ETHICS: ITS MEANING

NATURE AND SCOPE

 ETYMOLOGICAL MEANING OF
ETHICS
• Ethics is derived from the Greek word “ethos” which
can be roughly translated in English as custom or a
particular way and manner of acting and behaving.
Thus, custom would also mean here as a form of
behavior or character.

ETHICS_SUMMER 2023
 ETYMOLOGICAL MEANING OF
ETHICS
• The Latin equivalent for custom is “mos” or mores. It
is from this root word that the term “moral” or
morality is derived (Agapay 2008:1). The two terms,
ethics and morality, in this sense, therefore, have
literally the same meaning.
 ETHICS AND MORALITY
DISTINGUISHED
• Both ethics and morality deal with the goodness or badness,
rightness or wrongness of the human act or human conduct.
“But in ethics, we specifically study morality.
• Morality gives ethics a particular perspective of what to study
about – that is the rectitude of whether an act is good or bad,
right or wrong. Morality provides with a quality that
determines and distinguishes right conduct from wrong
conduct”
 ETHICS: A PHILOSOPHY OF
ACTION
• While Ethics arms the person with a theoretical knowledge of the morality of human acts, so
he/she may know what to do as well as how to do it, there is a whole world of difference
between knowing and doing, knowledge and action.
 ETHICS: A PRACTICAL
DISCIPLINE
• Teaching of ethics or morality may regard it as a purely academic endeavor.
• Instilling ethics and morality to student is through fear and intimidation
• Young generation are practically brought up to a question and challenge almost everything,
particularly on how one ought to behave morally.
 MATERIAL OBJECT OF ETHICS

• The subject matter of Ethics as particular field of study

is human conduct or the human act.
• Human conduct which the science of ethics mainly deals
with, refers to the act that is done by a human person
which he/she is conscious of, which proceeds from one’s
deliberation and freewill, and thus, for which one is hel
morally responsible.
 FORMAL OBJECT OF ETHICS
• The formal object of ethics in its investigation is the morality or the
moral rectitude of human act or human conduct.
• Ethics deals with human person’s right conduct, whether his/her
actions conform to right reason which is the immediate norm of
morality.
• Morality is that quality in the human act by which is it judged to be
good or bad right or wrong, moral or immoral.
• Ethics does this thought he use of the natural light of human reason
and experience alone.
 DIVISION OF ETHICS
• Ethics, as a specific field or branch of philosophy, is
traditionally divided into two general areas or major parts: a.
General Ethics b. Special (Applied) Ethics.
• General Ethics is usually considered as the basic course in this
study of Ethics. It mainly deals with the morality of human acts
(its major elements of constituents and modifiers, the normal of
morality (law and conscience), and the specific determinant of
morality (major sources of morality).
 DIVISION OF ETHICS…

• Special or Applied Ethics essentially applies the specific

and fundamental normal and principles of General Ethics
in various specific areas of human life and activity, both in
the individual and social domain (Individual Ethics and
Social Ethics), such as in the areas of family, the State, the
Church, and other societal issues and concerns (rights and
duties, ecology/environment, labor and work ethics, sex
and marriage, bioethics, politics and government, etc.)
 KINDS OF VALUATION AND
TYPES OF NORMS
One very important element by which human conduct is
determined and assessed in terms of its morality is in
reference to a norm.
What is norm?
A norm is here understood as a rule, standard, or measure.
Specifically, it is something by which an act or conduct is
measure as good ro bad, right or wrong, moral or immoral.
 KINDS OF VALUATION AND
TYPES OF NORMS
• Richard Gula defines norm as “the criteria of judgment about
the sorts of person we ought to be and the sorts of actions we
ought to perform.
• Thus, by norm of morality, we mean the standard of right and
wrong in human actions. This is precisely the very reason why
certain actions are considered as morally good and others as
morally bad (Montemayor 1994:17)
 FOUR TYPES OF NORMS
1. Technical Norm – this refers mainly to man’s needs which come from his
bodily space-time limitations.
2. Societal Norm – this has to do with the need for group cohesion and for
strengthening the bonds that keep the community together.
3. Aesthetic Norm – This refers to typical perceptual forms regarding color,
shape, space, movement, sound, feeling and emotion, touch and texture,
taste, scent and odor.
4. Ethical or Moral Norm – The moral refers to some ideal vision of [a
huma person], an ideal stage or perfection of [his/her being], which serves
as the ultimate goal and norm.
 CHARACTERISTICS OF MORAL
PRINCIPLES
1. Reasonability – this mean that primarily, [m]oral judgments must be
backed by good reason [or arguments.
2. Impartiality – this means that an ethical or moral rule should be
neutral when it comes to the question as to who are its recipients.
3. Prescriptivity – this refers to the practical, or action-guiding nature of
morality. This is also “the commanding aspect of morality.”
4. Overridingness – Moral standards must have hegemony. This means
that they should reign supreme over all the other standards or norms of
valuation, whatever they may be.
 CHARACTERISTICS OF MORAL
PRINCIPLES..
5. Autonomous from Arbitrary Authority – moral standards should
stand on their own logic independent of the arbitrariness of the majority.
6. Publicity – this means that moral rules and principles must be made
public if they are to serve as clear guidelines to our actions.
7. Practicability – moral rules should be impossible to achieve or else
they are not for men but for angels.
8. Universalizability – a moral rue or principle must be applicable to
everyone, without exception, provided of course that all people are in a
relevantly similar situation or context.
 CHAPTER 2

The Morality of Human Acts

and Moral Accountability
 DEFINITION OF HUMAN ACTS
• Human acts (Actus humani) refer to “actions that proceed from
insight into the nature and purpose of one’s doing and from
consent of free will” (Peschke 1985: 247)
• Specifically, huma acts are those actions done by a person in
certain situation shwich are essentially the result of his/her
conscious knowledge, freedon and voluntariness or consent.
• Hence, these actions are performed by man knowingly, freely,
and voluntarily (Agapay 2008: 21)
 BASIC ELEMENTS OF HUMAN
ACTS
1. The act must be deliberate
2. The act must be performed in freedom.
3. The act must be done voluntarily.
 MAJOR DETERMINANTS OF THE
MORALITY OF HUMAN ACTS
1. The Act Itself or the Object of the Act
The act itself or the object of the act refers to the action that is done or performed by an agent, or
simply, WHAT the person does.

2. The Motive or the Intention

The motive is the purpose or intention that for the sake of which something is done. It is the reason
behind our acting. It answers the question “WHY” the person does what he does?
 REFERENCES
• Apolinar Henry Fernandez, Emmanuel Grumo, Eric Reambonanza. ETHICS Deciding
What’s Right & Wrong. Copyright 2018