related to job and life satisfaction and negatively related to stress, poor health, and absenteeism. The effect size for the relationship with job satisfaction was medium-to-large while the effect sizes with respect to the other variables were small-to-medium.

Following the same lead, Yammarino and Palanski (2011) also introduced a similar study on the Impact of behavioral integrity on follower job performance: A three-study examination. The study determines the relationship between leader behavioral integrity and follower job performance, follower behavioral integrity and job performance, and the effects of leader and follower behavioral integrity on follower job performance. Study 1 was an online experiment in which behavioral integrity was manipulated in written scenarios; Study 2 was a field study; and Study 3 was a longitudinal lab study with temporary work teams. Findings from the studies indicated that leader behavioral integrity was not directly related to follower job performance, but was related indirectly via trust in the leader and follower satisfaction with the leader. Results also indicated that follower behavioral integrity had a significant impact on job performance, both directly and indirectly via leader trust in the follower and satisfaction with the follower.

Since integrity is an organizational value, it has to be reflected in its code of conduct. Along this line, Somer (2001) conducted a study on the relationship between code of conduct, employee behavior, and organizational values. It wanted to measure how these codes of conducts affect employee perception and behavior. The study found out that the presence of corporate codes of ethics was associated with less perceived wrongdoing in organizations, but not with an increased propensity to report observed unethical behavior. Further, organizations that adopted formal codes of ethics exhibited value orientations that went beyond financial performance to include responsibility to the common good. In contrast to corporate codes of ethics, professional codes of ethical conduct had no influence on perceived wrongdoing in organization nor do these codes affect the propensity to report observed unethical activities.

The finding of Somer indicated that corporate code of ethics, professional codes of ethical conduct had no influence on wrong doing in organization is negated by another finding.  Sean,Lynn, Godkin & Barnett (2010) went deeper into finding the relationship between positive job response and ethical job performance. The purpose of this study was to investigate a possible relationship between positive job response (conceptualized as job satisfaction and intention to stay) and behavioral ethics. Ninety-two matched manager-employee pairs from a regional branch of a large financial services and banking firm completed survey instruments, with each employee providing information about his or her job attitudes and intentions and each manager assessing the ethical/unethical performance of his/her employees. Respondents also provided additional information required for the analyses. The results indicated that positive job response among subordinates was associated with higher supervisory ratings of the subordinates’ ethical job performance.

 Naturally exercising integrity by those who are on the top will always bring a positive impact on job satisfaction. Kaluturi (2008) conducted a study on Job Satisfaction. He tried to find out what are the factors that influence job satisfaction. To understand these dimensions a study was carried out in Hyderabad where employees from four different sectors in Marketing industry, Government, other sectors, and IT industry were located. They were identified and the scale developed by Wood, Chonko and Hunt was used to understand job satisfaction.  The results indicate an association between job satisfaction and attributions for the experiences. Dissatisfied workers, more than their satisfied colleagues, tend to employ more external attributions in their causal analysis for low job satisfaction. This confirmed postulations from job models in which dissatisfied workers have a propensity to attribute to workplace and environmental factors as agents of their dissatisfaction.

Conclusion

Now we have a clear idea on the integrity and how it is related to job satisfaction of employees. Literatures and related studies have supported our idea that integrity can affect job satisfaction of employees. Employees are not only motivated by money but also by the values that top management live in their organizational life.

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The Difference between Morality and Ethics

Introduction

It has been long time I struggle to know the difference between the two. In my lectures to my students, I did not make a distinction between the two; in fact I use the term interchangeably.  It means that when we talk of ethics, we actually mean the same as morality.  However, it keeps ringing in me that since the two words are very much different, then there must be different in meaning.

Many books on ethics and on morals are not pointing out their differences and using the terms interchangeably and it gives the reader the understanding that the two are the same. In fact, they are not. But in my first article, I told the reader that I am using the tow terms for the same thing. My purpose was for the reader not to have the two terms enter the mind of the reader at the same time. Now I would like to clarify the two terms. The difference between ethics and morals can seem somewhat arbitrary to many, but there is a basic, albeit subtle, difference between the two. The conflict of arguments on the pro and cons on the two terms have been leading to confusing discussion on ethics and morals. Up to this moment, many books out there have not pointed clearly the difference; books have used the terms interchangeably as I did. John Deigh (1995) in The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy states that the word ethics is "commonly used interchangeably with morality…... and sometimes it is used more narrowly to mean the moral principles of a particular tradition, group or individual." Knowing such confusions, we cannot just let it be but we need to draw the line between the two so that people can understand and use the terms properly.   

This simple article is really intended to distinguish between the two, for the reader not to be confused with the two, although they are conveying the same thing

but it might be good to see the context within which the two may show the difference. Hopefully this article will help to settle the difference

Ethics

In my previous article that I posted on the same blog, that when we discuss ethics, it should be neutral. One should not bring in his mind the ethics that he gets from his religion class or what he/she gets from his culture. Ethics is independent concept that cannot be mixed with religion.  As it was emphasized by Richard Paul and Linda Elder (2006) of the Foundation for Critical Thinking, that "most people confuse ethics with behaving in accordance with social conventions, religious beliefs and the law", and don't treat ethics as a stand-alone concept.  Paul and Elder define ethics as "a set of concepts and principles that guide us in determining what behavior helps or harms sentient creatures". It should be emphasized here that the scope of ethics is not only a guiding principles in human behavior related to man only but it is to all creation. The concern here is how human relates to other human and non human.  

