Ethics or Morality?

I was pleasantly surprised in class recently when I found that Ronald Dworkin agreed with a distinction I've held for some time now: the difference between ethics and morality. Ethics asks the question, "How are we to live?" Morality asks the question, "How should we treat others?" Of course, phrased like this, ethics is a much broader question than morality; indeed, morality is merely one branch of ethics. As ethics is the broadest question I'll discuss here, I'll start with that.

What is my ethical theory? Start with this: A priori, life has no meaning and no purpose. There are no a priori ethics. Ethics is a domain filled only with what you give it. If I choose to dedicate my life to playing music though the world crumble, there is nothing ethically improper about that. I have made my ethical choice. Although I can certainly be criticized from within a system of morality for my decidedly immoral behavior, nothing requires me to notice that system of morality.

Yet, I recognize the existence of others. I have my own desires, preferences, wants, and needs, but others—all six billion of them—have theirs. From the "point of view of the universe," no person’s preferences are any more important than any others. A proper humility should allow me to recognize that my wants and needs are—a priori—no more important than anyone else’s.

So, I am an existentialist and an egalitarian. This recognition lends itself to a particular content for my personal ethics. What kind of meaning would my life have if I devoted myself only to myself? "If we are looking for a purpose broader than our own interests, something that will allow us to see our lives as possessing significance beyond the narrow confines of our own conscious states, one obvious solution is to take up the [moral] point of view.” (Peter Singer, Practical Ethics. Singer actually uses the phrase "ethical point of view," but he is talking about what I call morality.).

So, I want—I choose—to be a moral person. This is the meaning I give my life. So how do I do this? More on this later.