Ethics and Moral Reasoning

Adrian A. Capinpin
Prof. Violeta G. Tabin
A406D
 A. Ethics and Moral Reasoning Summary

In this chapter, ethics, morality and moral values shall be defined and their relationship
shall be included.

Ethics comes from the Greek word ethos which means character or cultural custom or
habits. Ethics is a study of human customs or ways of doing things. Therefore, it deals with
what is right or wrong in behavior. According to a website, Wikipedia, ethics refers to the study
and development of ones ethical standards.

Moral comes the Latin word moralis meaning customs or manners. Morality is the
quality of goodness or badness of human acts. It is about the rightness and wrongness of human
acts.

Moral values are the standards of good an evil which govern an individuals behavior and
choices. Moral values may be derived from the following: society, government, ones self
experience and/or religion.

Ethics being a branch of philosophy, it addresses questions about morality and concepts
such as good and evil, right and wrong, etc. There are major branches of ethics, namely: Meta-
Ethics which focuses on how we understand and what we mean about what is right and wrong;
Normative Ethics known as the study of what makes actions right and wrong; Applied Ethics
attempts to apply ethical theory to real-life situations; Moral Psychology which includes any
topic at the intersection of ethics and psychology; and Descriptive Ethics which examines ethics
not from perspective but from observations of real choices.

Apart from these branches, there are two subdivisions of ethics, namely: Theoretical
ethics which is concerned with logical foundations; Normative ethics (applied ethics) which
gives hands-on practical guideline or norms.

As for the aspects of moral reasoning, there are three levels of thinking: Experience (goes
beyond the five senses), Interpretation (when one interprets his experience), Analysis (enabling
one to distinguish the difference between fact and opinion).

B. Ethical Theory

As part of a society and a culture, Relativist theory applies to my case. As stated in the
book. This theory states that morality is different for different people. This means moral differs
and it varies from person to person and time to time.

How has it been applied? There are two features under this theory, namely: ethical
subjectivism and cultural relativism. Ethical relativism states that moral truth is a matter of ones
opinion or feeling. Hence, I, as the decision maker, lead myself to the most ethically correct
resolution according to the opinion or how I feel towards a situation. Ethical Relativism fits best
as a theory to my morals. On the other hand, cultural relativism states when one adapts from
his/her societys moral norms. But both cant be applied as they are mutually exclusive theories
according to Boss, meaning, they cant be true at the same time.