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RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA I. Name, Concept, Encyclopedic Poaition, aid Method. Name (¢ 1). Relation to Religion (¢ 2). Dogmatics and Ethics (¢ 3). Relation of Theological to Philosophical Ethics (¢ 4). Sources of Ethics (¢ b).
Ethics is that branch of philosophy which treats of the theory and nature of moral obligation, and which determines the rules of right conduct, setting forth the moral relation of man to self and others, and aiming to give a philosophical and practical basis of discrimination between right and wrong.
I. Name, Concept, Encyclopedic Position, and Method: The term "ethics" is derived from the
Greek Jth~ (Sanskrit svadhtt, " s elfr. Name. determination "), which connotes in-
dividual peculiarity as wed -Ah& individual customs of a laeraon or n co=mllnitv. Originally ethos, as the Ionic form of ethos, shared this meaning with the latter, but gradually a dis tinction was evolved between the two forms, ethos denoting rather external habits, ef~os_-s~"i~`r~, x,_,a.l at~""_~+_.''_t_.ue- arr, ' According to Sextus Empiricus (" Against the Dogmaticians," i. 16) the word " ethics " was first used by Xenocrates, though Aristotle writhe pioneer in giving the term a rigid connotation. Thenceforth the word was frequently used in Greek philosophy, especially by the Stoics. Later it occurs in the works of Me lanchthon and his pupils, and then in Spinoza; while in recent times the term has been affected especially by Evangelical theologians of the specu lative type. The term " morals " is derived from the Latin neos, which, related to modus, denotes order, both in the sense of " command " and of " habit." Accordingly Cicero used the adjective moralis to translate the Greek ethikos, and Chris tian theological terminology adopted the phrase disciplina (or theologies) rrwralis in the sense de fined by Cicero and Seneca. In Roman Catholic theology the term " morals " remained by far the more customary, but even in the older Protestant _philoso h and theology it shared its honors with the nam~_ ics." " Morals" was also a fa vorite term with the rationalists and the followers of Kant, although it is also employed by theolo gians of altogether different schools. See MORALITY AND MORAL LAW.The right to existence of a special Christian or theological ethics is justified only on the basis of a
recognition of the essential connection a. Relation between religion and morality. Denial to Religion. of such a view is the result of an ex-
treme modern ethical empiricism, the principles of which the societies for ethical culture, founded on the basis of non-religious morality, seek to carry out (see ETHICAL CULTURE, SOCIETIES FOR). However, a certain independence must be granted to morality in its relations to religion; for moral consciousness is wrongly considered dependent on religion when all moral good is regarded as good solely because God commands it. It should rather be said that God can command only what is intrinsically good, and what has its basis
Ethical Culture Ethics ETHICS. Method of Presentation (¢ 8). II. I3iatory. The Early Church (¢ 1). Scholastic Ethics (¢ 2). Early Lutheran Ethics (§ 3). Early Reformed Ethics (¢ 4). Later Protestant Ethics (¢ b). Kant's school (¢ s). Bchleiermacher (¢ 7). Recent Manuals (¢ 8).
in his own ethical being. In like manner, a certain degree of independence of religion must be allowed the moral life, since morality draws its material in great part from the manifold relations of human life, which result from the natural, moral, and spiritual nature of the individual, as well as from his relations to his fellow men and to nature. Nevertheless, theoretical and practical attempts to establish a non-religious morality must be rejected. Here the source of the moral law is sought in external experience, with the result that pleasure is necessarily made the sole motive of conduct. But, since each individual must decide for himself the measure of his pleasure or pain, all objective ethical norms vanish and the moral law loses its essential characteristic of unconditional validity. In opposition to Kant's exaggerated principle of the independence of the moral law, it should be said that the unconditioned basis of this moral law can be found only in an unconditioned moral will and a divine personality. The unconditional character of moral demands presupposes, however, that the end of moral activity is unconditioned and infinite, while only conditioned finite ends can proceed from the natural relations of human life. Consequently, if these ends are to be moral they must be subordinate to an unconditioned end, which can be attained only when man rises in religion above the finite to the supermundane. It likewise follows that only religion gives the necessary power in fullest measure for moral activity, since to call forth this power there must be a collaboration of the two factors which religion alone renders absolutely sure, the consciousness of unconditioned moral obligation, andEhat relation to the unconditioned supreme moral end which transforms duty into personal inclination. Moreover, the desire for moral activity can exist only if there is a belief in the divine government of the world which establishes and maintains a harmony between the natural conditions of human life and the supreme moral end. These statements concerning the dependence of morality on religion, however, apply perfectly only to a religion in which the all-powerful ruler of the world is at the same time the sum total of all good, while the highest good is a supernatural gift of God which binds man to moral activity. Such a religion is Christianity alone, which, as a perfectly moral religion in the midst of a morally faulty world, can have proseeded only from a revelation of God.
In its position in the .Encyclopedia of Christian Theology, between the two chief divisions of theoretical and practical, ethics belongs not to the latter, which lays down rules for ecclesiastical practise, but to the former, which has as its aim the scientific comprehension of Christianity as a given quantity. Behind the changing external