Teacher professional well-being (TPWB) is crucial in education, affecting educators and students. The Teacher Professional Well-Being Scale (TPWBS) measures five core dimensions—self-efficacy, job satisfaction, aspiration, recognition, and authority—initially developed in Turkey. This study aims to adapt, develop, and validate the Teacher Professional Well-Being Scale (TPWBS) in Ethiopia. Investigate the TPWBS factor structure and evaluate its measurement invariance (MI) across gender, university type, and teaching experience. By examining teachers’ perceptions of professional well-being, this study contributes to understanding Ethiopian higher education. Exploratory factor analyses (EFA) and confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) use data from Ethiopian university instructors. Conduct initial EFA on a sample of 82 men and 222 women (sample 1), followed by CFA on a sample of 529 men and 179 women (sample 2). Assess factor loadings of TPWBS items across sub-dimensions. Use data from Ethiopian higher education institutions and involve 1012 instructors. The EFA reveals excellent factor loadings for all TPWBS items within each sub-dimension, indicating a robust factor structure. TPWBS exhibits acceptable construct validity, good reliability, and satisfactory convergent and divergent validity. The CFA demonstrates good model fit, supporting TPWBS validity: χ² (289) = 942.20, p < 0.001, χ²/df = 3.26, GFI = 0.912, TLI = 0.935, CFI = 0.943, RMSEA = 0.057, 95% CI [0.053, 0.061]. TPWBS is a valid and reliable tool for assessing the professional well-being of Ethiopian university teachers. Its adaptation and validation process highlight cultural and contextual factors in well-being evaluation. Findings offer insights for practitioners and researchers in well-being assessment.

The genesis of morality has remained a subject of perennial debate, and philosophers have yielded variegated and irreconcilable accounts regarding its origins and application. The argument has been between rationalist-transcendental approaches (e.g., Plato, Kant) and naturalist-evolutionary accounts (e.g., Hume, Darwin). The former derive universal, objective and absolute moral principles from articulated rational theories, and de-emphasise the factors of empirical and biological conditions of human life upon ethical discourse. However, evolutionary ethics establishes a descriptive or biological account of our natural moral capacity, and never treats it as an external imposition or as pure rational discovery. Yet such a natural account of morality is challenged (as Hume, Moore and Street noticed) to corroborate how normative authority can be derived from biological and experiential origins. Unless this gap is resolved, we remain caught between the extremes of “ethical absolutism”, which maximises abstract normativity, and a “biological reductionism” that reduces complex moral reasoning to biochemical or genetic facts. Thus, I contend that the fact-value dichotomy, the biological reductionism and the moral absolutism or essentialism can be reconciled through the synthesis of evolutionary ethics and Deweyan pragmatism. Against the two extreme views, Dewey’s ethical inquiry (characterised by its experimental, practical, and context-sensitive nature) can provide normative justification for evolutionary ethics. Accepting the biological origins of morality and treating moral judgment as a problem-solving tool, Dewey proposes pragmatic alternatives that transform natural capacities into normative authority. Methodologically, I follow a critical-analytical approach and combine philosophical exegesis with conceptual reconstruction. Through engaging with key thinkers (Dewey, Darwin, Dawkins, De Waal, and Churchland), comparative analyses, and integrative argumentation, I construct a systematic account of moral origins and growth that is both empirically grounded and normatively strong.