Skip to main content
ethicality

ethicality

8.2
A quality of acting in a morally right way
  • noun
  • /ˌɛθɪˈkælɪti/
translation icon : ética
  • Participants rated the lowest levels of ethicality for smoking, sexual behavior, and alcohol use, suggesting that participants generally did not find it ethical to break confidentiality for these behaviors under most circumstances.
  • ethicality of breaching confidentiality
  • rating of ethicality

Examples

  • He often questioned the ethicality of the company's marketing practices.

  • Table 1 provides the mean rating of ethicality for each item across all four forms of the survey.

    Academic text (2008)
  • Now, Dolly's research focuses on bounded ethicality, which she describes as the psychology of good people.

  • Decisions need to be defended against complaints of bias, consistency, costs, ethicality, fairness, practicality, and utility.

    Academic text (2002)
  • The desirability and ethicality of engaging in such intentional interventions into our common pool of human genetic inheritance are already being debated.

    Academic text (2014)
  • A linear progression in how school counselors view the ethicality of breaching confidentiality was seen across all behavioral domains.

    Academic text (2008)
  • The committee evaluated the ethicality of the proposed changes to the law.

  • In the debate, they discussed the ethicality of using animals in medical research.

Synonyms

integrity
vsethicality
447 4.3

Being honest and doing what is right

focuses on fitting accepted moral standards rather than inner consistency
virtue
vsethicality
259 3.8

A good personal quality like honesty or kindness

is specifically about fitting accepted moral standards rather than broad goodness
righteousness
vsethicality
83 6.5

Being good and fair in how you act

is about conforming to accepted moral standards rather than strict justification
rightness
vsethicality
6 5.1

A state of being morally good and fair in actions

is about meeting accepted moral standards rather than general goodness
uprightness
vsethicality
1 5.6

Being honest and doing the right thing

is broader, covering conformity to social moral standards not only honesty
honorableness
vsethicality
  • US
7.4

A quality of being honest and fair that earns respect

is about meeting accepted moral standards rather than seeking respect
moral excellence
vsethicality
6.1

Being very good at doing what is right and avoiding what is wrong

is about basic conformity to moral standards rather than ideal perfection

How Ethical

ethicality
8.2
immorality
23 6.3

Surface Forms

ethicality singular
ethicalities plural

Morphology

ethicality = ethical (transparent) = ethic + al + ity

Formed by the standard noun-forming suffix '-ity' added to the adjective 'ethical', yielding the abstract quality 'state of being ethical'.

Etymology

Ethicality comes from ethical plus the ending -ity, and ethical goes back to Greek ethos meaning 'character' or 'habit' while -ity means 'state'. So ethicality is the 'state of being ethical' or the 'quality of following moral rules', which is why we use it to talk about whether actions fit accepted moral standards.