PHILOSOPHY
THE REALM OF MORALITY
Ethics - deals with systematic questioning and
critical examination of the underlying principles
of morality.
Morality - the subject matter being studied in
this branch of philosophy
Etymology of Ethics
- from the Greek word “ethos” which refers to the
character of culture.
- includes the attitude of approval or disapproval
in a particular culture given the time and place.
Etymology of Morality
- latin word “Mores” which pertains to customs
including customary behavior of a particular
group of people.
- constitutes the core of attitudes and beliefs of a
particular group of people
1. Normative Ethics
- Meant to give an answer to the question “What
is good?”
- Pertains to certain norms or standards for
goodness and badness, rightness or wrongness
of an act.
- A normative ethics system can provide a
framework where its standards of morality are
based
Example: Christian Ethics is a framework of
rightness and wrongness for a christian believer.
2. Meta - Ethics
- Tries to question the parameters and
concepts set by normative ethics.
- It question and examines the basis of the
assumptions proposed in a framework of
norms and standards by normative ethics.
-Tries to answer the question “ What is your
justification for claiming that the action is
good?”
According to William Sumner: An
anthropologist in his article Folkways.
It dates back at the beginning of civilization
They would observe the best practice of
doing things.
This notion of right and true is know as
Folkway - the customs or conventions of daily
life
Norms - shared rules of conduct that determine
specific behavior among society.
Tradition - emerges from the imitation and
transfer of different practices from one
generation to another.
Mores - Develops habits to preserve the notion
of what is right.
- it happens consciously or unconsciously
- exist in an individual or in a group
- develops social rules and Sanctions to
preserve these practices and control the
behavior of an individual.
From Folkways emerged Mores
- These are folkways with added elements of
social welfare.
- Folkways with moral connotations.
1. Freedom
Sanctions or Punishment
- Assumed when one is making his
- threatened penalty for disobeying a law or a
choices and is the agent that is taking
rule.
full responsibility in planning his life, and
- it maybe a Implicit or Explicit
in the process, planning and budgeting
his actions for some future outlook or
Customs - A traditional and widely accepted
goals
way of behaving or doing something that is
- This is in accordance with his moral
specific to a particular society, place or time.
and rational capacity to know and
discern what is right and wrong.
Habits - Settled or regular tendency or practice,
2. Obligation
especially on that which is hard to give up.
- This is the condition of freedom.
- Seen as a limiting or constraining the
REALM OF FREEDOM
realm of morals to human beings.
- is construed as one’s duty to himself to
Jean Paul Sarte
exercise this freedom as a rational
- “Man is Condemned to be free”
moral being.
- Man is an unconstrained free moral agent in
the sense that he always has a choice in every
“You are not free to be free”
aspect of his life.
- We are never compelled or determined, we are
The Human Person is free to make choices in
totally free therefore, totally responsible for all
the realm of Morality. That is, a matter of taking
the things that we do.
full responsibility for your actions and being
“ Man is nothing else but that which he makes of
obliged to do so.
Himself”
Freedom in making choices entails the process
Freedom Constitutes to Responsibility
of reflection and deliberation on the
- Our freedom is NOT Absolute. We must take in
consequences that our actions might entail.
consideration the norms that we have in our
society.
It is one’s obligation to oneself to exercise one’s
- Because these are the structure that governs
rationality to the fullest without forgetting one’s
our freedom, and man must be responsible
humanity and his capacity for empathy.
enough to obey it for social order to happen.

