a. and sb. 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 civill 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), § 55, 80. To this dative of reference belongs what is called the ethic (i.e. emotional) dative.
B. sb.
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 be 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, and afterwards Rector of, the University of Ingolstade.
1693. Dryden, Juvenal, Ded. (1697), p. lv. (J.). Persius … professes … the Stoick [Philosophy]: the … most Generous … amongst all the Sects, who have given us the rules of Ethiques.
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. 243. 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., 289. Gods 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, Lett. 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 now are.
1870. R. W. Dale, Week-day Serm., vii. 137. The ethics of dining.
1876. Mozley, Univ. Serm., ix. 210. 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.
