Ethics Module 1
- enjoyment come from worldly goods and physical pleasure.
Plato – A good life means “secured enjoyment of what is good and
beautiful”.
- best life is one whereby a person is either pursuing the pleasure of
exercising intellectual virtuous.
- postulated Four Cardinal Pillars, useful tools for grounding human
beings in excellence and be key to greater happiness.
Democritus – men find happiness neither utilizing the body nor through
possessions, but uprightness and wisdom.
- “physical strength without intelligence does nothing to improve the
mind”
Socrates – key to happiness is to turn attention away from the body
and towards the soul.
- a good life pertains to obtaining happiness, in which he argued that
happiness is obtainable through human effort (The Pursuit of
Happiness, n.d.)
Aristotle – good life for him is a moral concept.
- concepts of happiness “how should we live?” that pertains to the
character or traits of individuals.
- living virtuous life is the ultimate goal of human existence, good life is
a life of excellence.
- all human life consists of activity. That human engages to arrive at
some end and this end be good.
Confucius – happiness can be acquired through rituals as “religious
sacrifice”.
- reiterate the Golden Means State: to choose what is good and firmly
hold it fast.
- rituals as criterion for virtues such as respectfulness, carefulness,
courage and forthrightness.
- by following rituals, a man can be assure of his actions that it is within
the pillars of the actions of man.
Lao Tzu – the pathway to good life is emptiness and being still.
- “To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders.”
“The usefulness of a pot comes from its emptiness. Empty yourself of
everything, let your mind become still.”
- pave a road map to happy life in his writings in the Tao Te Ching.
- We need to let go of our schedules, worries and complex thoughts for
a while and simply experience the world.
- If we are too busy and always doing things in a haste, we deprived
ourselves of the human experience that came from nature as part of
our inheritance.
Thomas Aquinas – happiness and enjoyment are two different matters.
- happiness may be possible only in the afterlife.
- true knowledge can only be found in knowledge of God.
- reiterate two categories of virtue: Aristotelian and Theological virtues
- Aristotelian: wisdom, courage, moderation, and friendship
- Theological: through Jesus Christ, faith, hope, and love.
Ethics – comes from the Greek word “ethos” means customs or
character.
- branch of philosophy that is used to study ideal human behavior and
ideal ways of living.
- systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and
wrong behavior. Of how people should act and definition of right
conduct and the good life.
- used in connection with the activities of organization and with
professional codes of conducts.
Morals- used in connection with the ways in which individuals conduct
their personal, private lives, often in relation to personal probity, lawful
conduct and acceptable standards of interpersonal behaviour.
Ethics said to be concerned with the normative realm because
philosophers attempt to determine how one ought to act in the course
of their lives or with prescribing action.
Normative Ethics- branch of ethics concerned with establishing how
things should or ought to be, how to value them, which actions are right
or wrong.
- it attempts to develop a set of rules governing human conduct, or a
set of norms for action.
- involves moral judgment based on ethical norm or theory.
- consists both basic moral principles and values and the particular
moral rules that govern people’s behavior, which is right or moral and
wrong or immoral.
The three (3) task of Normative Ethics are the following:
1. To form into a related whole the various norms, rules and
values of a society’s morality.
2. To find the basic principle from which the particular norm can
be derived.
3. To justify an ethical norm or moral principle. (Roa, 2012
Categories of Normative Ethics
1. Consequentialism – teleological
- argues that the morality of an action is contingent on the action’s
outcome or result.
- morally right action is one that produces a good outcome or
consequence.