Starting from the point of view of Paul and Elder, it can be argued that ethics is a philosophy of moral. Ethics helps and guides a person in making a moral decision particularly when a person facing a moral dilemma. Thus, ethics is about the philosophical process of answering 'Given what we know, what should we do in a particular situation and circumstances. It guides moral agent to make a moral decision. It helps us to examine our choices of action if our choices or decision are ethically correct and will lead to a more or less moral decision. I call it more or less moral decision, because there is no such thing as morally perfect decision when we apply ethics. Circumstances surround the problem and situations come into play and make it more or less morally perfect. 

In Ethics we discuss human act and act of man. Human acts mean the act that is purely belonging to man which is inspired by reason and free will. While the act of man means the acts that are not purely belonging to man because animal can do the same such as eating, drinking, sleeping but this act can be subjected to ethical evaluation depending on the circumstance, situation, motivation or intention and the purpose and consequence. In this case, not all acts are subjected to evaluation.

Reason and free will is the starting point in which someone can evaluate a certain act if it is morally bad/wrong or good. Example is determining the morality of killings. A person killed his wife on Christmas evening and he was arrested and now he is under investigation. Killing in full sense is immoral and if there are no circumstance surround the killing, then the person will be given full sentence. Ethics' principles come into play to examine the circumstance of the killings. This is to determine the gravity of its moral blame or burden. Here the circumstance is scrutinized if the act was really done in full knowledge/reason and no other external factors or internal factors that forced him to do so. Or the person may have done it because he was under the influence of liquor, drugs. Drug testing and liquor testing may be required. If it is proven, then it can be said that his full knowledge and freedom were not present during the act. The punishment/moral blame might be mitigated or lessened. But if the investigation proved otherwise that it was done in full knowledge and full awareness or premeditated that the person really wants to kill his wife because he wants to marry another one, then the case is completely changed. The person is completely morally wrong.  

The tools that are being used by ethics in examining the moral problems are not only reason and freewill but also intention, means, end and consequence. A student wants to be dean lister. How is she/he going to achieve such dream? The concern here is the means to achieve such desire. A moral choice or a good choice would be to study hard and bad choice would be to cheat.  The student has the choice whether to study hard or to cheat. If he/she chooses to study hard and achieve his/her purpose, then she/he would be praised but he/she chooses to cheat and she/he achieved but the consequence is that she/he might be removed from dean’s lister.

 In relation to the case of consequence, let us take the case of double effect of a pregnant woman. The doctor declared that the pregnant mother is in risky situation and the family has to choose whether to save the life of the mother or the son.  The family cannot decide but something has to be done. Not to operate, both will die. But the operation /cesarean result would be either the mother or the son is going to be sacrificed. The perfect choice here would be that both should be saved and the doctor really works to save both human life but as a consequence of the operation would be either, the son or the mother is sacrificed. In this case, the intention is good, the means is good and the purpose is good but the consequence is that the son died. In this case moral burden to the doctor or the family is perfectly mitigated.

Those examples clearly remind us that ethics is guiding principles in moral decision or moral choice. In case of moral dilemma, ethics can guide the moral agent how to make more or less morally praised decisions under a certain circumstance. Ethics is a philosophy that questions or explains morality, values and subsequent outcome of certain act. Ethics is the critical reflection on personal and social morality. Groups and societies have moral expectations just as individuals have moral judgments. Thus the purpose of knowing ethics is clear. It is to guide the person or the group on how to make a moral decision.  Ethics is the science of Morals. It makes sense of moral decisions. It explains why one ought to do and not to do. Ethics are an integral part of social laws and politics. In any dichotomy situation, one where two choices are available, ethics steps in to identify the best action-choice. Ethical action is defined and questioned within our interactions with people, environment and other non human beings. Ethics is an approach, a method of making decisions. Ethics is about deciding to the best of our ability, without fear or favor. It is about being aware of the many aspects of each issue and trying to include them into the decision making process. It is about being aware of the outcome of our decisions, good and bad. Ethics is about making a well-considered decision and having the moral courage to accept the responsibility of our decision. Ethics is more a way of approaching decisions, ethics is not a set of values but a way of developing values for a certain situation as it is understood.

Using the tools that are given or provided by ethics, a person can make a better choice of actions that will be morally acceptable. However, experience would tell us that there is no such perfect moral decision. Either one or more of the rules are violated. Seldom we find that the intention is good, the means is good, the end is good and the consequence is good. If such happen, then it is morally perfect. Often time, a person emphasizes more on the ends or the consequence, and then she/he ignores the motives and the means. That is the case of consequentialism ethics which emphasizes on the consequence or the ends. As long as the ends or the consequence is good, then the motives, the means do not matter. The ends justify the means. Whatever means, either good or bad, as long as the result is good, then it is moral. Often time people prioritize the intention or the motives and ignoring the ends or consequence and so it is morally acceptable. Therefore, people are choosing the lesser evil, meaning the decision is still immoral but to a lesser extent.  

