MODULE 1-NATURE OF ETHICS

INTRODUCTION

It seems the world has accelerating change in the face of human creativeness. We cannot
deny how important our survival be in medicines or technology. The struggles of humans
have far threatened today’s moral values as it into our own culture. By truly defining our
goals in life and concretely manifesting cultural identity can help build our ethical
foundations.

This module will discuss the important areas of specialized ethics. It will cover the
important field of ethics to help us expose the foundational aspect and special concerns.

TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS
1. Tablet/ Mobile Phone/ Computers
2. Internet Connectivity
3. Download Discord App

1
COURSE OUTLINE
● ethics as philosophy
● branches of ethics

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
At the end of the lesson, the students should be able to:
a. understand the importance of ethics;
b. differentiate the branches of ethics;
c. apply the basic principles of ethics; and morality in the different situations of life.
PRELIMINARY ACTIVITY
Activity 1. My Ethics. Draw your personal definition of ethics.
Ethics as philosophy
The word "ethics" is derived from the Greek "ethos" (meaning "custom" or "habit"). It is the science
of the morality of human acts. It is a normative science because it concerns matters of values rather
than of facts. Ethical values involve the concepts of goodness and badness of human acts or rightness
and wrongness of conduct. Ethics is theoretical because it speculates on the reason or cause why
human acts and conduct are qualified to be good or right and bad or wrong.

Socrates, in Plato’s Republic, said that what we will be discussing is no small matter, but how we
ought to live. Ethics may not be as important as the new discoveries of the contemporary world or
may be considered to some as a subject to discuss that belongs to antiquity, yet value always shines
in every decision and every act executed. Plato even reminded us that it is no small matter since
involves how we ought to live our lives not only in relation to one’s self but most especially to
others.

Ethics or Moral Philosophy is concerned with questions of how people ought to act, and the search
for a definition of right conduct and the good life.

Socrates
- regarded as the father of Western ethics
- asserted that people will naturally do what is good provided that they know what is right,
and that evil or bad actions are purely the result of ignorance:
"There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance".

Aristotle
- Asserted "Nature does nothing in vain", so it is only when a person acts in accordance with
their nature and thereby realizes their full potential that they will do good and therefore be
content in life.
- He held that self-realization is the surest path to happiness, which is the ultimate goal,
all other things being merely means to an end.
https://bradbirzer.com/2016/09/19/quick-and-dirty-guide-to-socrates-plato-and-aristotle/ (last viewed on
August 02, 2021)

Branches of ethics
Normative Ethics (or Prescriptive Ethics)
Is the branch of ethics concerned with establishing how should or ought to be, how to value them,
which things are good or bad, and which actions are right or wrong. It attempts to develop a set of
rules governing human conduct, or a set of norms for action.

Normative ethical theories are usually split into three main categories:

Consequentialism
Deontology
Virtue Ethics:
https://philosophicaldisquisitions.blogspot.com/2009/12/consequentialism-by-philip-pettit.html (last
viewed on August 02, 2021)

Consequentialism (or Teleological Ethics) argues that the morality of an action is contingent on
the action's outcome or result. Thus, a morally right action is one that produces a good outcome
or consequence.
Consequentialist theories must consider questions like
What sort of consequences count as good consequences?
Who is the primary beneficiary of moral action?
How are the consequences judged and who judges them?
https://peped.org/philosophicalinvestigations/handout-utilitarianism/ (last viewed on August 02,
2021)

Some consequentialist theories include:

o Utilitarianism which holds that an action is right if it leads to the most happiness
for the greatest number of people ("happiness" here is defined as the
maximization of pleasure and the minimization of pain).
o The origins of Utilitarianism can be traced back as far as the Greek
philosopher Epicurus, but its full formulation is usually credited to Jeremy Bentham,
with John Stuart Mill as its foremost proponent.
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Utilitarianism-and-Herd-Immunity_fig2_5241551 (last viewed on
August 02, 2021)

o Hedonism which is the philosophy that pleasure is the most important pursuit of
mankind, and that individuals should strive to maximize their own total pleasure
(net of any pain or suffering).
o Epicureanism is a more moderate approach (which still seeks to maximize happiness,
but which defines happiness more as a state of tranquillity than pleasure).