Man is a free Moral Agent

- Man is free to make his choice in accordance
with his moral discernment of what is good and
bad.
John Mothershead
- In his book - Ethics: Modern Conception of the
principle of right.
Self-Consciousness - a product of our
interaction with our world.
George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel - we achieve
self-consciousness on different levels as we
encounter many things present in our world.
The experience of lack
- Man becomes aware of himself (ex: lack of
food)
- through the lack of experience that man desire
something; and this desire brings man’s
consciousness back to himself.
Human beings
- are the only ones capable of attaining full
self-consciousness (ex: the desire to be desired)
- to be recognized as a conscious subject, as a
person and not as an object.
Master and slave
SLAVERY - becomes acceptable by many
societies due to the recognition that people have
the right to possess PRIVATE PROPERTY
SLAVE - is not considered a citizen of a state,
for citizenship entails FREEDOM and RIGHTS
Hegel - the supremacy of the master over the
slave proves to be deficient.
EQUALITY
SLAVE -> SUFFERING
MASTER -> SUFFERING
WORK
SLAVE -> IS A MASTER OVER NATURE
MASTER -> REMAINS A MASTER ONLY TO
HIS SLAVES AND NOT TO NATURE
TRUE RECOGNITION:
AGAINST DOMINATION AND POSSESSION
A. Relationships of Domination
Ex: bully vs bullied
Master vs slave
B. Relationship of Possession
Ex: employer and employee
C. Mediated Recognition
The desire for some objects is ultimately
a desire to be desired
Ex: Desire for a gold medal
Desire to own a car
HUMAN PERSONS ARE ORIENTED TOWARD
THEIR IMPENDING DEATH
Ledal-Medical Definition
- traditional definition of death; simply equated to
the stopping of heartbeat and breathing
The journal of the american medical
association on august 1968
● Death as no longer just the absence of
heartbeat and breathing.
● A patient who is breathing and whose
heart is functioning through medical
machines,
May no longer have any barin activity is
already DEAD
- IRREVERSIBLE COMA AS A NEW
CRITERION FOR DEATH
1. Improvements in resuscitative and
supportive measures have led to
increase efforts to save those who
desperately injured
- Republic act 7170 or organ donation act of
1991 of section 2 paragraph
● DEATH - the irreversible cessation of
circulatory and respiratory functions or
the irreversible cessation of all functions
of the entire brain, including the brain
stem. A person shall be medically and
legally dead if;
- In the opinion if attending
physician, based on the
acceptable standard of medical
practice.
- Two important points;
1. Only physicians can declare if someone
is already dead
2. The physicians must have done
everything to preserve the life of the
patient- consistent to physicians
professional oath
Religious definition
- Some groups objected and criticized the very
rational-based foundation of human life.
- Some recognized the authority and
independence of medical authorities.
-The difference of perspectives, beliefs and
practices among religions are extensive that
prevents us from establishing single definitions
of death.
- For most, DEATH is based on the concept of
an afterlife from earthly life to the life after death.
● What happen to the soul after life vary
from religion to religion
- That the soul will be directed to
a place that is proportionate to
its moral status during earthly
life.
● Christianity believes in the existence of
heaven, hell and purgatory
● Prostestant christianity and judaism do
not subscribe to the idea of purgatory
● Indian religions; buddhism, hinduism,
jainism, sikhism soul undergoes rebirth
reincarnation.
- The afterlife is ultimately based on rewards and
punishments good life = HEAVEN or reincarnate
to a higher status while bad life = hell or lower
status
Existential definition
- Existentialism criticized the definition of
death that focused on the afterlife.
● For them, it takes away the focus of the
person to what is actual and
concrete—to human existence.
–People tend to ignore the present and always
do things in reference to the future—the afterlife.
DEATH
– is the transition from being to non-being,
meaning this is the termination of all the
possibilities that we have as temporal beings.
•“to be—to exist” – to have possibilities
•“not to be—not to exist” – to lose all the
possibilities
– Afterlife?
• Not a concern for them, because its existence
is not concrete!
–Cannot empirically validate the existence of
heaven, hell or even the reincarnation of the
soul—will leads us only to anxiety!
-For existentialist, face the real possibility of
non-being—the possibility that when we die,
everything is over, that is, that we simply cease
to be; that we are no longer—this is the real
source of death’s anxiety not anything else!
–Thus, knowing and facing the possibility of non-
being redirects us to being—to what is actual,
concrete, and present—the HERE and NOW!
DEATH AS AN ETHICAL ISSUE
•Why is killing is wrong?
•What makes killing wrong?
•Are all killings wrong?
– When death is induced, we call it KILLING!
•There is an undeniable value in human life that
makes its negation a central issue in the realm
of ethics.
SUICIDE
– is generally considered a morally
impermissible act.
–Three Arguments;
1.Thou shalt not kill – God gave us life and He
intends it
to be preserved.
2.Arguments from natural law – our natural
disposition is self-preservation.
3.Socio-political Arguments – we have
obligations to other persons.
“EUTHANASIA OR “EASY DEATH”
– practice of killing someone who is very sick or
very badly injured to badly injured to prevent
further suffering.
– Three arguments why it is wrong:
1. Medical legal argument – contradicts the
role of the physicians.
 2. Theological argument – it is God who
gave us life, and it is only God who can
take it away.
3. Psychological argument – a patient may
feel guilty in considering himself a
burden to his family and others taking
care of him/her.

ABORTION
– act intends to bring about the
death of a fetus for the sake of the woman who
caries it.
❖ Pro-abortion argument – they do not
recognize the fetus, or the embryo, as
constituting a human person who
deserves the right to life.
❖ Vatican – it is the termination of life,
“The right to life is no less to be
respected in the small infant just born
than in the mature person.”

WHY KILLING IS CONSIDERED WRONG?

-- it is the imposition of a premature death;
deprivation of a future life: that is living a
qualitative life

-09JUSTIFICATION WHY KILLING BECOMES

MORALLY JUSTIFIABLE
1.ABORTION: is morally justifiable if the fetus
has physical and/or mental disabilities upon birth
2. EUTHANASIA: a person who is terminally ill
and suffering from intractable pain/ physical
and psychological suffering
3. SUICIDE: if the person no longer sees any
valued future ahead of him