Ethics with Peace Education Module 2

MODULE 2
INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS
(Week 2)

A. RECALL OF THE PREVIOUS TOPICS

In the first module we tried to define, rather crudely, what Philosophy is. Perhaps
you searched the internet and encountered the Latin words: Philo and Sophia which
literally means love and wisdom respectively. Hence you answered, “Philosophy is ‘love
of wisdom’ Sir! Well, that’s rather incomplete. You are not doing Philosophy unless you
start asking or answering fundamental questions that arise in our everyday life. Some of
these questions concern the nature of reality: Is there an external world? Does God
exist? Do we really act freely? Where do our moral obligations come from? How do we
construct just political states? And so on.

Also we discussed the definition of Ethics and what makes up this discipline. You
learned about the different fields of Ethics such as Metaethics, Normative Ethics, and
Applied Ethics. Within these areas you encountered teleological and deontological
approaches to ethics as well as the different theories offered by philosophers ahead of
you i.e., egoism, hedonism, etc. If you already understood them well, then you are in the
right place. If not, go back and read the Module 1 again. Cross reference, read from
other sources the concepts you do not understand, consult your dictionary for terms you
do not understand, re-read if you do not understand.

B. ABOUT THIS MODULE

This module deals with the concept of morality. If you will revisit Module 1, you
will notice that we only discussed complex questions surrounding the concept of
morality. For instance, under Metaethics we asked; is morality subjective or objective?
Is the basis of morality emotion or reason? Under Normative ethics, we asked what is
the ultimate test or criteria in determining what really constitutes moral actions, shall we

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base our judgments on the benefits of the outcomes or shall we judge our moral actions
using the pre-existing moral rules? Here, we will step back and explore morality in
depth. What is morality? How this concept has originated? And what is the so-called
moral dilemma?

C. LEARNING OUTCOMES

By the end of this module, students should be able to:

• define descriptive and normative morality
• decide on moral dilemma using different ethical theories
• demonstrate the relationship between freedom and morality
• define peace and violence in the context of morality

D. DEFINING MORALITY

From the sociological standpoint, the term morality can be traced from the root
word ‘mores’, which refers to the customs or customary behavior of a particular group of
people. Accordingly, William Graham Sumner said that our conception of what is right
and what is wrong has originated from our basic instinct to survive. Since we want to
survive, we used to band together, and while living together we observe and develop
the most practical ways of doing things. From these practices emerged our traditions
and notions of the right or wrong things to do. For example, for each group of people
there is a right way of treating guests, or a right way of dressing up (Prof. Madamba of
U.P, 2018).

However, defining morality from the sociological perspective alone can be said to
refer only to the Descriptive definition of morality. It means that morality in this case
refers to certain codes of conduct put forward by a society or a group (such as a
religion), or accepted by an individual for her own behavior. If that is your definition
of morality you might as well accept that there can be no universal morality that applies
to all human beings. That, every culture has their morals to follow.

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On the other hand, we have what we called the Normative definition of morality. It
means morality refers to a code of conduct that, given specified conditions, would
be put forward by all rational persons. It goes to show that the test of what can be
considered as moral is when such act or rules can pass the test of reason. That if the
act can be accepted by anyone who meets certain intellectual and volitional conditions
then it may be said to be “moral”. Thus, the normative definition of morality transcends
cultural or religious boundaries and defines moral not based on certain customs and
traditions but on almost universal scale defined by reason. To better understand this
topic, study the Case of Baby Theresa and respond to the questions that follow.

D.1 THE CASE OF BABY THERESA

Theresa Ann Campo Pearson, an anencephalic infant known to the public as

“Baby Theresa,” was born in Florida in 1992. Anencephaly is among the worst
congenital disorders. Anencephalic infants are sometimes referred to as “babies without
brains,” and this gives roughly the right picture, but it is not quite accurate. Important
parts of the brain---the cerebrum and cerebellum---are missing, as well as the top of the
skull. There is, however, a brain stem, and so autonomic functions such as breathing
and heartbeat are possible. Most cases of anencephaly may be detected during
pregnancy, if abortion is allowed, anencephalic babies usually get aborted. Some of
them may be born alive, but they die within a few days, the longest being two months.

Baby Theresa`s story would not be remarkable except for an unusual request
made by her parents. Knowing that their baby could not live long and that, even if she
could survive, she would never have a conscious life, Baby Theresa`s parents
volunteered her organs for transplant. They thought her kidneys, liver, heart, lungs, and
eyes should go to other children who could benefit from them. The physicians agreed
that this was a good idea. In the U.S, at least 2,000 infants need transplants each year,
and there are never enough organs available. But Baby Theresa`s organs were not
taken, because Florida law does not allow the removal of organs until the donor is
dead.’ By the time Baby Theresa died, nine days later, it was too late for the other

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children---her organs could not be transplanted because they had deteriorated too
much. Had her organs been allowed to be transplanted immediately, other children
could have been benefited from it.

ACTIVITY 1

1. Would it have been right to remove the infant`s organ, thereby causing her
immediate death, to help other children?

2. What do you mean by death and by being alive? In this case, do you think
baby Theresa should have been considered dead the moment she was born?
Justify you answer extensively. That means you should do some research.

3. If you were Baby Theresa`s parents or physician, how would you justify
transplanting Baby Theresa`s organs to other children? Argue with reason.

