Morals and Ethics

Abstract

All of us do many strange things during the course of a working day. Most of what we do is done mechanically without thinking. We arise at a certain hour, wash, dress, eat breakfast, and go about our daily tasks. We greet our friends, hate our enemies, are cordial to some, hostile to others, lie upon occasion, and do many things of which we might approve or disapprove if we stopped to think about them. In fact, one of the strangest things we do is to approve and disapprove all sorts of things and often without stopping to think. We are accustomed, or have been taught, to voice approval when good deeds are performed, and disapproval when bad ones are done. If, for example, we read in our newspapers, of a mother who at the sacrifice of her life saved her child from a burning building, we approve. If we read that a man had killed his wife because she burned his toast every morning, we disapprove.