ETHICS - (PHILOSOPHY) • MORAL STANDARDS USUALLY

ETHOS / ETHICOS - meaning character PROMOTE GOOD IN HUMANS,

MORES - custom ANIMALS & ENVIRONMENT.
ETHICS • MORAL STANDARDS ALSO
• Why of good & bad DEALS WITH BAD IN HUMANS,
• External ANIMALS AND ENVIRONMENT.
• Objective • THE VALIDITY OF WHAT IS
• Rules / Norms (*not all norms are moral GOOD AND BAD COMES FROM
) REASONING / ON HOW WE
• Society SUPPORT OUR CASE /
• Changing ARGUMENT.
• Only moral bearing • COMES FROM THE MIND OF
MORALITY SOMEONE REASONABLE W/ NO
• Internal MENTAL PROBLEMS.
• Practice of ethics CHARACTERISTICS OF A MORAL STAND
• Subjective 1. It is a moral standard when it
• Principle / Value deals with serious wrong /
• Individual / Self injuries or significant benefit of
• Constant humans, animals, environment.
4 PRINCIPLES OF ETHICS : 2. Ought to be preferred over
⮚ RESPECT FOR AUTONOMY other values.
- Respect the decision of other people. 3. Not established by authority,
- Decision is based on rational mind. lies on reasoning.
⮚ BENEFICENCE 4. Has a trait of universalizability.
- Everyone has the obligation to do 5. Based on impartial
good. consideration.
- Must perform an act that is for the 6. Associated w/ special emotions
good of everyone. & vocabulary.
- All actions must be good. NON MORAL STANDARDS :
⮚ NON - MALEFICENCE ⮚ No ethical consideration.
- Avoid harm. IMPORTANCE OF MORALITY :
⮚ JUSTICE ✓ Protects humans by regulating
- Obligation to provide others what behaviors. (set boundaries.)
they deserve / need. ✓ Guarantees everyone to have sense of
FREEDOM freedom and certain rights.
• RIGHTS
✓ Produce sense of justice.
✓ Healthy economic system.
• Ethics provide freedom due to the
norms that gives us our rights. (ex.
NORMS OF MORALITY :
studying)
(LAW AND CONSCIENCE)
MORAL STANDARDS
LAW
⮚ Everyone has to follow.
WHAT IS A MORAL STANDARD?
• Objective norm
⮚ Norms that an individual / group have • Established
about the kind of actions they believe THREE TYPES OF LAW:
to be morally right or wrong. ETERNAL LAW
⮚ A virtue replaced to what we believe is ⮚ Divine reason
morally good or bad. ⮚ Will of God / by creator
⮚
 According to St. Thomas : "Eternal law
is the exemplar of divine wisdom as it
directs all actions and wisdom."
⮚ Universal
⮚ Gives us a sense of reason
NATURAL LAW
⮚ Universal
⮚ Within human
⮚ Obligatory
⮚ Recognizable
⮚ Unchangeable
CONTENT OF NATURAL LAW:
• FORMAL NORM
- Related to the character of a person.
- What we ought to be as a person.
• MATERIAL NORM
- What kind of actions we ought to
perform.
HUMAN ( POSITIVE ) LAW
⮚ CHURCH LAW & STATE LAW
⮚ Are formulated by humans, designated
by society or state.
⮚ Supplement provision in the natural
law.
⮚ Dependent on community.
PROPERTIES OF HUMAN LAW :
1. Human law accordance w/ Eternal law.
2. Human law accordance w/ Natural law.
3. Human law must promote common
good.
4. Human law must have universal
character.
CONSCIENCE
• To know (w/ knowledge)
• Practical judgement of reason deciding
upon an individual's action as good/bad
• According to St. Augustine: "Conscience
is an inner voice of God in men."
KINDS OF CONSCIENCE :
⮚ Anticedent
⮚ Consequent
⮚ Right Conscience (TRUE)
⮚ Erroneous Conscience (FALSE)
⮚ Certain Conscience
⮚ Doubtful Conscience
⮚ Lax Conscience
⮚ Scrupulous Conscience
FORMATION OF CONSCIENCE :
✓ Study, search for the truth. (
Right/Wrong)
✓ Cultivate Good habits.
