The Ethical Dimension of Human Existence

Ethics, generally speaking, is about matters such as the good thing that we should pursue and
the bad thing that we should avoid; the right ways in which we could or should act and the
wrong ways of acting. It is about what is acceptable and unacceptable in human behavior. It
may involve obligations that we are expected to fulfil, prohibitions that we are required to
respect, or ideals that we are encouraged to meet. Ethics as a subject for us to study is about
determining the grounds or bases for a specific set of values with particular and special
significance to human life.

In this unit, we will consider the scope of the more specific type of valuation that we would refer
to as the ethical dimension of human life, and then we will clarity some of the terms that will
guide us in our thinking of ethics, and finally we will confront some ways by which thinking about
ethics can be forestalled if one is not careful.

In this unit, you are expected to:

1.identify the ethical aspect of human life and the scope of ethical thinking:

2.define and explain the terms that are relevant to ethical thinking; and

3. evaluate the difficulties that are involved in maintaining certain commonly held notions on
ethics.