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Monday, March 6, 2023 6:31 PM

• DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MORAL AND NON-MORAL STANDARDS. Cite THEIR CHARACTERISTICS.

○ Morality are those standards by which a person believes what is right and wrong, good or
evil. Moral standards are the norms that people believe to be morally good and bad; they
are said to be prescribe as the rights and responsibilities that human beings can do. As
Velasquez (2012) stated, these moral oral standards have six characteristics that
differentiate them from non-moral standards, which include: behaviors that seriously affect
other people's well-being; taking more important consideration than other standards,
including self-interest; not depending on any external authority but on how the person
perceives the reasonableness of the action; being believed to be universal; being based on
objectivity; and, lastly, being associated with vocabulary that depicts emotion or feelings.
While the non-moral are said to be the principles that do not consider and are unrelated to
moral and ethical principles, for these are the rules that are set by a specific group, some
examples are etiquette codes, various house rules, fashion standards, and rules in games.

• WHAT IS ETHICS
○ Ethics is about knowing what is morally good and bad and morally right and wrong. With
this, we can learn how one decision can affect a person as it is concerned with what is good
for oneself and the society.

• WHY SHOULD I CARE ABOUT IT?

○ It is important to study ethics, as learning and having a deep knowledge of it can help us
understand the different perspectives of each and every one, as well as our rights and
responsibilities as individuals. With ethics, it can give us real and practical guidance that we
can use in our daily lives. It can lead us to be rational in facing different scenarios where we
make choices not just for our own good but also for the good of others.

• WHAT ARE THE FUNDAMENTALS OF ETHICS

○ THE ORIGIN OF ETHICS: Ethics comes from the Greek word ethos which means character,
customs or habit. It is concerned with the development of a virtuous and moral character.
▪ Socrates - Greek moralist. First to recognize the value of questions that effect how
person should alive
▪ Socratic Method - asking people questions about ideas they presumably know about
○ THE ASSUMPTION OF ETHICS: These are the fundamentals beliefs or statements that are
accepted to be true without burden of proving or of proof. Most books concerning the study
of ethics present a long list of assumptions. Two most important and most assumption of
ethics:
▪ The man is a rational being
□ Man is rational and actions with a purpose, unlike brutes who merely act out of
instinct and reflex.
▪ The man is free
□ Ethics assumes that man is free to act according to his will and he has the power
to act, speak, or think if he choose to restrains.
○ THE OBJECT OF ETHICS: the principle cause of actions is usually attributed to the doer. If, for
the instance, Pedro and not any malicious demon or spirit is responsible for his act or for the
crime he committed. Because Pedro did the act, it is expected that Pedro suffer the moral or
legal consequences of his act. Two most important type of ethics:
▪ The physical object of ethics
□ The doer of an act (physical object of ethics - moral agent, it does not only refer
to a person but also to institutions and organizations) and the act done by the

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 to a person but also to institutions and organizations) and the act done by the
doer are two different objects of ethics
▪ The nonphysical object of ethics
□ The action done by a moral agent

○ TWO GENERAL FORMS OF ACTS

1. Acts of Man
□ Involuntary Natural Acts
 Involuntary, intuitive or reflex acts exhibited by man (blinking, heartbeat,
sneeze, yawning, etc)
□ Voluntary Acts
 Voluntary and natural, part of daily activities (eating, drinking, etc.)
2. Human Acts
□ Human are included actions that are conscious, deliberate, intentional,
voluntary and are within the preview of human value judgement. It is either
moral or immoral. Classification of human acts:
 Moral / Ethical Acts. Human acts that observe or conform to a standard
or norm of morality.
 Immoral / Unethical Acts. These are human acts that violate or deviate
from a standard of morality

FORMS OF ETHICAL ANALYSIS

▪ Descriptive Ethics. More suited to empirical sciences (sociology, psychology, or social
science), it aims to discover what moral beliefs are held by a given society, social
group or social organization.
▪ Normative Ethics. It is not merely a description of what people find morally good.
□ Consequentialist (Teleogcal) Ethics
 Maintains that the morality of an action is determined solely by its
consequences.
□ Nonconsequential (Deotological) Ethics
 Deontological theories assert that the morality of an action depend on its
intrinsic nature, its motives, or its accordance with so rules or principles
and not its consequences.

○ FORMS OF ETHYCAL ANALYSIS

▪ Authoritarian Ethics
□ Theory morality of appeals to authority and force in determining what
constitute right from wrong, good from bad, moral from immoral
▪ Theological Ethics
□ The will of God is what determines the rightness and wrongness of an act
▪ Legalism of Legalistic Morality
□ Determine right from wrong based on a body of clearly state and well-
documented body of laws
▪ Ethical Egoism
□ Action is right only if it is in the interest of the agent of the doer of the act. It is
not a simple theory of morality.
▪ Situational Ethics
□ Morality of an action depends on the situation and not the application of moral
laws to the case.
▪ Practical Ethics
□ Concerned with answering matter-of-fact questions. Principles for solving
▪ Theoretical Ethics
□ Study the meaning of ethical concepts such as good, right, fairness. Study moral
acts (what makes a right)

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 acts (what makes a right)
▪ Moral Skepticism
□ To examine or to consider. Rejects any claim to certainly thus opposed to any
form of moral dogmatism, or to any attitude of authoritative certainty.

LESSON 1 FUNDAMENTALS OF ETHICS

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1XByPQSTte4bj6Ydr0yIWjsmg9Ol3MrxC

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