Unit Three

Unit Overview

This unit provides a closer glimpse to the realm of morality, what is right and wrong
and the immediate consequences of our actions. This unit will discuss the different moral
standards sets within our society that guides our actions. Lastly this unit will provide the
readers to be acquitted to the different dilemmas that we could encounter in our daily
interaction with our fellow people and members of our core group or the society at large,
this unit will help us in our decision making.

Unit Aims

 To provide a concrete understanding on how morality is vital in our social

interaction.
 To help readers to be guided to the different moral standards.
 To elucidate our cognition to the various ethical dilemmas.

Unit Learning Outcomes

By the end of this unit, students should be able to:

 Explain morality and ethics.

 Differentiate the various moral standards and the dilemmas of our moral actions.
 Ethical key concepts

Moral vs. Non moral standards

Morality may refer to the standards that a person or a group has about what is
right and wrong, or good and evil. Accordingly, moral standards are those concerned
with or relating to human behavior, especially the distinction between good and bad
(or right and wrong) behavior. Moral standards involve the rules people have about
the kinds of actions they believe are morally right and wrong, as well as the values
they place on the kinds of objects they believe are morally good and morally bad.
Some ethicists equate moral standards with moral values and moral principles.

Non-moral standards refer to rules that are unrelated to moral or ethical

considerations. Either these standards are not necessarily linked to morality or by
nature lack ethical sense. Basic examples of non-moral standards include rules of
etiquette, fashion standards, rules in games, and various house rules. Technically,
religious rules, some traditions, and legal statutes (i.e. laws and ordinances) are non-
moral principles, though they can be ethically relevant depending on some factors and
contexts.

The following six (6) characteristics of moral standards further differentiate them
from non-moral standards:

a. Moral standards involve serious wrongs or significant benefits.

Moral standards deal with matters which can seriously impact, that is, injure or
benefit human beings. It is not the case with many non-moral standards. For instance,
following or violating some basketball rules may matter in basketball games but does
not necessarily affect one’s life or wellbeing.

b. Moral standards ought to be preferred to other values.

 Moral standards have overriding character or hegemonic authority. If a moral
standard states that a person has the moral obligation to do something, then he/she
is supposed to do that even if it conflicts with other non-moral standards, and even
with self-interest. Moral standards are not the only rules or principles in society, but
they take precedence over other considerations, including aesthetic, prudential, and
even legal ones. A person may be aesthetically justified in leaving behind his family in
order to devote his life to painting, but morally, all things considered, he/she probably
was not justified. It may be prudent to lie to save one’s dignity, but it probably is morally
wrong to do so. When a particular law becomes seriously immoral, it may be people’s
moral duty to exercise civil disobedience.

There is a general moral duty to obey the law, but there may come a time when
the injustice of an evil law is unbearable and thus calls for illegal but moral
noncooperation (such as the antebellum laws calling for citizens to return slaves to
their owners).

c. Moral standards are not established by authority figures.

Moral standards are not invented, formed, or generated by authoritative bodies or

persons such as nations’ legislative bodies. Ideally instead, these values ought to be
considered in the process of making laws. In principle therefore, moral standards
cannot be changed nor nullified by the decisions of particular authoritative body. One
thing about these standards, nonetheless, is that its validity lies on the soundness or
adequacy of the reasons that are considered to support and justify them.

d. Moral standards have the trait of universalizability.

Simply put, it means that everyone should live up to moral standards. To be more
accurate, however, it entails that moral principles must apply to all who are in the
relevantly similar situation. If one judges that act A is morally right for a certain person
P, then it is morally right for anybody relevantly similar to P.

This characteristic is exemplified in the Gold Rule, “Do unto others what you would
them do unto you (if you were in their shoes)” and in the formal Principle of Justice, “It
 cannot be right for A to treat B in a manner in which it would be wrong for B to treat A,
merely on the ground that they are two different individuals, and without there being
any difference between the natures or circumstances of the two which can be stated
as a reasonable ground for difference of treatment.” Universalizability is an extension
of the principle of consistency, that is, one ought to be consistent about one’s value
judgments.

e. Moral standards are based on impartial considerations.

