Alvis-Jybran A. Alih BSCEN 2 GEC107 – J15.

Instructions:

Pick and answer three questions from the list. I'm changing the instructions a little
bit from your syllabus and would require you to answer each question with exactly
300 words.

Questions:

a. Explain how the concepts of telos and the division of the soul are constitutive of
Aristotle’s idea of eudaimonia.

b. How does one achieve moral excellence?

c. Pick and discuss two threats to ethics as outlined by Blackburn.

d. Pick and discuss two criticisms against Aristotle’s virtue ethics.

e. Imagine yourself as the mayor of your local town. As a public servant, how would
you act in accordance with virtue ethics considering the problem of lacking vaccine
supply? How would you, as a public servant, act virtuously in this scenario?

f. From your own understanding of Aristotle’s ideas, why should we still act morally
and ethically?
Answers:

1. How does one achieve moral excellence?

One can achieve moral excellence by thinking first of what to do before doing it.
Not just spouting/doing whatever things that comes into your mind, first, assess the
situation whatever it is. Do not let yourself be overcome by something, by calming
oneself, one can assess the situation properly. But be wary of hurting someone’s
feelings even if what you did is right in whatever ideology you could think of, not all
humans are created with the same principles and ideologies in mind. Maybe what you
did is right for you but not for the others, same as with the Sharia law that the Muslims
have, although it is said in the Quran, holy book in the Islamic religion, that it is
forbidden to kill someone because killing one human is akin to killing humanity but if
that person kills a person without any fault done by that person who he/she killed, in
other words, just for the fun of it, then the relative of the person whom he/she killed are
given the right to kill the killer though in some cases, the family of the killer can give a
blood money to the victim’s family but in another religion such as the Iglesia ni Cristo,
if someone from their member killed a person, the only penalty in accordance to their
church is only expulsion. Always think that no matter what we do, someone sees it, if
not human, a divine being that created everything. By having this thought, one can
simply be afraid of doing whatever it is that can cause harm to someone or anyone
around you. Doing this is easy to say but hard to do but for someone who experiences
this in his/her day by day situation, one can simply adapt by this way of thinking.
 2. Imagine yourself as the mayor of your local town. As a public servant, how
would you act in accordance with virtue ethics considering the problem of
lacking vaccine supply? How would you, as a public servant, act virtuously in
this scenario?

As a public servant in service to the people of my local town and with this kind
of situation, well, as far as I know, in politics, the mayor, which is the executive of a
local town have the power to released an executive order in regards to situation such as
the pandemic. In line with this, if I were the mayor, I need to assess the situation first,
think of the best possible solution that is necessary in case by case situations. Well, the
best possible way is to contact the higher ups in which in my case, the central
government, to send more vaccines in my local town and if that did not work, I would
ask the treasury department in my local town to see if there is an excess/unused budgets
or if possible issue an executive order redirecting the budget that is meant to less needed
things for the situation to be assessed and also ask the treasury department in my local
province to give my town more budget for us to buy more vaccines needed for the
populace. Next is to limit the movement of the people within my area of responsibility
by closing whatever place necessary thereby limiting the chances of face to face
interaction and the chances of the people having those infectious disease. Then
categorize each people within my area from the neediest up to the least needy for a
proper distribution of the vaccine supply. Finally, distribute it to the people of the
community by prioritizing the neediest of the vaccine which is the frontliners which
includes the health workers, social workers, military and the police officers as well as
the government workers who are needed to report for duty and least prioritizing the
common people aged between 18 and 65.
 3. From your own understanding of Aristotle’s ideas, why should we still act
morally and ethically?

If there are no people who would still act morally and ethically, then the world is the
worst place to be. What I mean is that, if us, people, does whatever he/she wants
without acting morally and ethically, we may hurt other people not just physically but
mentally as well. In the first place, we are a human being that have emotions and
feelings. One can be fragile while the other is not, we do not have the same
circumstances in life. Each and every people do not live the same lives. We do get hurt
and blame ourselves for incapability in life. For instance, if one is a handicapped but
hardworking and that someone applied for a work to a certain company and that certain
company treats that handicapped person the same way they do for someone who is not
disabled, then that person would be happy but if that person were to be rejected due to
his/her disability in life then he/she would feel sad and blame his/her disability. Well,
acting morally and ethically would make the world a better place to live in. Knowing
that people act morally and ethically, we can trust each other even though we do not
know each other and that’s a good thing. We can go out at night knowing we would be
safe, go to places we don’t know and still feel safe, ask for help and know that people
would help us. But if there’s none, well, the opposite of my examples may happen
because that is how it is. Still, there is some things in life that we do in which we should
not follow what is ethical and moral because there is instances in life that acting morally
and ethically could not solve the problem or the situation.