Moral. In its highest sense this word is synonymous with ethical. That is derived from ἦθος, which signifies both temper, character, and habit, manner, custom, in which sense it is equivalent to the Latin mos, from which our word moral is derived. Indeed the substantive morals is the translation of mores when the latter denotes ethical habits or manners. Aristotle calls attention to the slightness of difference between the words ἔθος and ἦθος, and considers ἔθος, habit or custom, as the creator of ἦθος, character.(1)
Moral bears another meaning. We apply it to a truth neither necessary nor in the full sense universal. We speak of moral as distinguished from demonstrative evidence, and moral as distinguished from full universality. «Dans une matière contingente, on se contente d’une universalité morale.» (2) In this sense it corresponds very much with the ὡς ἐπὶ τό πολύ of Aristotle, and with our general and in general.
How the word moral came to be applied in this sense is a question on which I have not succeeded in getting much light. A friend suggests that it may have originated in the distinction between ethical and necessary truth, the former, as Aristotle warns his readers,(3) being unsusceptible of the accurate investigation and determination which can be applied to the latter, and hence the adjective moral may have had its meaning extended to all matter in the same situation, to all that is contingent.
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(1) Eth. Nic. II. 1. See too PLATO, Laws, VII. 792 E.
(2) La Logique, ou l’Art de Penser, Port Royal, c. III.
(3) Eth. Nic. I. 3.