Moral standard does not evaluate standards on the basis of the interests of a
certain person or group, but one that goes beyond personal interests to a universal
standpoint in which each person’s interests are impartially counted as equal.
Impartiality is usually depicted as being free of bias or prejudice. Impartiality in morality
requires that we give equal and/or adequate consideration to the interests of all
concerned parties.

f. Moral standards are associated with special emotions and vocabulary.

Prescriptivity indicates the practical or action-guiding nature of moral standards.

These moral standards are generally put forth as injunction or imperatives (such as,
‘Do not kill,’ ‘Do no unnecessary harm,’ and ‘Love your neighbor’). These principles
are proposed for use, to advise, and to influence to action. Retroactively, this feature
is used to evaluate behavior, to assign praise and blame, and to produce feelings of
satisfaction or of guilt.

If a person violates a moral standard by telling a lie even to fulfill a special purpose,
it is not surprising if he/she starts feeling guilty or being ashamed of his behavior
afterwards. On the contrary, no much guilt is felt if one goes against the current fashion
trend (e.g. refusing to wear tattered jeans).

Ethical dilemmas’

An ethical dilemma or ethical paradox is a decision-making problem between two

possible moral imperatives, neither of which is unambiguously acceptable or preferable.
The complexity arises out of the situational conflict in which obeying one would result in
transgressing another. Sometimes called ethical paradoxes in moral philosophy, ethical
dilemmas may be invoked to refute an ethical system or moral code, or to improve it so
as to resolve the paradox.

An ethical dilemma is a decision-making problem between two possible moral

imperatives, neither of which is unambiguously acceptable or preferable. It's sometimes
called an ethical paradox in moral philosophy. Examples: Abortion debate, Graded
absolutism, Samaritan's dilemma, Suicide, Marriage, Euthanasia etc.

Ethical dilemmas can be solved in various ways, for example by showing that the
claimed situation is only apparent and does not really exist (thus is not a paradox
logically), or that the solution to the ethical dilemma involves choosing the greater good
and lesser evil (as discussed in value theory), or that the whole framing of the problem
omits creative alternatives (such as peacemaking), or (more recently) that situational
ethics or situated ethics must apply because the case cannot be removed from context
and still be understood. See also case-based reasoning on this process. An alternative
to situational ethics is graded absolutism.

A popular ethical conflict is that between an imperative or injunction not to steal

and one to care for a family that you cannot afford to feed without stolen money. Debates
on this often revolve around the availability of alternate means of income or support such
as a social safety net, charity, etc. The debate is in its starkest form when framed as
stealing food. Under an ethical system in which stealing is always wrong and letting one's
family die from starvation is always wrong, a person in such a situation would be forced
to commit one wrong to avoid committing another, and be in constant conflict with those
whose view of the acts varied. However, there are no legitimate ethical systems in which
stealing is more wrong than letting one's family die. Ethical systems do in fact allow for,
and sometimes outline, tradeoffs or priorities in decisions. Resolving ethical dilemmas is
rarely simple or clear-cut and very often involves revisiting similar dilemmas that recur
within societies.

According to some philosophers and sociologists, e.g. Karl Marx and Marxist
ethics, it is the different life experience of people and the different exposure of them and
their families in these roles (the rich constantly robbing the poor, the poor in a position of
constant begging and subordination) that creates social class differences. In other words,
ethical dilemmas can become political and economic factions that engage in long-term
recurring struggles.

Moral dilemma

H.E. Mason (1996), expounds that moral conflicts is a fact of moral life. It is
something that we can never do away with it. It is embedded in the crucial decisions that
we make, particularly in moments that we are faced with is and what should be.

As moral as we want to be, our convictions are oftentimes challenged, and if not strong
enough, are dejectedly compromised. These challenges are products of the evolving
values and moral systems of our society. It is thus necessary that we are in tough with
the norms in our society as it mirrors the moral consciousness of the people. Moral
dilemmas due to inconsistencies in our principles. In understanding the morality of an
individual, we need to emphasize that the majority of the human persons are those who
are sturdily exposed to stand fast by their reflective chosen principles and ideals when
tempted by consideration chosen that are morally irrelevant. As Mason explains, we will
experience a moral dilemmas if we are faced with two actions, each of which, it would be
correct to say in the appropriate sense of ought that is ought to be done, and both of
which we cannot do. This means that we either straight or do it the other way. We, then,
ought to make moral choices, with our own moral actions.

