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Ethics vs Empathy - What's the difference?

ethics | empathy |

As nouns the difference between ethics and empathy

is that ethics is (philosophy) the study of principles relating to right and wrong conduct while empathy is the intellectual identification of the thoughts, feelings, or state of another person.

ethics

English

(wikipedia ethics)

Noun

(-)
  • (philosophy) The study of principles relating to right and wrong conduct.
  • Morality.
  • The standards that govern the conduct of a person, especially a member of a profession.

    • Usage notes

    * Although the terms ethics'' and ''morality'' may sometimes be used interchangeably, philosophical ethicists often distinguish them, using ''ethics'' to refer to theories and conceptual studies relating to good and evil and right and wrong, and using ''morality'' and its related terms to refer to actual, real-world beliefs and practices concerning proper conduct. In this vein, the American philosopher , ed., ''The Philosophy of Brand Blanshard , Library of Living Philosophers, ISBN 0875483496, "Autobiography", p. 85. * In particular, in general usage ethical'' is used to describe standards of behavior between individuals, while ''moral'' or ''immoral can describe any behavior. You can call lying unethical or immoral, for example, because it involves the behavior of one person and how it affects another, but violating dietary prohibitions in a holy text would be described as immoral.

    Synonyms

    * moral philosophy

    Derived terms

    * applied ethics * bioethics * business ethics * comparative ethics * descriptive ethics * environmental ethics * ethicist * medical ethics * metaethics * normative ethics * situational ethics

    Related terms

    * ethic * ethical * ethos

    See also

    * aretaics

    External links

    *

    References

    Anagrams

    *

    empathy

    English

    Noun

    (wikipedia empathy)
  • the intellectual identification of the thoughts, feelings, or state of another person
  • capacity to understand another person's point of view or the result of such understanding
    • She had a lot of empathy for her neighbor; she knew what it was like to lose a parent too.
  • (parapsychology, science fiction) a paranormal ability to psychically read another person's emotions

    • Usage notes

    Used similarly to sympathy, interchangeably in looser usage. In stricter usage, empathy is stronger and more intimate, meaning that the subject understands and shares an emotion with the object – as in “I feel your pain” – while (term) is weaker and more distant – concern, but not shared emotion: “I care for you”.