ETHICS has been variously defined: as "the science that offers a rational explanation of Rightness and oughtness," as "the science of right conduct," the "rational procedure by which we determine what individual human beings 'ought' or what it is 'right' for them to do," the "art of directing men's action to the production of the greatest possible quantity of happiness," as "a system of rules for regulating the actions and manners of men in society," and as "the science or art of 'right' individual conduct of men toward their fellow-men." All of these definitions are comprehensively included in the Bible command known as the golden rule: "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." But definitions of ethics, as a rule of conduct between men, individually or collectively, in society or political association, or as between class and class, however accurate such definitions may be, leave much yet to be determined in arriving at a just estimate of true ethics. We are yet left to determine what is "right" conduct, in our relations with each other, or what men "ought" to do in their dealings one with another.
This subject of ethics has been the theme of many books. It has received the attention of the greatest scholars, as well as of earnest students who have sought to arrive accurately at the difference between right and wrong and the means of establishing the one and overcoming the other in their relations with their fellow-men. The numerous learned discussions of this most important subject have disclosed a wide divergence of opinion as to the true standards of right, or what ought to be the conduct of a man toward his fellow-men in the varied and often complicated relations of human beings with each other, and their obligations to each other. They have differed in part from the point of view of the various writers on the subject, on account of the many and complex conditions and circumstances resulting from the varied connections and relations of men, and from the different concepts of right and wrong, under given circumstances, entertained by the writers themselves. In other words, they leave us without any fixed or definite standard of right.
Even the Bible definition of ethics leaves each individual to determine for himself the moral standard of what ought to be done by him in a given case, by what he may believe should be done unto him if the conditions were reversed. His estimate of what would be due to him, if he stood in the place of the man with whom he is dealing, might be actuated by selfishness, or other unworthy motives, and lead him to demand not only more than he is willing to give but more than would be justly due him. On the other hand, looking at it from the point of view of the one called upon to act, he might, and very likely would, take a very different view of what might justly be demanded of him if the conditions were reversed. Therefore, until we can arrive at some definite standard of absolute right, mere definitions of ethics amount to but little as guides to right conduct.
