ETHICAL

FRAMEWORKS
VIRTUE ETHICS
 What is virtue ethics?
• Character-based ethics: Person rather than action-based.
• Right Action: what a virtuous person would do in a certain
situation
• What are the characteristics and behaviors a good person seeks to
achieve?
• What makes it useful? Humans are more interested in assessing
character rather than the goodness or badness of an action.
• The way to build a good society is to help its members to be good
people, rather than to use laws and punishments to prevent or
deter bad actions
 Virtue Ethics
Good points Bad points
• It centers ethics on • it doesn't provide clear guidance on what to do in
the person and what moral dilemmas
it means to be human • although it does provide general guidance on how to be a
good person
• It includes the whole
of a person's life • presumably a totally virtuous person would know what to
do and we could consider them a suitable role model to
guide us
• there is no general agreement on what the virtues are
• and it may be that any list of virtues will be relative to the
culture in which it is being drawn up.
ARISTOTLE: VIRTUE ETHICS
1. Ethics is an art, not a science. As an art you have to consider all opinions of
good and bad before you can make directives on how one can live his or her
life.
2. Teleological (from telos meaning end): man is directed towards a end.
3. Eudaimonistic (from eudaimonia meaning happiness)
4. Focuses on the ergon of man (ergon is the function or purpose of man)
5. The function or purpose of man is the use of reason. “Man is a rational
animal”
6. The proper use of reason leads to the Good (the good is the telos (end)
and it leads to eudaimonia (happiness)
7. The exercise of reason means the exercise of the “golden mean” or the
“just middle”
Aristotle: The Doctrine of the Mean
 Virtue
•Action under the control of reason: follow
the just middle
•Habit: practice and repetition
•Based on right intention: done for its own
sake
•Social habit, not merely individual habit
CASE STUDY: Shooting of Eldon Maguan
• Eldon Maguan, then a 25-year-old De La Salle University student, was
shot in cold blood during a traffic altercation in 1991. Reports said
Eldon was driving along Wilson St., San Juan City when the incident
took place. When their (Maguan and Go’s) cars nearly bumped each
other, Go alighted from his car, walked over and shot Maguan inside
his car. Maguan then fled from the scene. A security guard at a nearby
restaurant was able to take down petitioner's car plate number.
Verification at the Land Transportation Office (LTO) showed that the
car was registered to one Elsa Ang Go, the wife of Go.
• NOTE: Go just came from a fight with a girlfriend and entered the
opposite of a one-way street
CASE STUDY: Shooting of Frank and Sonya Gregorio
According to Police Colonel Renante Cabico, director of the Tarlac
Provincial Police Office, Nuezca had gone to the Gregorios to investigate
who was shooting boga, an improvised canon usually made of bamboo,
used to make noise during New Year celebrations.
When Nuezca tried to arrest Frank Gregorio, who appeared drunk, his
mother Sonya intervened.
“Nung aarestuhin niya, nakialam daw po ‘yung magulang, ‘yung nanay
niya na si Sonya, na naging biktima po hanggang nabaril na nga po ‘yung
mag-ina,” said Cabico on Monday, December 21, in an interview with
DZBB.
However, Cabico also said Nuezca was “off duty” at the time and had just come back to his
hometown from his usual assignment at the Parañaque City police crime laboratory.
In the video, Nuezca shouted the following words before shooting Sonya and Frank at close
range: “Putang ina mo gusto mo tapusin kita ngayon ah?” (Son of a bitch, you want me to
 VIRTUE ETHICS:
St. Thomas Aquinas
 Aristotelian influence on Aquinas: 4 causes
•MAN: rational (logos), form (morphe),
matter (hyle)
•Man, by virtue of rationality, is superior
compared to other beings
•Man is oriented towards its end (telos)
•Man looks back at an efficient cause (aita)
as its source and origin
 Aquinas’ moral philosophy
• Aquinas’ moral • Follow your
philosophy anchored on conscience, because,
2 fundamental Christian first, it is what leads
notions- conscience and you to your telos, and
creator God second, because you
• Conscience is man’s owe it to God, who is
practical reason oriented both your creator and
towards his telos, God your telos.
NATURAL LAW THEORY: TYPES OF LAWS

