World Book Encyclopedia 2006:1349 stated that moral:
is good in character or conducts, such as: 1. virtuous according to civilized standards of right and wrong; right; just:
a moral act, a moral man. 2. capable of understanding right and wrong 3. Having to do with
character or with the difference between right and wrong 4. based on the principles of right conduct rather than on law custom.
5. teaching a good lesson; having a good influenced.
Moral has three principal meanings: In its descriptive sense, moral refers to personal or cultural values, codes
of conduct or social mores that distinguish between right and wrong in the human society. Describing morality in this way is not making a claim about what is
objectively right or wrong, but only referring to what is considered right or wrong by people. For the most part right and wrong acts are classified as such because
they are thought to cause benefit or harm, but it is possible that many moral beliefs are based on prejudice, ignorance or even hatred.
In its normative sense, moral refers directly to what is right and wrong, regardless of what people think. It could be defined as the conduct of the ideal
moral person in a certain situation. This usage of the term is characterized by definitive statements such as That act is immoral rather than descriptive ones
such as Many believe that act is immoral.
Universitas Sumatera Utara
Moral may also be defined as synonymous with ethics, the field that encompasses the above two meanings and others within a systematic
philosophical study of the moral domain. Ethics seeks to address questions such as, how a moral outcome can be achieved in a specific situation, how moral values
should be determined, what morals people actually abide by, what the fundamental nature of ethics or morality is, including whether it has any objective
justification, and how moral capacity or moral agency develops and what its nature is.
Like moral, ethics also described goodness and badness of humans conduct. However, a distinction is sometimes made between morals and ethics.
According to Dictionary of Philosophy 1981, ethics derives from Greek, ethikos, from word ethos, that has some meanings: “usage,” “character, “custom,”
“disposition,” and “manners” which explain further as:
1. the analysis of concepts such as “ought,” “should,” “duty,” “moral rules,”
“right,” “wrong,” “obligation,” “ responsibility,” etc. 2.
the inquire into the nature of morality or moral acts. 3.
the search for morally good life.
Based on Wikipedia, free encyclopedia; ethics also known as moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy, which seeks to address questions about
moral; that is, about concepts such as good and bad, right and wrong, justice, and virtue.
Universitas Sumatera Utara
The distinction between moral and ethics is moral shows our action directly while ethics is a science. When this distinction is made, the term morals
is taken to refer to generally accepted standards of right and wrong in a society and the term ethics is taken to refer to more abstract principles which might
appear in a code of professional ethics or in a textbook in ethical theory. However, the terms moral philosophy or moral theory would refer to a set of abstract moral
principles as appropriately as the term ethics, so it may be more practical to use
the words interchangeably. Both of the terms refer to standards of right conduct
and the judgments of particular actions as right or wrong by those standards. Moral define personal character, while ethics stress a social system in which those
moral are applied. In other words, ethics point to standards or codes of behavior expected by the group to which the individual belongs. This could be national
ethics, social ethics, company ethics, professional ethics, or even family ethics.
A moral theory can be conveniently divided into three parts.
First, there is a moral standard, a criterion or test of what is right or wrong. It has the general form:
Those actions are right that possess characteristic X.
Thus, those and only those actions are right that possess some characteristic X. We could fill in X by a phrase such as, producing the greatest
total amount of human well-being or equally respect the humanity of each person. Obviously these expressions need further definition. What do we mean
Universitas Sumatera Utara
by human well-being? What do we mean by respect for the humanity of each person? These questions would have to be answered in an adequate moral theory.
Second, moral principles serve to categorize different types of actions as right or wrong. Moral principles have the following form:
Those actions of type Y are right or wrong.
Such actions are right because they conform to the moral standard by possessing characteristic X or wrong because they fail to conform. Examples of
moral principles would be, Bribery is wrong and Killing innocent people is wrong. These practices might be wrong because they fail to promote human
well-being or because they fail to respect the humanity of each person. In any case, they serve to show the implications of the moral standard for a broad class of
actions.
Third, moral judgments are statements about the rightness or wrongness of particular actions. Moral judgments have the following form:
Action Z is right or wrong.
Examples of moral judgments would be someone should not have bribed the foreign official to buy his product or someone should not have agreed to
work on the defense contract. Moral judgments apply moral standards or moral
principles to specific situations. They are thus the ultimate goal of moral reasoning.
Universitas Sumatera Utara
From distinguish between moral and ethic can be concluded that moral is a conduct, which has been determined by ethic. Conduct that has been determined
by ethics concerned with good and bad and said as moral. Said good if the conduct, which is absolutely known by ethics as goodness, and said bad if the
conduct, which is absolutely known by ethics as badness.
Moral is divided into two parts; they are personal moral and social moral. There is a fundamental difference between personal moral and social moral.
Personal moral defines how we personally respond to life from or within our own integrity, and within our own personal values. Social moral defines how we
respond to our environment, our immediate community and the world community. We are all personally guided by our own sense of what is right and wrong.
Socially, we must be guided as well.
Moral also can be measured subjectively and objectively. Conscience gives subjective criterion, while norm give objective criterion. When Conscience
wants implying something right, then norm will help to search a moral goodness. Human depends on morality, culture, custom, and religion to help them in
point out someone’s conduct. Moral related to morality. Morality is politeness, everything that related with etiquette and politeness. Morality is guidance, which
is had of individual or society concerning to what is wrong and right according to moral standard. Morality can source from tradition and custom, religion or
ideology. Moral standard is a standard, which interrelated to a case that having
serious consequence, based on good reasoning not power authority, more than
Universitas Sumatera Utara
own interest, impartial and its breaches is associated with feelings of guilt, shame,
regret, etc.
In literature moral is a message conveyed or a lesson to be learned from a story or event. The moral may be left to the hearer, reader or viewer to determine
for themselves, or may be explicitly encapsulated in a maxim. However, other morals can often be taken from the story itself; for instance, that arrogance or
overconfidence in ones abilities may lead to failure or the loss of an event, race, or contest. The use of stock characters is a means of conveying the moral of the
story by eliminating complexity of personality and so spelling out the issues arising in the interplay between the characters, enables the writer to generate a
clear message. With more rounded characters, such as those typically found in Shakespeares plays, the moral may be more nuanced but no less present, and the
writer may point it up in other ways for example: the Prologue to Romeo and Juliet.
2.2. Character
