Ethics*

Ethics concept is in constant changes due to the modification of society`s customs around the world. Ideologies are changing the behavior of individuals who are part of a group, and thus end up causing the rupture of traditional social institutions.

As an example, changes occurred on the formation of the modern family. The 1988 Constitution establishes in its art. 226 and paragraphs expressed the change on society`s habits. The “Magna Carta”, which goal is to discipline situations, created the constitutional protection for family entity, along the lines described by rules.

An important discussion about the end of ethics happens nowadays due to a lack of spirituality and selflessness on which Man behaves as it began to show just the immediate satisfaction of their material needs, eliminating, at most, the observation of  Man as a person that has a soul and subjective capabilities involving the development of his consciousness.

Ethics should not be understood as Moral because it is a specific matter immersed in the scope of the Moral’s field. Moral represents the manifestation of a social group in order to accept some actions, while repel others. These groups have intentions that arise in the social environment from the individual willing of each member, culminating in convergent objectives for a common purpose of making rules, arising in order to ensure the realization of common goal which reflects behavior and theory.

Ethics must not undergo personal intentions in order to avoid sacrificing a collective for individual benefits, which would eventually disharmonize the peaceful environment of the human coexistence.

In this way, ethics must be understood as a philosophical discipline, consist on reflecting man’s conduct under the aspect of introducing notions of good and evil, fair and unfair.

*Text adapted from a Portuguese version Published at a Journal in Law School , 8^TH Semester, Unaerp, 1999.