ETERNAL LAW
-God’s rational purpose and plan for
all things. Everything has a purpose
and follows a plan
-good- if it fulfills its purpose
 NATURAL LAW THEORY: TYPES OF LAWS
NATURAL LAW: Examples
PRIMARY PRECEPTS (true for all people 1. Protect and preserve
in all instances and are consistent with human life
natural law)
2. Reproduce and educate
-man acting according to reason is one’s offspring
partaking in the natural law
3. Know and worship God
-Good is to be pursued and done and
evil avoided (the guiding principle for all 4. Live in a society
decision-making; true for all people in all
instances)
 NATURAL LAW THEORY: TYPES OF LAWS
HUMAN LAW
-gives rise to secondary precepts
-not always morally acceptable to
follow secondary precepts. It is
only morally acceptable if they
are consistent with the Natural
Law
-Aquinas is not committed to
there being only one secondary
precept. (Rejection of relativism)
SECONDARY PRECEPTS (not generated by
reason but rather imposed by governments,
groups, clubs, societies, etc)
Examples:
1. do not drive above 70mph on a
motorway
2. Do not kidnap people
3. Always wear a helmet when riding a bike
4. Do not hack someone’s bank account
Note: to be able to know what secondary
precept is in accord with the natural law, we
ought to talk and interact with people (to
be a part of a society)
NATURAL LAW THEORY: TYPES OF LAWS
DIVINE LAW
-discovered through revelation
-the divine equivalent of the human law (those
discovered through rational reflection and created by
people)
-laws that God has, in His grace, seen fit to give us and are
those “mysteries”, those rules given by God which we find
in scripture,
i.e the ten commandments
 What would Aquinas say
about suicide and abortion?
AQUINAS’ REACTIONS TO SOME ISSUES
1. SUICIDE
• Natural law: preserve and protect human life,
• suicide is not preserving and protecting human life.
• Therefore, it is irrational to kill oneself and cannot
be part of God’s plan for our life so it is morally
unacceptable
AQUINAS’ REACTIONS TO SOME ISSUES
2. ABORTION
• Natural law: preserve and protect human life,
• Abortion is not preserving and protecting human
life.
• Therefore, it is irrational to kill an innocent human
being and cannot be part of God’s plan for our life
so it is morally unacceptable
When is killing justified?
 DOCTRINE OF DOUBLE EFFECT
SUICIDE
Imagine a case where a soldier sees a grenade thrown
into her barracks. Knowing that she does not have time
to defuse or throw it away, she throws herself on the
grenade. It blows up, killing her but saving other soldiers
in her barracks.
QUESTION: was the soldier’s action wrong or right?
AQUINAS’ ANSWER: this is morally acceptable given DDE
DOCTRINE OF DOUBLE EFFECT

If an act fulfills these 4 conditions, then it is

morally acceptable:
1. The act must be a good one.
2. The act must come about before the
consequences
3. The intention must be good
4. It must be for serious reasons
 Going back to that example…
SUICIDE CONDITIONS OF THE ACTION:
Imagine a case where a
soldier sees a grenade thrown 1. The act is good (to save her fellow
into her barracks. Knowing soldiers)
that she does not have time
to defuse or throw it away, 2. The order is right (she is not doing evil
she throws herself on the so good will happen)
grenade. It blows up, killing
her but saving other soldiers 3. The intention is good (to save her
in her barracks.
fellow soldiers)
QUESTION: was the soldier’s
action wrong or right? 4. The reason is serious it concerns
AQUINAS’ ANSWER: this is people’s lives
morally acceptable given DDE
However….

If the soldier decides to kill herself by

blowing herself up, the intention is not good
so DDE does not permit this suicidal action
 Another example…
Imagine a child brought up in a physically, sexually
and emotionally abusive family. He is frequently
scared for his life and is locked in the house for days
at a time. One day when his father is drunk and
ready to abuse him again he quickly grabs a kitchen
knife and slashes his father’s artery. His father bleeds
out and dies in a matter of minutes.
Do you think the son did anything wrong?
NATURAL LAW: preserve and protect life, killing is morally wrong

AQUINAS: The son’s action was not morally wrong.

AQUINAS: consider the difference between the external act-- the act
that the father was killed, and the internal act—the motive

THIS IS A CASE OF SELF DEFENSE because of the son’s internal action

THEREFORE: Aquinas would think the killing is morally acceptable

 Going back to the case of the son…

√ THE ACT OF THE SON WAS PERFORMED TO SAVE HIS OWN LIFE
(IT IS GOOD)
√
THE ACT TO SAVE HIS LIFE CAME ABOUT FIRST.)

THE SON DID NOT FIRST ACT TO KILL HIS FATHER IN ORDER TO SAVE HIS
√ OWN LIFE. THE INTENTION OF THE SON WAS TO PRESERVE AND PROTECT
HIS LIFE (INTENTION WAS GOOD)

√ THE REASONS WERE SERIOUS AS IT WAS HIS LIFE OR HIS FATHER’S LIFE
However…if we draw a contrasting case…
Imagine that instead of slashing his father in self-defense, the son plans
the killing. He works out the best time, the best day and then sets up a
trip wire causing his father to fall from his window to his death.

QUESTION: Does this action meet the 4 criteria of the DDE?

ANSWER: NO, because the son’s intention is to kill the father rather
than save his own life (it does not satisfy the third condition)