The three levels of moral Dilemmas

Ethical dilemmas also arise in our workplace. The stress in the workplace is not only a
result of beating deadlines and what not, but also of the ethical issues surrounding the
workplace. As it is very important that employees live up to certain standards prescribed
by the companies and organizations, it is likewise significant for the latter to uphold ethical
standards in an for the company. Smith (n.d), explains the three levesl of ethical standards
in a business organization where we might find ourselves having ethical dilemmas:
1. Individual. The dilemma here is when the employee’s ethical standards are in
opposition to that of his or her employer, which could lead to tensions in the
workplace.
2. Organizational. Ethical standards are seen in company policies. Still and all, there
might be a gap between those who run the business whose ethical standards deviate
from that of the organization. This might cause ethical challenges and conflicts for
those who are working in the company.
3. Systematic. Also called as the systematic level, here, ethics is predisposed by the
larger operating environment of the company. Political pressures, economic
conditions, cosietal attitudes and others, can affects the operating standards and
policies of the organization where it might face moral dilemmas outside of the
organization but within the macro-society where it belongs.

Individual moral dilemmas are far more challenging as we are tasked to decide the
morality of our actions. In order for us to manage ethical challenges, there is always that
need to make sure that our actions have been well thought out.

Freedom as the foundation of moral act

Freedom, generally, is having the ability to act or change without constraint.

Something is "free" if it can change easily and is not constrained in its present state. In
philosophy and religion, it is associated with having free will and being without undue or
unjust constraints, or enslavement, and is an idea closely related to the concept of liberty.
A person has the freedom to do things that will not, in theory or in practice, be prevented
by other forces. Outside of the human realm, freedom generally does not have this
political or psychological dimension. A rusty lock might be oiled so that the key has
freedom to turn, undergrowth may be hacked away to give a newly planted sapling
freedom to grow, or a mathematician may study an equation having many degrees of
freedom. In mechanical engineering, "freedom" describes the number of independent
motions that are allowed to a body or system, which is generally referred to as degrees
of freedom.
 In philosophical discourse, freedom is discussed in the context of free will and self-
determination, balanced by moral responsibility. Advocates of free will regard freedom of
thought as innate to the human mind, while opponents regard the mind as thinking only
the thoughts that a purely deterministic brain happens to be engaged in at the time.

Moral act

A human act. One performed with knowledge and free will. It is called a moral act
because it is always either morally good or bad. Every consciously deliberate action is
therefore a moral act.

Three conditions of the Human (Moral) Act

Human (moral) acts are acts which are chosen by exercising one’s free will as a
consequence of a judgment of conscience. Human acts are moral acts because they
express the good or evil when someone is performing them. The morality of acts is
defined by the choices that one makes in accordance with the authentic good, which is
based on the eternal law that has a desire for God as our end goal. This external law is
the “natural law” based on God’s Divine Wisdom, made known to us through His
supernatural revelation. A human act is thus morally good when we make choices
coherent to our true good and brings us closer to God.

The goodness of a moral act is assessed based on three conditions: object (and
its goodness), intention (or end as expressed by Saint Thomas Aquinas), and
circumstances. For a moral act to be considered good, all three conditions must be met.
A defect in any of these three conditions causes the act to be deemed morally evil.

Difference between Human Act and Act of Man

A human act involves a person deliberately exercising their intellect and will. The
person is able to discern the choice by having the knowledge, freedom, and voluntariness
to do so.

Acts of man, however, are acts which do not take place because of one’s
deliberation and does not involve fully utilizing one’s intellect. It is undertaken without
knowledge or consent and without advertence. Examples of acts of man which are not
under the control of one’s will include acts of sensation (the use of senses), acts of
appetition (bodily tendencies such as digestion), acts of delirium, and acts when one is
asleep. The presence of these factors (ignorance, passion, fear, violence, and habits)
causes an act to be classified as acts of man.

Since a human act arises from knowledge and free will, acts of man do not have a moral
quality as they do not possess a conscious nature. If either intellect or will is lacking in the
act, then the act is not fully human and therefore not fully moral.