o Egoism which holds that an action is right if it maximizes good for the self.
Thus, Egoism may license actions which are good for the individual, but
detrimental to the general welfare.
o Individual Egoism holds that all people should do whatever benefits him or herself.
o Personal Egoism holds that each person should act in his own self-interest,
but makes no claims about what anyone else ought to do.
o Universal Egoism holds that everyone should act in ways that are in
their own interest.
o Asceticism, which is, in some ways, the opposite of Egoism in that it describes a
life characterized by abstinence from egoistic pleasures specially to achieve
a spiritual goal.
 o Altruism, which prescribes that an individual take actions that have the best
consequences for everyone except for himself, according to Auguste Comte's
dictum, "Live for others". Thus, individuals have a moral obligation to help, serve
or
benefit others, if necessary, at the sacrifice of self-interest.
o Rule Consequentialism, which is a theory (sometimes seen as an attempt to reconcile
Consequentialism and Deontology), that moral behaviour involves following certain
rules, but that those rules should be chosen based on the consequences that
the selection of those rules has.
o Negative Consequentialism, which focuses on minimizing bad consequences
rather than promoting good consequences.

Deontology is an approach to ethics that focuses on the rightness or wrongness of actions

themselves, as opposed to the rightness or wrongness of the consequences of those actions.
o It argues that decisions should be made considering the factors of one's duties and other's
rights (the Greek 'deon' means 'obligation' or 'duty').
o Some deontological theories include:
o Divine Command Theory: a form of deontological theory which states that an
action is right if God has decreed that it is right, and that an act is obligatory if and
only if (and because) it is commanded by God. Thus, moral obligations arise from
God's commands, and the rightness of any action depends upon that action being
performed because it is a duty, not because of any good consequences arising from
that action.
o Natural Rights Theory (such as that espoused by Thomas Hobbes and John Locke),
which holds that humans have absolute, natural rights (in the sense
of universal rights that are inherent in the nature of ethics, and not contingent on
human actions or beliefs). This eventually developed into what we today call human
rights.
o Immanuel Kant's Categorical Imperative, which roots morality in
humanity's rational capacity and asserts certain inviolable moral laws. Kant's
formulation is deontological in that he argues that to act in the morally right way,
people must act according to duty, and that it is the motives of the person who carries
out the action that make them right or wrong, not the consequences of the actions.
o Pluralistic Deontology is a description of the deontological ethics propounded by
W.D. Ross (1877 - 1971). He argues that there are seven prima facie duties which
need to be taken into consideration when deciding which duty should be acted upon:
1. beneficence (to help other people to increase
their pleasure, improve their character, etc.)
 2. non-maleficence (to avoid harming other people)
3. justice (to ensure people get what they deserve)
4. self-improvement (to improve ourselves)
5. reparation (to recompense someone if you have acted wrongly towards them)
6. gratitude (to benefit people who have benefited us)
7. promise-keeping (to act according to explicit and implicit promises, including the
implicit promise to tell the truth)

o Contractarian Ethics (or the Moral Theory of Contractarianism) claims that

moral norms derive their normative force from the idea of contract or mutual
agreement. It holds that moral acts are those that we would all agree to if we
were unbiased, and that moral rules themselves are a sort of a contract, and
therefore only people who understand and agree to the terms of the contract are
bound by it.
o The theory stems initially from political Contractarianism and the principle of
social contract developed by Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and John
Locke, which essentially holds that people give up some rights to a government
and/or other authority in order to receive, or jointly preserve, social order.
o Contractualism is a variation on Contractarianism, although based more on
the Kantian ideas that ethics is an essentially interpersonal matter, and that right
and wrong are a matter of whether we can justify the action to other people.
o Virtue Ethics, focuses on the inherent character of a person rather than on the nature or
consequences of specific actions performed.
o The system identifies virtues (those habits and behaviors that will allow a person to
achieve "eudaimonia", or well being or a good life), counsels practical wisdom to resolve
any
conflicts between virtues, and claims that a lifetime of practicing these virtues leads to, or in
effect constitutes, happiness and the good life.
o Eudemonism is a philosophy originated by Aristotle that defines right action as that which
leads to "well being", and which can be achieved by a lifetime of practicing the virtues in
one's everyday activities, subject to the exercise of practical wisdom.
o Agent-Based Theories give an account of virtue based on our common-sense intuitions
about which character traits are admirable (e.g. benevolence, kindness, compassion, etc),
which we can identify by looking at the people we admire, our moral exemplars.
o Ethics of Care was developed mainly by Feminist writers, and calls for a change in how we
view morality and the virtues, shifting towards the more marginalized virtues exemplified by
women, such as taking care of others, patience, the ability to nurture, self-sacrifice, etc.
Meta-Ethics
Is primarily with the meaning of ethical judgments, and seeks to understand the nature of
ethical properties, statements, attitudes, and judgments and how they may be supported or
defended.
It concerns itself with second order questions, specifically
the semantics, epistemology and ontology of ethics.