In summary, we can say that ethics is not sets of values and to be applied in our lives but ethics is a philosophy of moral. Ethics is a way of reaching an answer in any situation. The aim is to reach the best answer. But all problems are complicated. The more we learn about a problem, the more complicated it becomes and I believe, many may not be able to agree with the things presented here. 

Morality

Many have tried to define morality but these definitions bring more confusions and lead to uncertainty. Often morality is defined as ethics and ethics is defined as morality. Leaving behind all those kinds of definition, now let us put forward the definition that we would like to adopt.   

Morality can be defined in its descriptive and normative sense. Morality in its descriptive sense  refer to some codes of conduct put forward by a society, some other group, such as a religion, or accepted by an individual for her own behavior. Normatively to refer to a code of conduct that, given specified conditions, would be put forward by all rational persons (Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2002). These two definitions can bring some conflicts and cannot be reconciled.

When morality is defined as code of conduct put forward by a society, groups or even individuals will result in a denial that there is a universal morality, one that applies to all human beings. This descriptive use of “morality”is the one used by anthropologists when they report on the morality of the societies that they study. “Morality” has also been taken to refer to any code of conduct that a person or group takes as most important (Baier, Kurt, 1958,). In the descriptive concept of morality may also include important attitude of individuals that are regarded as important. Often time in its descriptive sense, morality cannot be distinguished from etiquette. People usually refer etiquette as part of morality but it applies to norms that are considered less serious than the kinds of norms for behavior that are part of morality in the basic sense.

When “morality” is used in these descriptive senses, moralities can differ from each other quite extensively in their content and in the foundation that members of the society claim their morality to have. A society might have a moral code that regards practices as necessary for purity or sanctity as more important than practices related to whether other persons are harmed. A society may take as morally most important that certain rituals are performed or that certain sexual practice. Consequently practicing descriptive sense of morality will result to conflicts because different societies and even different individuals can claim their morality as more important than the others or higher than the others.  

Morality” normatively, all hold that “morality” refers to a code of conduct that applies to all who can understand it and can govern their behavior by it. In the normative sense, morality should never be overridden, that is, no one should ever violate a moral prohibition or requirement for non-moral considerations. All of those who use “morality” normatively also hold that, under plausible specified conditions, all rational persons would endorse that code.

The normative sense of morality is adopted by all adult rational persons beyond culture, society. It means that all adult rational being adopt the same code of conduct that guide their behavior in relation to others, society and environment. However, this kind of morality may not be necessarily put forward by society but it is already built in the human person. The normative concept of morality is based on the Natural law theory which says that all adult rational people are capable of knowing what is good and bad which is endowed through reason as Thomas Aquinas put it that this is because God implanted this knowledge in the reason of all persons or Thomas Hobbes argued that natural reason is sufficient to allow all rational persons to know what morality prohibits, requires, etc. However, those who recognized normative morality may not claim with certainty that all rational persons know what natural moral law prohibits.  

Upon the discussion on descriptive and normative morality, we can conclude that both, descriptive and normative, have in common that they refer to guides of behavior that involve, at least in part, avoiding and preventing harm to some others. The contexts and the application may not be the same, one is limited and one is universal. Possibly morality in descriptive sense may be written and may not be written but definitely normative ethics is not written, it is written in the mind or reason of the person.

Morality is a set of values that are applied or lived in our lives and therefore it is more personal in nature. It refers to personal sets of belief, values about what is right and wrong. In short, morality refers to an adopted code of conduct within an environment and a set of agreed upon rules for what is 'right' and 'wrong'. Morals have formed the spine of modern society, religion and every individual's conscience.

The main objective of morality is to be able to highlight 'right' and 'wrong'. As a code of conduct, moral codes define 'appropriate' and 'expected' behavior. Community morality is usually defined via commentaries and codes of authority. Morality is better understood as an assimilation of beliefs about the essentials to lead a 'good' life. It is not to be confused with religious or fanatic or political perception. Moral codes are based on value systems that have been tried and tested. The best examples of moral codes include the Eightfold Path of Buddhism and the Ten commandments. It is believed that all of us, throughout our lives, act from a developing moral core.

Conclusion

After long discussion on ethics and morality, we have a clear conclusion that both are different. Ethics refers to philosophy of morals or theories and principles that guide a person to make a moral decision. Ethics is not a code of conduct that guides the behavior of a person to make moral decision. But morality is a set of believes or code of conduct put forward and may not be put forward by society to guide the behavior of the human person to live a good life and attain happiness. It helps the person to know what are the things to be done and not to be done or avoided. 

References

1.      Paul, Richard; Elder, Linda (2006). The Miniature Guide to Understanding the Foundations of Ethical Reasoning. United States: Foundation for Critical Thinking Free Press 

2.      John Deigh in Robert Audi (ed), 1995. The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy.

3.      Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2011. The Definition of Morality.

4.      Baier, Kurt, 1958, The Moral Point of View, Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press.