Deliberating on determinants of ethics ...

 These are the factors in human behaviour that determine whether it is good or bad. There are three such determinants of ethics, namely the object, the end, and the circumstances.
Object means what the free will chooses to do in thought, word, or deed or chooses not to do. By end is meant the purpose for which the act is willed, which may be the act itself (as one of loving God) or some other purpose for which a person acts (as reading to learn). In either case, the end is the motive or the reason why an action is performed. By circumstances are meant all the elements that surround a human action and affect its morality without belonging to its essence. Some circumstances so affect the morals of an action as to change its species. Other circumstances change the extent of kindness or badness of an act. In bad acts they are called aggravating circumstances. To be ethically good, a human act must agree with the norm of morality on all three counts; in its nature, its motive, and its circumstances. Departure from any of these makes the action morally wrong.

Kant believed that what created the problem of ethical behavior is the duality of human nature. Since humans are both sensible and intellectual, and at the same time motivated by impulse, they must be guided by rules of conduct to balance the two. He believed that everyone could decide right and wrong based on the will behind the action, rather than the action itself. In deciding whether one's actions were moral, he said it should be considered what the universal benefit would be if everyone behaved in such a fashion. For example, if everyone stole, the result would be chaos and violence. Therefore, a moral person would consider it unethical to steal. In abiding by these laws, it is possible to see how a universal code of ethics could be built up.
However, men like Marx and Engels believed that there could be no universal code of ethics because all ethics and philosophy are relative to the economical situations of each individual society. Therefore, each society would create its own system of ethics based on its economic status and history, and the current system of ethics would soon give way to a new one. Thus all morals and ethics are relative.
Later codes of ethics, such as that of Max Stirner, stated that the only ethics that existed were those that benefited the self. The common good and the love of one's fellow man, he claimed, were only illusory. Men who were exceptional in some way (intelligence or rank) were always the exception to moral standards. Nietzsche founded his ethical principles on this basis; he believed that everything powerful men did was defined as moral

By: Mona Kaushal