Definition of preethical
: existing or occurring before personal or social ethics have been developed or considered
- The analytical history starts by attempting to understand relevant psychological capacities of the preethical ancestors …
- —Philip Kitcher
- More remote ancestors, human beings without full language perhaps, were pre-ethical.
- —Philip Kitcher
- … what ethicians might call the pre-ethical stages of human development …
- —Robert J. Starratt
- Laws are a pre-ethical stage. While they orient a person to virtue, acting because the law obliges one to act is not truly virtuous.
- —Raymond J. Devettere
- It sounds like a story from journalism's pre-ethical days …
- —Jack Shafer
