"What is morality, or ethics? It is a code of values to guide man’s choices and actions—the choices and actions that determine the purpose and the course of his life. Ethics, as a science, deals with discovering and defining such a code.

The first question that has to be answered, as a precondition of any attempt to define, to judge or to accept any specific system of ethics, is: Why does man need a code of values?

Let me stress this. The first question is not: What particular code of values should man accept? The first question is: Does man need values at all—and why?" AR, The Virtue of Selfishness
The code of values derives from Man qua Man

Yes I agree. Breaking someone's Window is wrong, but if you're dangling off of a sky scraper, you'll probably be forgiven. Still wrong though and the owner could totally Sue you. Sound fair?

You bring up an interesting question and posit a creative definition. However, there is an obvious situation which tests your hypothesis: capital punishment.

There is also the part of morality that originates from religion. For those who believe in life after death or that death is a doorway to the next life, death isn't a finality or termination to existence, which greatly affects moral choices of all kinds. The other effect it has is to change the whole discussion about dying and morality. I think that in order to discuss your question, you have to be able to define the lens from which you are eying death.

Point for the 90 minutes

Morality is absolute. Moral choices are not, or they would not be choices. Rand was very clear on why a rational, volitional being needs morality. Anyone is free to question that thesis; I am not going to repeat it. khalling asked: "explain the difference btwn objective and absolute."

Alone on his island, Robinson Crusoe could choose to fish, or plant, or hunt. But he had to choose. The fact of choice is a moral absolute. The content of the choice is not: it is contextual. In society, pursuing a specific career is a moral choice. Many options are available. The fact that you must choose something - even choosing to be a moocher - is a moral absolute. What you choose is not absolute, but contextual; and context determines what is objectively moral, regardless of the ethical implications.

Rand called her theory of egoism "Objectivist ethics." In her essays, she wrote mostly about morality and very little about ethics. She took the English language as she found it. Despite the fact that she knew perhaps four languages (Russian, French, German, and English), Rand did not delve into linguistic analysis. In other languages, "ethics" and "morality" do not exist as separate words. In English, we commonly use the words interchangeably, just as we do for "weight" and "mass" or "speed" and "velocity." When we have technical discussions, the distinctions become important.

I was working in transportation when a colleague suggested that I take a class in computer programming "so the people in data processing can't hand you a bunch of baloney." I took a class and liked it. I went to work as a programmer. On a project, no one wanted to write the user manual. Having published a few articles and two small books, I did the documentation. I became a technical writer. When the current recession started, I took a part-time job as a security guard. As the economy continued to slide, I needed a four-year degree to even apply for work as a technical writer, so I earned one in criminology. Those were all moral choices, but ethics had nothing to do with it.

khalling wrote: "Ethics are external and morality is internal." As a quick summary, or talking point, that does indicate the difference between morality and ethics. But as above, you can make many "external" moral choices. Where I work, a husband and wife also work. I went three weeks without a network connection and four without a telephone. On his second day, she called around and got him what he needed. She did not do that for me. It was certainly moral of her to take care of her husband. But I regard it as unethical. Nepotism is contrary to the culture of a democratic, capitalist workplace.

Completing a masters in social science, I took a graduate class in "Ethics in Physics." I found that technical societies for geologists, geographers, engineers of all kinds, have different statements of professional ethics. They all boil down to "be nice; do no harm." But they are all different in detail, and properly so. The work of a geographer is materially different than that of a geologist.

I also attended a seminar in the teaching of ethics to graduate students in counseling. As I recall, their statement of ethics runs 25 pages. Moreover, the point of the seminar was that to practice as a counselor - to practice _ethically_ - you need to do more than attempt to apply the ethics document. Life is more complicated than that: the document is a guide. Ethical choices are highly contextual.

khalling wrote: "Ethics and Morality are blood brothers just like geometry and algebra can be expressed in similar ways." In fact, of course, blood brothers are genetically unrelated. Becoming blood brothers is more like a marriage ceremony. If you look at any modern textbook in geometry for mathematics majors, you will find no drawings. It is all algebra. I understand the point: proper ethical conduct in society depends on a correct morality of self-interest. khalling just wrote those one-liners offhand or off the top her head. I have been at this for almost 90 minutes because her question merited a considered reply. As for the analogy to geometry and algebra, having re-read ITOE, I just started George Boole's "Law of Thought" and I had a similar observation: reading Boole after Rand was like finding the algebra in geometry.

Stealing may be good in baseball depending on which team you are rooting for.

yes, thank you

see above comment
Ethics and Morality are blood brothers just like geometry and algebra can be expressed in similar ways

Morality is absolute. Ethics is not. Ethics is objective.

explain the difference btwn objective and absolute.
Ethics are external and morality is internal. how is that conflating? the distinction is non conflicting. mind body dichotomy is BS

It is moral to die when none of your values can be attained. John Galt was willing to die rather than to lose Dagny. I am willing to die right now rather than to vegetate to death in a coma while on machines.

Do you mean absolute in the sense that if something is moral it is always moral with no exceptions?

Or do you mean that morality is an absolute in the sense that there is only one true morality and people who differ from it are wrong?

No, you seem to be buying into (or offering) a package deal. First morality is not ethics. Rand was not alone in conflating them. The statements you quoted above are, indeed truths. Morality as formally defined is absolute. Ethics, however, is not absolute, but objective. If Ayn Rand had intended it, she would have called her philosophy "Absolutism." She called it "Objectivism." Objectivism considers context. Some things are absolute; not everything is.

morality involves a state of action or being. So, if something is moral like living then it must always be moral since when is it moral to die?