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This paper addresses the distinction and complementarity between ethics and morality, seeking to clarify the philosophical implications of this case. It begins by examining philosophical approaches that view ethics and morality as synonymous terms, then presents ethics as a study of morality, understood as a synonym for the customs of a locality. Thus, Giusti, following Hegel, establishes the distinction between “morality” and “ethical life” to present two approaches for providing a rational foundation for customs. We point out, rather, that ethics aims to analyze ways of life, while morality introduces the negative principle of not confusing a person with an object, which allows for the correction of ways of life when they are damaged by phenomena such as domination or moral damage of various kinds.
Thus, ethics concerns the ends and values we project onto things, as well as the value we project onto personal and community relationships, such as friendship, romantic relationships, or family relationships. In such relationships, forms of abuse and domination by one party over the others can occur because some people may claim the right to unilaterally define and redefine the meaning of the relationship, generating a damaged way of life because some people are treated as mere means or objects. In this situation, it becomes necessary to introduce the moral principle, which is completely external to the ethical way of life, to repair the damage it generates. Only in this way would be damage caused be repaired, since ethics lacks sufficient resources to correct itself satisfactorily and clearly establish the distinction between people and things.
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