✓ Mitigate, Condemn, Fight against doing
bad habits.
✓ One must learn how to use freedom
properly.
HUMAN ACT VS. ACT OF MAN
HUMAN ACT
⮚ Freewill
⮚ Actual human acts
⮚ Psychological
⮚ Choices
⮚ Knowledge (will)
⮚ Reason
⮚ Voluntary
⮚ examples : looking /listening
ACT OF MAN
⮚ Involuntary
⮚ Physiological
⮚ Animal Related
⮚ Instinct
⮚ examples : hearing / seeing
MORAL DETERMINANCE OF HUMAN ACT :
1. OBJECT OF THE ACT
- What is the action performed.
- An action is good when it is
inconformity with reason.
-*REASONING AGE :
- CHURCH : 12
-LAW : 18
2. CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE ACT
- Refers to the event, occassion,
condition when the action was done.
- Reason why the action was done.
- Either increases / decreases the
morality of the act. However, it will not
change the specific nature of the act.
3. THE INTENTION
- Motive of the agent when he/she
performed the act.
- Purpose of doing the act.
- Does not change the value of the act.
✓ THE ACTION CAN ONLY BE
DETERMINED GOOD OR BAD IF IT'S A
HUMAN ACT.
 ✓ ACT OF MAN CANNOT BE DETERMINED
TO BE GOOD OR BAD DUE TO LACK OF
MORALITY. (because it is automatic.)
✓ EVEN IF THE ACTION IS GOOD, ACTION
IS STILL CORRUPTED BECAUSE OF EVIL
INTENTION.
✓ GOOD INTENTION WITH WRONG
ACTION MAY DIMINISH IT'S
WRONGNESS, BUT CANNOT FULLY
REMOVE THE ACT.
✓ ACTION ITSELF HAS ITS OWN
GOODNESS AND BADNESS DEPENDING
ON THE EVALUATION OF REASON.
*MORALITY IS NOT LEGALITY*.
MODIFIERS OF HUMAN ACT :
⮚ IGNORANCE - absence of knowledge
⮚ CONCUPICENCE - action performed out
of passion.
⮚ FEAR
⮚ VIOLENCE - no sense of freedom,
performs act against will
⮚ HABITS - done repeatedly and
frequently
MORAL DILEMMA
FEATURES OF MORAL DILEMMA:
1. In moral dilemma, the agent is required
to do the action.
2. There are diff. course of action that the
agent have to choose from but the
agent can only do one. Not both or all.
3. Whatever action the agent performs,
he/she was able to compromise /
transgress a certain moral principle.
LEVELS OF MORAL DILEMMA:
⮚ PERSONAL DILEMMA - Individual
dilemma, subjective.
⮚ ORGANIZATIONAL DILEMMA -
individual but related to a certain
course, association, organization,
profession.
⮚ STRUCTURAL DILEMMA - involves not
an individual, but an institution, group,
department, or multiple institutions.
- multi-sectional.
- other sector outside your sector.
TYPES OF DILEMMA:
• PURE & ABSOLUTE DILEMMA
- Situation that is present involve a
conflict of ethical/moral principle.
• APPROXIMATE DILEMMA
- When the situation requires a decision
.
- Conflict between values, laws, &
policies.
HOW TO RESOLVE DILEMMAS:
✓ CONSULT COMPANY CODE OF ETHICS
✓ SHARE DILEMMA TO BOSS
✓ TALK TO COLLEAGUES, FRIENDS
✓ READ PAST NEWS OR ACTIVITIES THAT
TALKS ABOUT YOUR DILEMMA
MORAL DEVELOPMENT
(6 STAGES, 3 LEVELS)
LEVEL 1: PRECONVENTIONAL MORAL
DEVELOPMENT
⮚ STAGE 1 : OBEDIENCE & PUNISHMENT
ORIENTATION
⮚ According to Kohlberg
⮚ Self centered, self serving
⮚ What the self can gain
⮚ REWARD IS NOT ALWAYS WHAT YOU
WANT.