The major meta-ethical views are commonly divided into two camps: Moral
Realism and Moral Anti-Realism:

Moral Realism (or Moral Objectivism) holds that there are objective moral values, so that
evaluative statements are essentially factual claims, which are either true or false, and that their
truth or falsity are independent of our beliefs, feelings or other attitudes towards the things
being evaluated. It is a cognitivist view in that it holds that ethical sentences express valid
propositions and are therefore truth-apt.

Moral Anti-Realism holds that there are no objective moral values, and comes in one of three forms,
depending on whether ethical statements are believed to be subjective claims (Ethical Subjectivism),
not genuine claims at all (Non-Cognitivism) or mistaken objective claims (Moral Nihilism or Moral
Scepticism):

Descriptive Ethics
It is a value-free approach to ethics which examines ethics from the perspective of observations
of actual choices made by moral agents in practice. It is the study of people's beliefs about
morality, and implies the existence of, rather than explicitly prescribing, theories of value or of
conduct. It is not designed to provide guidance to people in making moral decisions, nor is it
designed to evaluate the reasonableness of moral norms.
It is more likely to be investigated by those working in the fields of evolutionary
biology, psychology, sociology, history or anthropology, although information that comes from
descriptive ethics is also used in philosophical arguments.

Applied Ethics
Applied Ethics is a discipline of philosophy that attempts to apply ethical theory to real-life
situations. Strict, principle-based ethical approaches often result in solutions to specific problems
that are not universally acceptable or impossible to implement. Applied Ethics is much more ready
to include the insights of psychology, sociology and other relevant areas of knowledge in its
deliberations. It is used in determining public policy.
The following would be questions of Applied Ethics:
"Is getting an abortion immoral?"
"Is euthanasia immoral?“
"Is affirmative action right or wrong?"
"What are human rights, and how do we determine
them?“ "Do animals have rights as well?"

Some ethical principles are:

Truthfulness
Honesty
Loyalty
Respect
Fairness
Integrity
Ethics covers the following dilemmas:
how to live a good life
our rights and responsibilities
the language of right and wrong
moral decisions – what is good and bad?

Where does ethics come from?

Philosophers have several answers to this question:
God and religion
Human conscience and intuition
a rational moral cost-benefit analysis of actions and their effects
the example of good human beings
a desire for the best for people in each unique situation
political power

What use is ethics?

Ethics can provide a moral map
Ethics can pinpoint a disagreement
Ethics doesn’t give right answers
Ethics can give several answers
POST ACTIVITY

Home Standards. List down ten moral standards practiced at your home. Draw a house with
ten parts. Each part is a moral standard observed in your family.

EVALUATION
Directions: Part I: MATCHING TYPE (Pick out the answer for each set of questions from the given
choices which is closely related to the statement.) Write your answer in the space provided. 5 points

Choices for items 1-5

A. Socrates D. Immanuel Kant's
B. Plato F. Thomas Hobbes
C. John Stuart Mill
 1. Life is better on how we ought to live. B
2. Ignorance creates manifold evilness to mankind. A
3. It holds that an action is right if it leads to the most happiness for the greatest number
of people. C
4. He asserts the universalization of ideas through duties. D
5. This theory asserts the universal rights that are inherent in the nature of ethics. E

Part II: TRUE- “A” or FALSE- “E” (WRITE “A” if the statement is correct and, “E” if it is wrong)
Write your answer in the space provided. 5 points

1. Self-realization is the surest path to happiness, which is the ultimate goal and an end
according to Plato. E

2. Individual Egoism holds that all people should not do whatever benefits him or herself. E

3. Deontology is a philosophy that focuses on the rightness or wrongness of actions. A

4. Any contract or mutual agreement is an example of normative ethics. E

5. Allowing of vaccination against Covid-19 is a good example of utilitarianism model of ethics.

A

REFERENCE
PLEASE SEE IN OUR COURSE OUTLINE.