But they do not wish to have their own roles or that of their church or synagogue supplanted when it comes to teaching religion and morality. The terms ethics and morality have long been used more or less interchangeably. Both ethics and morality refer to rules or standards of conduct. We can distinguish between the two by stating that when the term morality is used in our society, it is generally assumed that what is moral or immoral relates to religious guidelines. Ethical standards, although common to all major religions, need not be related to any transcendental or religious source.
Ethics is the common denominator of science and religion.
We found in our consumer survey on the meaning of ethics and morality that the public does tend to associate ethics with rational, nonreligious choices concerning values, honesty, whether to steal or not, work hard or even enough, and so on. But people seem rather instinctively to associate morality with sex and the self, and readily to ascribe a transcendental or mystical origin to morality. Morality seems to have its own special connotation. The public is often considered to be not so smart, but it always seems to be more shrewd than politicians and educators think. I believe the public's attitude toward the different meanings of morality and ethics is correct.