The practice of psychology is an exercise in Ethics, what does that mean and why is it true?               In a very strict sense psychology is defined as the study of human behavior and mental processes, but psychology is more than just words.  One of the oldest questions known to man is “who am I and why am I here.”  In a sense that question deals with the concepts of consciousness and self awareness.  We are the sum total of all of our yesterdays, and our awareness of ourselves is a product of this.  If we believe that each individual is a unique, self conscious, self aware entity then to alter that pattern of awareness without consent would be a violation of our fundamental humanity.  Because psychology is the science of “self awareness or self consciousness”, and deals with the study of their building blocks, there is a constant danger that psychology could not only be used for dishonorable purposes, but also inadvertently damage test subjects while in the pursuit of understanding those building blocks.  None of the less it is still important to unravel the mysteries of human consciousness and behavior.  It is at the point that this need to understand ourselves meets the moral necessity to protect the sanctity of humanity that psychology stands, and as such must constantly guard against the forces that would push it away from that center;  Away from what is, on both sides, a moral imperative.     Acquisition of Knowledge:               The question what is the basis of human knowledge is central to not only psychology, but also society in general.  The foundation of the question is what part of human knowledge, behavior, and personality are present at birth and what is acquired.             If, as Plato believe, all knowledge is present in an eternal soul and all we have to do is unlock or discover what is already there then we can conclude that “the child is the man.”  This raises an important question, if the child is the man then should we treat all children as adults expecting exactly the same behavior and offering the same consequence.  After all if the soul knows all things then it knows right from wrong.             However if Aristotle was right and we are like blank slates at birth then maybe we should hold the parents of sociopaths responsible for their children’s crimes.             To put it into more modern language - How much of our behavior is physiologically based and how much of it is psychologically based.  Do humans have instincts - All animals in the wild that have eyes placed in front with binocular vision are predators, should we then expect humans to act differently.  Polygamy is natural in the wild and given that it is a specialized behavioral trait that strengthens a species when the strongest male impregnates as many females as possible shouldn't we expect then all males to be polygamous.  Or maybe mental illness is really a spiritual phenomenon to relate back to Plato.             Or we could take the other side and support Aristotle - after all our society is predicated on the belief that we have free will.  If the majority of our behavior is physiologically based then the concept of free will is a fallacy.  Furthermore, if all our behavior is learned how do we account for the same basic types of human reactions in many widely varied and radically different cultures?  If our behavior is a matter of learning alone how can we use animal studies to predict human behavior?             Psychology is the study of human behavior and mental processes, and the human trait that other animals have in only limited quantities, if at all, is the concept of self awareness.  One of the easiest ways to represent this difference is that though animals know, humans know that they know.  It is this quality of self awareness and abstraction, our ability to question that is at the heart of all psychological inquiry.  Who are we?  Why do we do what we do? Is there free will?  Could we improve the quality of life through physiological intervention? How do we treat mental illness? Could we cure our social problems through social intervention? Do we have the right to intervene?  These are the fundamental questions that have plagued man since the development of the first social unit and are the central themes within psychology.  How we answer the question of nature-vs.-nurture will affect the approach we take in solving many of these key questions.  The one controversy solved since Plato is the question of either/or; we now realize both our physiology and our history effect who we believe our selves to be and we should endeavor to better understand the relationship between these two determinants of human behavior so that the programs and interventions we design have a greater chance for success and lower chance of creating unintended consequences.