PHILOSOPHY

Lesson 1

What is philosophy?
1. Philosophy is the love (Philo) of wisdom (Sophia).
2. It is a process, an end itself, and a way of life
3. It deals with ultimate questions like:
• Does God exist?
• Are we morally responsible for all our actions?
• What can we know?
• What principles do we ought to follow?
• Is beauty measurable?
4. Deals with the ultimate reason of being from the perspective of natural reason
alone.
5. A science and art in the search for meaning of life.
6. Despite the differences, all philosophers agree that philosophy is an activity that
ought to be done

MORALITY
● Consideration of what is right or wrong; good or bad “based” on personal
feelings, institutional rules, and/or cultural norms

ETHICS
● Study of morality in the light of human reason alone
● Examines and assesses the soundness and appropriateness of personal,
institutional, and cultural moral standards

RELATION OF PHILOSOPHY TO ETHICS

● To engage in the study of ethics is to reason about the ultimate questions of
morality. Ethics focuses on two general questions:
• What is the nature and methodology of moral judgments?
• What principles we ought to live by?
● Ethics has two main branches, namely:
• Metaethics
• Normative ethics (and Special/Applied Ethics)

BRANCHES OF ETHICS

Meta-ethics
● Also known as analytic ethics
● Studies the nature and methodology of moral judgments
Two parts
 ● • The nature of moral judgments, primarily concerned with the definition of
terms “good” and “ought.”
● •The method of selecting moral principles
Example:
1. Cultural relativism
Nature of moral judgment: An action is good if it is socially approved.
Method of picking moral principles: Pick your moral principles by following societal
norms.
2. Subjectivism
Nature of moral judgment: An action is good if it gives immediate satisfaction to the
doer of the act.
Method of picking moral principles: Pick your moral principles by following your
feelings.
3. Supernaturalism
Nature of moral judgment: An action is good if it is desired by God.
Method of picking moral principles: Pick your moral principles by following God's will
4. Intuitionism
Nature of moral judgment: An action is good according to common sense.
Method of picking moral principles: Pick your moral principles by following common
sense.
5. Emotivism
Nature of moral judgments: These are exclamations; neither true nor false.
Method of picking moral principles: consider them only as exclamations

SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDYING ETHICS

● It deepens our reflection on life’s most important questions.
● It can help us to think better about morality.
● It can sharpen our general thinking.
● It helps one become a better person

CULTURAL RELATIVISM
Lesson 2

● It looks at “good” or “bad” as a relative term for it is socially conditioned,

different cultures have different morality
● Good is understood according to their socio-cultural context - socially
accepted by a given society
● There are no moral truths that hold for all kinds of people at all times - moral
relativism

CLAIMS:
● 1. Different societies have different moral codes.
 ● 2. The moral code of a society determines what is right in that society; that is,
if the moral code of a society says that a certain action is right, then that
action is right, at least within that society.
● 3. There is no objective standard that can be used to judge one societal code
better than another.
● 4. The moral code of our society has no special status; it is merely one among
many.
● 5. It is mere arrogance for us to try to judge the conduct of other people based
on our context.

GROUNDS FOR BELIEVING CR

● morality is a product of culture
● cultures disagree widely about morality
● there is no clear way to resolve moral disputes

MORAL RELATIVISM vs MORAL REALISM

● No universal and objective good
● There is universal and objective good

MORAL RELATIVISM
● Morality is relative to something society, personal feelings, and religion.
● There is no such thing as good-in-itself. The term “good” needs a further
reference to complete its sense.

Example:
1. Cultural relativism – morality is determined by culture/society
2. Subjectivism – morality is relative to a person’s likes and dislikes.

MORAL REALISM
● Some actions are objectively right or wrong, regardless of what anyone may
think or feel
● Differentiate moral rules from government laws or rules of etiquette

Example:
Intuitionism is one of the best examples of an ethical view that falls under moral
realism. It argues that there are objective truths about morality. However, they are
self-evident truths, which can only be accessed by a mature mind

OBJECTIONS
Analytical in the sense that the presence or absence of good is not necessarily
determined by different cultures.
Practical such as:
a) rejects minority views;
b) does not allow you to think otherwise;
c) makes one uncritical about the norms of one’s society;
d) ignores the possibility of a society having conflicting moral views; and
e) does not provide a clear way to address moral diversity within a society

SUBJECTIVISM
Lesson 3

● good is “based” on whatever will give immediate satisfaction to or on the likes

and dislikes of the doer of the action.
● Different from cultural relativism&subjectivism claims that morality is relative to
an individual’s feelings or emotions.
● Falls under moral relativism, which argues that morality is always relative to
something
● That morality is entirely dependent on our emotions
● The term “good” is a relative term that relies on personal likes and dislikes
● and “gives us freedom”, without being held back by our society’s norms
● As free individuals, we should not just conform to the standards of society.
Our feelings should serve as our guide in dealing with moral matters