E. FREEDOM AND MORALITY

Our discussion of freedom

entails this basic
presupposition: That the human
person is free
in the exercise of making
choices in the realm of morality
— that is, in making choices
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with regard to determining what

is the right thing to do in
situations and circumstances in
his/her own life. This can be
summarized in our Filipino
saying, “Buntot mo, hila mo!” It
is taking full responsibility for
your actions and being obliged
to do so.
Jean Paul Sartre, an existentialist philosopher, claimed that “man is condemned
to be free”. This means that we are a free moral agent in the sense that we always have
a choice in every aspect of our lives. Even if our parents seemed to threaten us with a
looming verbal abuse, we still have a choice whether or not to follow the errands they
told us to do. Not even God can deny us of this extravagant freedom. Though God
commands us be good and humble under the punishment eternal damnation, we still
have a choice whether to be good and humble. And most of us fail on this wise.
Primarily because we are free.

When we exercise freedom in making our choices, we are taking control and
assuming full responsibility. Kant said that we can be held responsible for all our
reasoned actions. We always have the capacity to choose what reason for acting will
move us, and so we are always responsible for actions we undertake.

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From this assumption of overwhelming freedom comes morality. Freedom is a

necessary component of exercising moral actions. According to Kant, freedom is the
source of all value – that it is intrinsically valuable, and that other valuable things must
not merely be compatible with freedom but actually derive their value from the value of
freedom. Additionally he claimed that freedom is also refers to the faculty which gives
unlimited usefulness to all the other faculties. It is the highest order of life, which serves
as the foundation of all perfections and is their necessary condition.

All animals have the faculty of using their powers according to will. But this will is
not free. It is necessitated through the incitement of stimuli, and the actions of animals
involve a brut a necessitas. If the will of all beings were so bound to sensuous impulse,
the world would possess no value. The inherent value of the world, the summum
bonum, is freedom in accordance with a will that is not necessitated to action. Freedom
is thus the inner value of the world. Kant's claim is that human beings differ from other
animals in virtue of their possession of a will that is not necessarily determined by mere
inclinations, and that this fact about them is the ultimate source of value for anything in
this world.

Thus, freedom consists in not being determined by something external, whether

that external thing is nature, God, or another`s will; freedom is self-determination. And
only by assuming that we are free, then that’s the only time we can act morally. Thus,
Kant said that when you make a choice you must act "under the idea of freedom."
The point is not that you must believe that you are free, but that you must choose as if
you were free. It is important to see that this is quite consistent with believing yourself to
be fully determined.

To illustrate imagine that you are participating in a scientific experiment, and you
know that today your every move is programmed by an electronic device implanted in
your brain. The device is not going to bypass your thought processes or make you
move mechanically: it will only determine what you think. Perhaps you get up and
decide to spend the morning working. You assumed then that it must have been
programmed. One day, in a spirit of rebellion you then decide to skip work and go
shopping. And then it occurs to you that that too must have been programmed

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The important point here is that efforts to second guess the device cannot help
you decide what to do. They can only prevent you from making any decision. In order to
do anything, you must simply ignore the fact that you are programmed, and decide what
to do - just as if you were free. You will believe that your decision is a sham, but it
makes no difference.

Kant's point, then, is that we must regard our decisions as springing ultimately
from principles that we have chosen, and justifiable by those principles. We must regard
ourselves as having free will (although in reality we are indeed programmed). Thus, only
by acting in the spirit of freedom (and obligation), true moral actions may follow. I
inserted the word “obligation” because as the saying goes, “our freedom ends where the
freedom of others begin.”

ACTIVITY 2

1. Write an example of a morally significant act that you have done in the past
which you consider as an exercise of freedom.

2. In exercising your freedom, explain how do you factor in, or consider the roles
of society in limiting your behavior?

3. How the exercise of freedom can be a moral obligation on your part?

4. Do you think animals have the capacity to act morally? For instance, in the
movie titled: ‘Hachiko’ starring Robert Gere, do you think the dog, Hachi, had
the capacity to make moral decisions? Justify.

F. UNDERSTANDING PEACE AND VIOLENCE IN THE CONTEXT OF MORALITY

For this week`s module, I am sending two PDF documents. This one, your Week
2 module and the other, an E-Book for peace education written by Loreta Navarro-
Castro and Jasmin Nario-Galace. In that E-Book kindly read page 17-25 (Chapter 1: A
Holistic Understanding of Peace and Violence). After that, please answer the following
questions:

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ACTIVITY 3

1. What is the difference between today`s understanding of peace and that of the
time of Hugo Grotius?

2. How can the holistic definition of peace promote moral acts?

3. Write at least one paragraph of an ongoing economic /structural violence in

our country or the rest of the world. What do you think is the root cause of this
kind of violence?

Acknowledgement:

Some topics and questions in this module are provided by the same course package written
by Prof. Madamba of the University of the Philippines.

References:

Uleman, J (2016). Kant and Moral Motiation: The Value of Free Rational Willing, ed. Iakovos
V. (Moral Motivations: A history). Oxford University Press.

Kiselev A. (2018). Moral Freedom in Kant’s Moral Philosophy and Stoicism Immanuel Kant.
Baltic Federal University (Kaliningrad, Russia)

Guyer, P. (2000). Kant's Morality of Law and Morality of Freedom. In Kant on Freedom,
Law, and Happiness (pp. 129-171). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
doi:10.1017/CBO9781139173339.006

https://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~korsgaar/CMK.Morality.as.Freedom.pdf