ethic, a. and n.
(ˈɛθɪk)
Forms: 4–5 etik(e, -yk, 4–7 ethique, 5 etique, (ethyque, etick, eytike), 6–9 ethick(e, 7 æthique, 7– ethic.
[ad. L. ēthic-us, Gr. ἠθικός, f. ἦθος character, pl. manners. Cf. Fr. éthique.]
A. adj. (Now usually ethical.)
1. Relating to morals.
| 1581 Sidney Apol. Poetrie (Arb.) 30 The Ethicke and politick consideration, with the end of well dooing and not of well knowing onely. 1644 Bulwer Chiron. 25 The æthique precepts and the lawes of civil conversation. 1698 F. B. Modest Censure 12 What! nothing but Ethick and Oeconomick Strictures, and such like Documents? 1735 Savage Progress of a Divine 363 N'er let your doctrine ethic truth impart. 1871 Tyndall Fragm. Sc. (ed. 6) II. xi. 249 Who.. find the ethic life of their religion unimpaired. |
2. Of an author or literary work: Treating of moral questions, and of ethics as a science.
| 1589 Puttenham Eng. Poesie i. iv. (Arb.) 25 Therefore were they [Poets] the first Philosophers Ethick. 1732 Pope (title) An Essay on Man, Being the First Book of Ethic Epistles. 1791 Boswell Johnson an. 1749, But ‘The Vanity of Human Wishes’ is..as high an effort of ethick poetry as any language can show. 1796 Morse Amer. Geog. II. 185 Dr. Hutcheson is the principal Ethic writer of this country [Ireland]. 1814 Cary Dante 33 Thy ethic page describes Three dispositions adverse to Heav'n's will. 1815 Edin. Rev. XXV. 355 In some of his odes and ethic exhortations. |
3. Characterized by ‘ethos.’ (See ethos 2).
| 1848 Wornum Lect. on Paint. by R.A. 355 note, The style of Polygnotus was strictly ethic. |
4. Gram. ethic dative: = ‘ethical dative’: see ethical 3.
| 1867 Farrar Gr. Syntax (1870) 80 To this dative of reference belongs what is called the ethic (i.e. emotional) dative. |
B. n. I. sing.
1. [after Fr. éthique, It. and Sp. etica, ad. L. ēthicē, Gr. ἡ ἠθική (τέχνη).] a. The science of morals; cf. 2. b. A scheme of moral science.
| 1387 Trevisa Higden (Rolls) III. 363 Ethik [v.r. etyk] þat is þe sciens of þewes. c 1400 Lanfranc's Cirurg. (MS. A.) 9 So cloþe he him wiþ vertues, þat of him mai arise good fame & name: & þis techiþ etik. 1632 Lithgow Trav. (1682) viii. 327 As for the Science Practick, it doth first imbrace..Ethick, that doth form the Manners. 1875 Clifford Ess., Basis of Morals (1879) II. 106 By Morals or Ethic I mean the doctrine of a special kind of pleasure or displeasure which is felt by the human mind in contemplating certain courses of conduct, whereby they are felt to be right or wrong, and of a special desire to do the right things and avoid the wrong ones. 1886 Athenæum 17 July 73 In..Mr. Spencer's ‘Data of Ethics’..an attempt to construct an ethic apart from theology is regarded as practicable. |
| attrib. 1778 J. James in Lett. Radcliffe & James 53 Not a book, beyond a logic or ethic compend, is recommended. |
II. pl. ethics.
2. (after Gr. τὰ ἠθικά). The science of morals; the department of study concerned with the principles of human duty.
In this sense now usually construed (like other words of like formation) as sing.; formerly as pl.
| 1602 Warner Alb. Eng. xii. lxxv. (1612) 313 Nor wanted thear..that did relye On Physickes and on Ethickes, and..a God deny. a 1677 Barrow Serm. vi. Wks. 1741 I. 48 Out of them [St. Paul's writings] might well be compiled a body of ethicks. 1691 Wood Ath. Oxon. I. 258 He was made Professor of Eloquence and Ethicks in the Universitie of Ingolstade. a 1700 Dryden (J.), Persius professes the stoick philosophy; the most generous amongst all the sects who have given rules of ethicks. 1789 Bentham Princ. Legisl. xix. §11 Ethics at large may be defined, the art of directing men's actions to the production of the greatest possible quantity of happiness. 1836 Emerson Nature, Idealism Wks. (Bohn) II. 164 Ethics and religion differ herein; that the one is the system of human duties commencing from man; the other, from God. 1889 Boyd Carpenter Bampton Lect. vii, Religion without ethics seems little else than irreligious religion. |
b. A treatise on the science; spec. that of Aristotle.
| c 1430 Pilgr. Lyf Manhode i. cxxxvi. (1869) 71 This is that Aristotle seith in etiques. 1483 Caxton Cato A vij, The phylosopher sayeth in the viii book of ethyques that, etc. 1646 Sir T. Browne Pseud. Ep. iii. iv. 112 The same is touched by Aristotle in his Ethicks. 1769 Junius Lett. xxix. 131 If this gentleman will go back to his Ethics. 1837–9 Hallam Hist. Lit. (1847) I. 343 Edward himself..read the ethics of Aristotle in Greek. |
† c. As discrete plural: Ethical maxims or observations. Obs. rare.
| 1678 R. L'Estrange Seneca's Mor. To Rdr., I have reduc'd all his scatter'd Ethiques to their proper Heads. |
3. In narrower sense, with some qualifying word or phrase: a. The moral principles or system of a particular leader or school of thought.
| 1651 Baxter Inf. Bapt. 288 God's laws, standing at the top of our Ethicks. 1692 Bentley Folly of Atheism 31 If the Atheists would but live up to the Ethics of Epicurus himself. 1791 Burke Let. to Memb. Nat. Assembly Wks. VI. 34 This philosophical instructor [Rousseau] in the ethicks of vanity. 1855 H. Reed Lect. Eng. Lit. vii. 232 [The Spectator's] morality..is not a very high order of Christian ethics. 1869 Lecky Europ. Mor. II. i. 1 The Ethics of Paganism were part of a philosophy. 1869 J. Martineau Ess. II. 94 It lifts you..from the zoölogical ethics of Combe. |
b. The moral principles by which a person is guided.
| 1837 M. Donovan Dom. Econ. II. 47 It is not the province of man to pronounce judgment on the ethics of his fellow-creature, in the last extremities of starvation. |
c. The rules of conduct recognized in certain associations or departments of human life.
| 1789 Bentham Princ. Legisl. xviii. §46 Now to instruct each individual in what manner to govern his own conduct in the details of life, is the particular business of private ethics. 1864 Burton Scot Abr. ii. 279 Sea rights, and sea ethics were by no means so distinctly defined as they are now. 1870 R. W. Dale Week-day Serm. vii. 137 The ethics of dining. 1876 Mozley Univ. Serm. ix. 185 The peculiar scope of our Church ethics for the last thirty years has been the culture of works of compassion. 1884 Syd. Soc. Lex., Ethics, medical, the laws of the duties of medical men to the public, to each other, and to themselves in regard to the exercise of their profession. |
4. In wider sense: The whole field of moral science, including besides Ethics properly so called, the science of law whether civil, political, or international.
| 1690 Temple Ess. Heroic Virtue Wks. 1731 I. 200 The Sum of his [Confutius'] Writings seems to be a Body or Digestion of Ethicks, that is, of all Moral Virtues, either Personal, Oeconomical, Civil or Political. 1793 Blackstone Comm. (ed. 12) 27 Jurisprudence..is the principal and most perfect branch of ethics. |