MORAL FREEDOM
● freedom is important in the discussion of morality. They believe that, as
rational beings, we should always have the freedom to think for ourselves and
to form our moral judgments whenever we deal with moral issues
● Subjectivists see moral freedom as part of the process of growing up
● As children, we get values mostly through our parents and peer groups.
However, growing up requires that we question our inherited values
● As we reach adulthood, we question the values that we’ve learned. We might
accept these values, or we might reject them, or we might partly accept them
and partly reject them. The choice is up to us

IMMEDIATE SATISFACTION
● Some might object that there are things that we like that aren’t good.
For example: one might say "I like smoking, but it isn’t good."In
response, subjectivists differentiate between immediate satisfaction and
evaluating the consequences. It would be clearer to say "I like the immediate
satisfaction that I get from smoking, but I don't like the consequences.
● We should base on immediate satisfaction, not on the action's consequences
● Subjectivism holds that moral truths are relative to the individual

AGAINST SUBJECTIVISM
● Subjectivism leads to bizarre implications about moral education. Following
subjectivism, we would just teach children to follow their feelings, and to go by
their likes and dislikes.
● Morally immature
 ● The biggest problem with subjectivism is that it makes goodness depend
completely on what we like

SUPERNATURALISM

● Religion is a strong force in the discussion of morality

● Ask someone why killing is bad, his or her usual response would be because
it goes against God's ten commandments—the action goes against His will
● In meta-ethical theory, morality is entirely based on religion
● Morality is “based” on either social approval or personal feelings

MORAL JUDGMENTS DESCRIBE GOD’S WILL:

● The Bible teaches it
● All basic laws of every sort depend on God's will, and
● God is the only plausible source of objective moral duties

● God is not "all good"

BELIEF IN BIBLE
● God” is simply “the powerful, all-knowing Creator of the world.”
● The Bible always uses "good" as interchangeable with "what God desires."
Also, the writing of the Ten Commandments vividly teaches supernaturalism

BELIEF IN GOD
● it is necessary to presume belief in God
● all basic laws of every sort depend on God's will
● morality is dependent on God's will

BELIEF IN OBJECTIVE MORALITY

● the only source of obligation that works is God:
could only be a non-person, individual preferences, society, or God

non-religious alternatives would not work:

● a non-person: they are inferior to persons.
● individual preferences: you could release yourself from any obligation at will.
● society: they have no moral authority over us if they tell us to do what is
wrong.

SOURCE OF GOD’S WILL

The best way to know God's will is to combine these four sources:
● Bible: All sacred texts have the same general message about God's will--God
wants us to have concern and love for each other and treat others as we want
to be treated.
 ● Church: We should look at church as a wise teacher- we listen and try to
learn, but we may disagree on some details
● Prayer: To avoid confusing our feelings as a sign of God's will, we need inputs
from the Bible and the church to help us form our conscience.
● Reason: God implants our moral intuitions to help us know His will.

SUPERNATURALISM
● morality is relative to something. Supernaturalism gives us an objective basis
for morality.
● Many supernaturalists are prepared to die in defense of their moral beliefs.

INTUITIONISM

● ideas we accept to be true even without further proof or justification

● moral truths do not need further justification
● as "common-sense morality," believes that objective moral truths do not
depend on human thinking or feeling. Morality should be based on moral
intuitions
common-sense approach:
● good is indefinable,
● there are objective moral truths, and
● the basic moral truths are self-evident to a mature mind

AGAINST
● defined using ideas from sense experience.
● believe we cannot prove moral truths from descriptive facts alone

HUME’S LAW (David Hume)

● we cannot deduce an "ought" statement from an "is." This means that we
cannot deduce moral conclusions from facts about society, individual feelings,
and God.

OBJECTIVE MORAL TRUTHS

● There are objective moral truths. These are the kinds of truth that do not
depend on human thinking or feeling
● belief in objective values is common sense
● we classify them as common sense knowledge as they are truths that are true
of their very nature and that could not have been false

SELF EVIDENT TRUTHS

● basic moral principles are self-evident truths—known truths that require no
further proof or justification
● reflection and intellectual maturity
● a careful examination uncovers implications that clash with our intuitions.
 EMOTIVISM
● "Killing is bad," such a statement does not describe anything in this world
● Emotivism contends that moral judgments “only” express positive or negative
feelings
● Emotivism sees moral judgment as an expression of feeling, not a statement
that is true or false
● There cannot be moral truths or moral knowledge
● Explains morality as simpler
● Explains more of the facts about morality
● Accurately explains what we mean by "good" and "bad."
●

CLAIM:
● In logical Positivism, “only” two types of statements make genuine truth claims
that are true or false. First, there are empirical statements, Second there are
analytic statements

MORAL REASONING
● We cannot reason about basic moral principles. We can use emotional means
but not reason. To resolve moral disputes, we need to convince others by
making them feel differently about the action we are dealing with
● Reason in ethics has the role of helping us to get our facts straight then our
feelings take over

AGAINST
● Moral judgments are not always emotional
● It's implausible to equate them all with exclamations, whose main purpose is
to express emotion
● "good" and "bad" do not always translate plausibly into exclamations