All these words refer to acts that are in a accord with a code of right and wrong. Moral and ethical , once distinguishable from each other, have recently taken on fine distinctions in meaning. Moral is now more often used in a quasi-religious sense, ethical in a quasi-legal sense: the moral rectitude of a saint; a code of ethical practices for solicitors. Moral might be thought to include this narrower sense of ethical , making the one term generic, the other specific, but moral has more and more come to mean personal conduct as set by an external code or standard, especially when such conduct does not affect numbers of people: a moral standard that specified moderation in food and drink and an avoidance of worldly pleasures. Ethical , by contrast, is more and more taken to describe just and fair dealings with other people, not by the application of an external standard but by a pragmatic consideration of all aspects of a situation in light of past experience. To put it most extremely, moral can often be taken to mean private, codified and rigid; ethical to mean public, improvisatory and flexible: agreeing, despite differing moral values, on ethical ways to work with each other. The split between the two words, however, is by no means as sharp as this attempt to contrast them might suggest; they do overlap; the can still be used interchangeably.

Upright and decent are more informal than moral and ethical , but they shade away from each other in much the same way as the first pair. Upright may suggest an inner moral strength, decent an outgoing ethical concern for others. While decent , in fact, has no pejorative uses, upright can sometimes suggest excessive rigidity: stiff-necked, upright Puritans.

Virtuous and honourable are slightly more formal than moral and ethical , but the same contrast in shadings can be felt. Here, virtuous suggests a private life free of blemish, whereas honourable suggests decent and ethical dealings with others: a virtuous young girl; those businessmen who are both competitive and honourable .

Righteous , of course, strongly suggests someone who lives almost faultlessly in accordance with strict moral standards. The word now is somewhat less used than previously except in such expressions as righteous indignation, which is indignation aroused by injustice or a lack of fair play. Otherwise, righteous tends to suggest priggishness, narrow-mindedness and intolerance: a happy-go-lucky man who had the misfortune of being married to a righteous woman. The more common self-righteous is always pejorative and stresses pharisaism and an exaggerated sense of one’s own moral superiority over that of others. Good is a vague, general synonym for any of these words and cannot be restricted to specific shades of meaning.