a. [f. prec. + -AL.]
1. Of or pertaining to morality or the science of ethics.
1607. Topsell, Serpents (1653), 639. It remaineth to discourse of the Politick, Ethical, and Oeconomick vertues and properties of them [bees].
1652. Evelyn, State of France, Pref. Lett. B 3. This Ethicall and Morall part of Travel … embellisheth a Gentleman.
1830. Mackintosh, Eth. Philos., Wks. 1846, I. 61. It was with perfect truth observed by my excellent friend Mr. Stewart, that ‘the ethical principles of Hobbes, are completely interwoven with his political system.’
1860. Mansel, Prolegom. Logica, Pref. (ed. 2), 8. The value of every ethical system must ultimately be tested on psychological grounds.
1876. trans. Haeckel’s Hist. Creat., I. ii. 36. Moral, or ethical materialism, is something quite distinct from scientific materialism.
b. Pertaining to ‘ethos’ as opposed to ‘pathos’: see ETHOS.
a. 1626. Bp. Andrewes, Serm. (1856), I. 445. Rather in pathetical than in ethical terms.
2. Of an author or literary work: Treating of the science of ethics, or of questions connected with it.
1665. Boyle, Occas. Refl. (1675), 16. From Ethical or Theological Composures, to take out Lessons that may improve the Mind.
1756–82. J. Warton, Ess. Pope, II. 409 (T.). He [Pope] is the great Poet of Reason, the First of Ethical authors in verse.
a. 1845. Barham, Ingol. Leg., Bro. Birchington. A metaphor taken out of an ethical work by the Stagyrite.
1870. Ruskin, Lect. Art, i. (1875), 7. Ethical and imaginative literature.
3. Gram. Ethical dative: the dative when used to imply that a person, other than the subject or object, has an indirect interest in the fact stated.
1849. L. Schmitz, Lat. Gram., 212. This kind of dative, which occurs still more frequently in Greek, is called the Ethical Dative.
