ethic
ethic — noun
1. a personal or shared set of ideas about morally good and bad behaviour that dire
a personal or shared set of ideas about morally good and bad behaviour that directs the choices a person or a group makes
After watching colleagues cut corners, Noor felt her professional ethic required her to speak up.
ethic + required + action — ethic as binding principle
Benjamin's work ethic was so strong that he arrived at the warehouse before dawn each morning.
collocation: work ethic + adjective (strong)
The farming families share an ethic of caring for the soil and passing it to the next generation.
Heloísa turned down the marketing job because the company's aggressive sales ethic went against her own values.
- moral code
more formal and often implies a written or explicit set of rules
- principles
broader term that can cover non-moral as well as moral guidelines
- values
focuses on what a person regards as important rather than on behavioural rules
- amorality
the absence of any moral sense or principle
文法句型
ethic + of + noun phrase
adjective + ethic
用法筆記
Frequently appears in fixed collocations such as 'work ethic', 'professional ethic', or 'ethic of service'. The plural form 'ethics' is more common than the singular for referring to abstract moral systems generally; the singular usually picks out one specific code or principle.
常見錯誤
2. the area of philosophy that asks questions about right and wrong, exploring what
the area of philosophy that asks questions about right and wrong, exploring what people ought to do and what sort of life is morally worthwhile
In her thesis, Padma compared the treatment of compassion in Buddhist ethic and in David Hume's writings.
ethic as a comparative philosophical tradition
The university requires all engineering students to take a course on applied ethic before they graduate.
collocation: applied ethic — field-specific study of moral issues
The conference gathered scholars from law, medicine, and philosophy to debate the future of environmental ethic.
Piotr's research shows how indigenous communities developed their own frameworks of ethic long before colonial contact.
- moral philosophy
the full formal name of the field
文法句型
the study of ethic
ethic as a discipline
用法筆記
The plural form 'ethics' is far more common than 'ethic' when naming this academic discipline. 'Ethic' in this sense appears mostly in academic writing or in compound phrases like 'applied ethic' or 'environmental ethic'.