⮚ STAGE 2 : INDIVIDUALISM / PLEASURE
SEEKING
⮚ Reciprocity
⮚ Self interest
⮚ When an action is not reciprocated, we
tend to think that it's wrong.
⮚ RECIPROCITY - reward is something you
really aspire.
LEVEL 2: CONVENTIONAL MORAL
DEVELOPMENT (more concerned w/ what
others will tell them)
⮚ STAGE 3 : GOOD BOY, NICE GIRL
⮚ When the people around you applauds
you, action is good.
⮚ STAGE 4 : AUTHORITY / LAW & ORDER
SOCIAL ORIENTATION
⮚ If the action is against the law, it is bad.
If action is in accordance with the law, it
is good.
⮚ 85% of population commonly reaches
this level of morality.
LEVEL 3:POST CONVENTIONAL MORAL
DEVELOPMENT
⮚ Own judgment.
⮚ We think about the action itself.
⮚ STAGE 5 : SOCIAL CONTRACT
ORIENTATION
⮚ No judgment of of other people's
wrongdoings.
⮚ Still recognize the minority.
⮚ Cannot recognize right/wrong based
only on the doings of majority.
⮚ Recognizes social contract but respects
minority rights. FILIPINO promoting absolutism - (all have to
⮚ STAGE 6 : UNIVERSAL ETHICAL
PRINCIPLES MORALITY relative)
⮚ Basis of action is ethical principles.
⮚ Value human life & dignity.
MORAL RELATIVISM
• Implies good/bad dependent on
personal perspectives, cultures, society
and group.
CULTURAL RELATIVISM
• goodness/badness of an act depends on
the culture.
• what is right in some cultures might not
be right in other cultures.
MORAL SUBJECTIVISM
• individual determination of good/bad.
SIX MAJOR CLAIMS OF CULTURAL RELATIVISM:
1. Diff. societies/cultures have diff moral
codes.
2. No objective standard can be used to
judge one societal code better than the
other.
3. Moral code of our own culture have no
special status, it is one of many. ( no
superior conduct.)
4. There is no universal truth. There is no
moral truth that holds for all people at
all times.
5. Moral code of culture/society
determines what is right/wrong within
the society/culture.
6. It is mere arrogance for a certain
culture to judge other people in other
cultures.
ADVANTAGES OF CULTURAL RELATIVISM AS
BASIS OF MORALITY :
1. Teaches us not to be judgemental/
2. teaches us to be open minded.
3. Teaches us to be tolerant.
WEAKNESSES OF CULTURAL RELATIVISM :
1. Discourages critical thinking
2. Does not promote tolerance (nothing to
be tolerated because all of the options
are considered good.)
3. Self defeating (because it says that
there is no absolute truth but is
follow moral code.) (everything is
KAPWA
• Western - OTHERS
• Filipinos - CORE VALUE
• ACCOMODATIVE SURFACE VALUES :
✓ HIYA
✓ UTANG NA LOON (reciprocity)
✓ PAKIKISAMA (good relation
w/others)
• FILIPINOS EVOLVE FOLLOWING THESE
SURFACE VALUES.
PHILOSOPHY
⮚ Studies causes of things
⮚ Reason
⮚ Good human can think & feel
FEELINGS
⮚ Motivates person to do certain action.
⮚ (Christian Philo) Feelings must be a
ground/root of action.
ETHICAL SUBJECTIVISM
⮚ Focuses on emotion.
⮚ All statements are true but it depends
on the individual.
⮚ FEELINGS
⮚ Whatever you feel makes the action
GOOD/BAD.
⮚ No facts.
EMOTIVISM
⮚ Not stating facts.
⮚ Means to influence others.
⮚ Expression of speaker's attitude.
SIMILARITY OF THE TWO :
FEELINGS/EMOTIONS AS BASIS OF MORALITY.