  The term ‘ethics’ is technically used by philosophers to mean a philosophical study of morality—morality understood as a set of social rules, principles, norms that guide or are intended to guide the conduct of people in a society, and as beliefs about right and wrong conduct as well as good or bad character. Even though morality is the subject matter of ethics, it is most often used interchangeably with ‘ethics’. In spite of the philosophical inquiries or analyses undertaken by individual moral philosophers regarding morality (i.e., the morality of a society or people)—analyses which often result in diverse positions or conclusions—nevertheless, the basic features, the core elements of the morality of a society, those moral principles and values that actually guide and influence the lives of a people, remain pretty much what they are or have been. What individual moral philosophers, through their critical analyses and arguments, try to do is to explain, clarify, refine, sharpen, or enlarge the understanding of the concepts and issues of morality. Even though the moral beliefs and circumstances of their own societies constitute the immediate focus of their philosophical activities—for human experience is most directly felt within some specific social or cultural context—nevertheless, moral philosophers do not think or imply at all that the results of their reflective activities are to be tethered to their own societies as such. They believe, to the contrary, that, in the light of our common humanity, which speaks to the common sentiments, purposes, responses, hopes, and aspirations of all human beings in respect of certain situations, the conclusions of their reflections would, surely, have implications for the capacious community of humankind, for the universal human family.