A Case for Moral Maturity: Moving Beyond Ethical Infantilism

Many people tend to use the terms ethical and moral interchangeably. But there’s actually a solid case to be made for distinguishing between the two, as even the makers of The Cambridge Dictionary recognize. And I'm not talking about the common distinction between ethics as 'external rules' and morals as 'personal beliefs', but rather between ethics as the study of morality (inquiry) and morality as the system of values and rules itself. Strangely, English speakers differentiate between economics and economy—where economics is the study of the economy—but are far less explicit when it comes to morality. Just as economics analyzes how economies function, ethics critically examines moral systems. Ethics is about inquiry and critical reflection, whereas morality consists of the values and principles themselves. Why is this distinction so important? Because failing to make it leads to a childish approach to ethics. And with the growing presence of technology, we can't afford to let that happen.

I’ve written before about how people sometimes tell me that, as an ethicist, I shouldn't engage in certain behaviors. That I shouldn't speak negatively about people, or that I shouldn’t hold, let alone defend, certain positions. Because that wouldn’t be ethical, apparently. Back then, I explained that there’s a fundamental difference between an ethicist and a preacher. An ethicist examines what is ethical, while a preacher typically promotes a particular morality. And even that last point is up for debate, as I've mentioned before. But to put it bluntly: the ethicist is like an objective sports commentator, describing the game and what happens on the field without acting as a fan of either team. They understand the rules and can tell if a particular move is technically good. But you won't hear them cheer for this or that side. And ideally, it will even remain a mystery which game they prefer.

Ethics, after all, can be summed up as the branch of philosophy that "investigates normative questions about what people ought to do or which behavior is morally right", according to Wikipedia. That means ethics studies morality, among other things, by engaging in critical reflection. And precisely because of that, distinguishing between ethics as the lens and morality as the subject being studied is indispensable. Those who use ethical and moral interchangeably seem to implicitly suggest that there is not a multiplicity of perspectives to be considered when it comes to ethics. This is how you end up with situations like the ones I encounter with my students in Applied Computer Science: "You can’t build this app because it’s not ethical." And then I step in with my usual caveat: "You can build it. The app is ethical. The real question is whether it’s morally desirable." And that’s when the real trouble starts for the students. And not just for them—for people at home, too. And for the time being we're not even taking into consideration that it may depend on where your home actually is.

The political shift in the US marks another example of why it is important to explicitly distinguish between the concepts. And why we have to be very serious and precise when it comes to definitions and measuring actions on an ethical scale. Some say Trump's policies and 'concepts of a plan', like suggesting to turn Gaza into a 'Middle Eastern Riviera', are unethical. I would object that they are extremely ethical! After all, there's so much we can say about it in an ethical sense. We shouldn't simply accept or dismiss what a president says, we should scrutinize it. We're not talking about natural phenomena, like the occurence of rain or an animal following its instincts, which would indeed be 'unethical' (or amoral). We're talking about people who are at least to some degree sentient beings, more or less autonomous, and responsible for their conscious actions. We need to properly and seriously assess these actions and it has to be very clear which standards we are using. Whether actions are good, bad, right or wrong, depends on the combination of your ethical approach, the aspects you belief to be relevant, and the chosen moral standards. But that we have to carefully scrutinize said actions is, if we accept the former, without question.

That means the Anglo-Saxon tendency (and actual distinction) to treat 'ethics' as concerning the 'collective' or 'external rules' and 'morals' as 'something personal' or 'beliefs' is also problematic. The medical world is full of compelling examples. How do we decide what a doctor's 'personal commitment to a patient's best interest' from Hippocrates' oath looks like if someone requests euthanasia, wishes to amputate a healthy limb, or is unwilling to take pain medication? The idea that codes of conduct comprise the entire ethical dimension of collective or organizational morality and that these 'ethics' have an objective or universal status is an oversimplification. It also means we have to be careful not to fall into the conceptual trap of believing that morals are always a matter of absolutes. Because that's simply not the case: there's bad behavior, and there's better behavior. Morals may be gradual. Doing a bad thing does not immediately make you a bad person. The closest saints get to being flawless is when they become statues—and even then, people will still argue that they take up an immoral amount of public space. To make it even more complex: there are different ways to decide what is good or bad, despite the fact that American presidents often believe they propagate universal morals, even when their moral convictions completely oppose those of their predecessors. That’s why we should understand that executive orders are always ethical, but not necessarily moral.

Another development to take into account is the rise of 'AI' and the growing tendency to make technology responsible for human tasks. As I wrote earlier, a fundamental trait of how we conceptualize humans nowadays, is that they are able to take responsibility for their actions. It's one of the conditions for morality. But in our pursuit of comfort, we tend to outsource more and more human tasks to machines. What does this mean for morality? Historically, computers worked deterministically. They processed input and delivered output. Under these circumstances, it was easy to put the blame on the people behind a system. But the prospect of computerized decision making is becoming increasingly realistic. In that situation, computers are not only ethically relevant, but potentially becoming moral agents. We need proper tools to assess what that would mean. And just like the separation between economics and economy stresses that economic laws are not natural laws, but man-made, the separation between ethics and morals helps us recognize the human-invoked contingency of good and evil. Just like economies are ideologically driven and extremely ethical, instead of amoral, technology is never neutral and takes on ethical significance before human use. Only with a clear ethical lens can we properly observe the moral ambiguity these technologies reinforce.

Today, transhumanists are investigating new possibilities of merging man and machine. Elon Musk's Neuralink is a great example of how we can improve the lives of those lacking luck, like people who are paralyzed. But eventually it may also give the lucky few even bigger advantages. We could protest by saying that growing inequality is not 'ethical'. Proponents would counter that it is. End of discussion. By using the proposed distinction, we would be forced to perform further inquiry. We would be forced to dig into the values people hold dearest, the virtues they strive to live by, and the norms they follow unconditionally. And we have to, because our reality demands it. Once nature conditioned what it meant to be human, but we're increasingly conditioning nature. In the past, the game used to determine how we should play, but currently, we're shaping the game. Simultaneously, our behavior is decreasingly affected by morals. Instead, our behavior is determining morals. Remember how Google Glass users were once called 'glassholes' just over a decade ago? Not only are Big Tech companies still developing similar technologies, but with Musk's transhumanist tendencies, we may soon see much further integration of machine parts into the human body. The slippery slope has evolved from a logical fallacy into a tangible historical development, with far-reaching ethical consequences. The question is whether we choose our own lens to shape our view of the world, or if we let Big Tech fit us with theirs.

As technology evolves further, we will face critical ethical decisions about what it means to be human and what we believe to be good. If there's one aspect of modern life that forces us to rethink the way we look at ethics, it is technology. Tech billionaires are claiming growing parts of the world, and now they are also defying death with anti-aging technologies. We are not just destroying nature as we know it, but replacing it with a new form of human nature—one defined by technology. Just like economics tells us that economies are a matter of choice, we need ethics to remind us that technological development is not an inevitable force, but a choice with profound moral consequences. The common understanding overlooks the broader context of ethics and fails to account for moral plurality. We need to have an open and clear view, rather than the blurry vision that comes from the complacency of comfort. Musk often speaks about 'forks in the road', but he ignores that he's the one who created and placed those forks. Let alone the fact that he never mentions that this is a matter of ethics, not merely about finding the most efficient solution. It’s up to us which game we want to play. If we don't accept that we have a say in this, others will decide for us. They will choose the game, the rules, and the players. And they will make us believe that it was the only possible outcome.