CULTURE

IN MORAL
BEHAVIOR
PASTOR B. MENDEZ I
INSTRUCTOR 1
What is Culture?
Culture is an umbrella term that encompasses the social
behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies,
as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs,
capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.
Some definitions of the term
Culture?
Culture refers to the cumulative deposit of knowledge,
experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies,
religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of
the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired
by a group of people in the course of generations through
individual and group striving.
Some definitions of the term
Culture?
Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for
behavior acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the
distinctive achievement of human groups, including their
embodiments in artifacts; the essential core of culture consists of
traditional ideas and especially their attached values; culture
systems may, on the one hand, be considered as products of action,
on the other hand, as conditioning influences upon further action.
Some definitions of the term
Culture?
Culture is the sum total of the learned behavior of a group
of people that are generally considered to be the tradition of
that people and are transmitted from generation to
generation.
Some definitions of the term
Culture?
Culture in its broadest sense is cultivated behavior; that is
the totality of a person's learned, accumulated experience
which is socially transmitted, or more briefly, behavior
through social learning
Some definitions of the term
Culture?
Culture is symbolic communication. Some of its symbols
include a groups skills, knowledge, attitudes, values, and
motives. The meanings of the symbols are learned and
deliberately perpetuated in a society through its institutions.
What is Culture?
In one sense, culture is used to denote that which is related
to the arts and humanities.
Cultural Artifact: Work of Art, Piece of Music,
Architecture, Technology
- Connie Dearmin, Eastern Florida State College Graphic.
What is Culture?
In a broader sense, culture denotes the practices, beliefs,
and perceptions of a given society.
the nonphysical ideas that people have about their culture,
including beliefs, values, rules, norms, morals, language,
organizations, and institutions.
What is Culture?
Therefore, culture includes all the things individuals learn
while growing up in a particular group: material living; way
of behaving; way of thinking; way of feeling; way of
meaning; way of believing, valuing and meanings.
Cultural knowledge.
Culture’s Role in Moral Behavior
It is always social and communal
It defines normative principles & behavior of the society
It develops restrictions & set boundaries
It conditions the mind
It identifies the authorities/governing individuals/groups
Elements of
Culture
1. Language (wika)
Group of words/ideas having common meaning & shared
to a social situation
Set of sound patterns, words, and sentences having specific
meaning & terminology
Foundation of culture & ticket to the entrance of a social
life
2. Symbols (mga simbolo)
Anything that is used to stand
for something else. People who
share a culture often attach a
specific meaning to an object,
gesture, sound or image.
https://theculturetrip.com/asia/philippines/
articles/how-the-jeepney-became-a-filipino-
national-symbol/
3. Norms (mga pamantayan)
The rules & guidelines w/c specify the behavior of a person
Keep a person w/in the boundary of society & its culture
Gives restriction about something w/c to & w/c not to do.
4. Values (mga halaga)
Anything getting importance in
our daily life becomes our values
Not biological but social
production
4. Beliefs (paniniwala)
Responsible for the spiritual
fulfillment of needs & wants
5. Laws (mga batas)
Written and enforced rules that guide behavior
System of rules that are enforced by some
institution/authorities
Cultural Relativism
Cultural Relativism

Culture may vary from one location to another, from one

society to another, and from one nation to another nation.
This becomes problematic when the ideas and practices of
right/wrong and good/bad of one ethnic group
clashes/overlaps w/ another even in a wider context of
societies, nations & religions. This brings us to the idea of
cultural diversity & relativism.
Universal Values
Universal human values are those ideals that we believe
should be privileged and promoted in the lives of all human
beings in spite of the differing cultures and societies where we
grow up.
Rachels (2018:23) points out that there are some moral rules
that all societies must embrace because these rules are
necessary for society. Ex: lying & murder.
Values take several definitions. Manalang (1982) points out that values are
supposed to animate people in conducting activities that are important to them.
Such activities may be life sustaining in the physical, as well as social sense such
as work or labor. Filipinos comprise several ethno-linguistic groups and profess
different faiths.
Values refer to things which a person prizes, cherishes, and esteems as
important to him. They include ideas, things, or experiences. As human beings,
therefore, we have to choose our values and act upon them wisely. These values
contribute to the promotion of human life. Since values are not equal in their works,
the conduct of a person depends largely on his wise choice of values (Agapay,
1991). Values play a great role in human’s endeavor. For example, when we value
something we do all that we can in order protect that thing even sometimes we risk
or give up everything just to hold on that very thing.
Values are classified according to the following levels of human life to which
they correspond (Agapay, 1991).
Kinds of Values
1. Biological Values. These are necessary for the physical survival of man
or an organization.
1. Life and Health 2. Food and Shelter 3. Work
2. Social Values. These are necessary for the following needs and fulfillment.

