The Ethics-Morality Dialectic

This chapter elucidates the ethics-morality dialectic Shaw and Ricoeur share. The issue turns on the question of why the English language uses two words, ethics and morality, to designate the area of thought that probes the difference between permissible and impermissible conduct. Why is neither term on its own sufficient to define the subject matter under exploration? Why are both required? To answer this question, Shaw and Ricoeur invoke the conflicting perspectives of two of the most celebrated theoreticians of what is acceptable and unacceptable in human behavior: Aristotle, the teleologist; and Kant, the deontologist. The purpose of the invocation is to reconcile the contending orientations dialectically in a synthesized conceptual construct that produces what we may label the ethos of decency.