Secular Ethics Acts 17:16-21 The secular definition of ethics is that it is a branch of philosophy that reflects on such issues as the source of moral norms and how to justify one’s rules for governing action on moral matters. Morals or morality may refer simply to the specific rules by which people should live. In the text, Paul engages proponents from different schools of philosophy. The schools mentioned here had very different ideas about ethics. As we focus on these two schools, we can discover much about the history of ethics and their paths to failure.