1. Leisure and Sex 2. Marriage 3. Family 4. Parental authority

5. Education
3. Rational Values. These are necessary for the following needs and fulfillment.

1. Understanding and control of values 2. Guides for self-control

3. Solidarity 4. Religion
The Filipino Way
The Filipino culture is so rich & diverse that it has greatly
transported in time. Although it is composed of diverse
ethnolinguistic groups spread across the islands, these cultural
communities have somehow retained their indigenous moral values
and belief systems while un/consciously embracing Western
lifestyles brought about by colonial subjugation for 5 centuries &
adverse effects of globalization that followed. Our culture & history
molded us to what we are now.
Filipino Strengths
Pakikipag-kapwa tao/Pakikisama
Family Orientation: extended family orientation
Cheerfulness, joy, and humor
Hardworking & industrious
Faith & religiosity
Flexibility, adaptability & creativity
Ability to survive
Filipino Weaknesses
Kanya kanya syndrome
Extreme personalism
Passivity, lack of initiative, & bahala na system
Lack of discipline, palusot system
Colonial mentality
Lack of self-analysis & self reflection
Extreme family centeredness (good & bad)
Each culture follows certain standards to develop and have their own identity. This would imply that
each culture is unique and needs to be recognized. But as the world becomes accessible to all and
migration is in its peak, that people are already started to learn and adopt other cultures. This
awareness open a new cultural evolution that another new culture was born.
Human consciousness is continuously evolving, is, undisputed fact. People have become
more self-conscious than they used to be. This process of transition can elaborate, how the moral
law is particularized and concretized in specific moral precepts.
Human consciousness evolves both on individual and social level. Morality is the basis of
human existence. Since the time of primitive age, human beings have been morally conscious. So,
moral consciousness has been constant in all stages of human evolution. Yet, since moral
consciousness has been developing continuously, its different stages are the variables of the moral
consciousness. This changing moral consciousness takes different forms. Some of which conform
to the ethical norms, whereas others create some difficulty. While discussing about moral
consciousness we should take into consideration human-inter-relatedness. And this data must be
according to human reason and conductive to the self-realization of human person as human.
The more human being evolves, the more he becomes conscious of his interrelatedness
and his rights and duties. To decide and assess these rights and duties, there have been laid down
some moral precepts. Geographical, climatic and economic conditions are also deciding factors of
human moral consciousness. People of the same stage of human moral consciousness differ in
their moral life, due to different situations.
The moral consciousness of human beings has also been influenced by difference
religious beliefs. Different religious beliefs have produced different moral values.
Corresponding to the changes in religious consciousness, there are changes in moral
consciousness.
But moral consciousness of human being doesn’t change according to the
changes in the civil law. Legality of certain norms doesn’t mean that it is moral also. Also,
in this age of secularity and pluralistic society, it is not the business of the state to
promote the beliefs of any particular section against another.
Human being is continuously evolving and along with his evolution as human
being, his moral consciousness also evolves. As much the person becomes conscious
of himself, his sense of morality also develops.
So, the foundation of all moral precepts is the humanitarian one. Being aware of
one’s existence is not a logical deduction or any mediate inference. The present
existence of human being is with reference to his past and a prospect of future.
The primitive man evolved up to his present state, a journey from jungle raj to
universal law of morality. Perverse customs don’t play any role in the ignorance of moral
precepts. Of course, perverse customs affect the moral decisions of individuals and
confuse him so that he couldn’t discriminate between good and bad.
Thank You!