Human Act: Object

Saint Thomas believes that the morality of the human act depends primarily on the
object, rationally chosen by someone who deliberately exercises their will and intellect.
The object is the primary indicator — other than intention and circumstance — for
someone to judge whether an action is good or evil.

Pope John Paul the Second offers that it is not enough to possess good intentions.
Since a human act depends on its object, one needs to exercise prudence in assessing
whether that object is capable or not of being ordered to God — who in His goodness —
brings about the perfection of the person that God intended for him through the object.
The object encompasses the desire for the good that is perceived. There exist objects
which are ‘intrinsically evil (and) incapable of being ordered’ to God, as they contradict
the goodness of a person’s nature. The Second Vatican Council provides the following
examples: “homicide, genocide, abortion, euthanasia and suicide; mutilation, physical
and mental torture; subhuman living and working conditions, arbitrary imprisonment,
deportation, slavery, prostitution, and trafficking.”

Human Act: Intention

In any human act, “the end is the first goal of the intention and indicates the
purpose pursued in the action. The intention is a movement of the will towards the end,
concerned with the goal of the activity. The intention is essential to the moral evaluation
of an action.” Since God is our final end, we evaluate that our acts are good when they
bring us closer to God. Our intention to please God will make our acts good and perfect.
We employ the terms ‘proximate end’ and ‘remote end’ to further understand the concept
of an intention. For instance, a person gives alms to the poor. The proximate end is the
almsgiving, and the remote end is what a person hopes to achieve by means of the
proximate end. The remote end could either be praise and vainglory, or love and charity.

A good intention does not make a disordered action (such as lying), good. The
ends do not justify the means.” Conversely, an ill intention (vainglory) changes an act
which was good (almsgiving), to an evil act.” Saint Thomas observes that “often, man
acts with good intentions, but without spiritual gain because he lacks a good will. (If)
someone robs to feed the poor: even though the intention is good, the uprightness of the
will is lacking.”

Human Act: Circumstance

Circumstances “are secondary elements of a moral act. They increase or diminish

the moral goodness or evil of human acts. They also diminish or increase a person’s
responsibility”. Circumstances mitigates a bad act by making it more acceptable or less
bad, or it aggravates an act by heightening the consequences. For instance, the
consequences of stealing are aggravated or mitigated depending on what is stolen, the
parties involved, and the location. Circumstances, however, do not diminish the moral
quality of acts; they make neither good nor right an action that is evil. Stealing is morally
wrong regardless of the circumstances.

Conversely, circumstances can make an otherwise good action, evil. For instance,
when a firefighter does not respond to an emergency because he is loafing.
Circumstances can increase one’s guilt when a husband lies to his wife about his
extramarital affairs, or minimize one’s guilt when someone tells a white lie to save a
colleague from being fired. Therefore, we need to understand the circumstances to
understand the moral quality of human acts.
Assessment

Vocabularies

Moral Act Proximate End Natural Law

Human Act Remote End Moral Dilemmas
Acts of Man Freewill Moral Standards
Moral Development Evil Supernatural End

Test yourself

1-6. Identify the six stages of moral development by Kohlberg and explain each briefly.

7. Refer to the standards that a person or a group has about what is right and wrong, or
good and evil.

8. Is a decision-making problem between two possible moral imperatives, neither of which

is unambiguously acceptable or preferable.
9. Generally, is having the ability to act or change without constraint.

10. Involves a person deliberately exercising their intellect and will.

Reflection

Choose only one on the suggestive topics and write a philosophical reflection based on
the topic that you have chosen.

A Man Tells You His Terminally Ill Father's Insurance Policy Will Expire At Midnight. If
He Dies After Midnight, He Gets No Money. He Asks You To Kill His Father With A
Pillow. Do You...

Would You Rather Be Forever Poor And Honest, Or Get Rich By Doing Illegal Things?

A Powerful Alien Visits Earth, With The Promise To Eradicate War, Disease, And All
Suffering. In Return, He Demands A Small Child. What Do You Do?

Unit 4

Unit Overview

This unit provides a closer glimpse to the realm of morality, what is right and wrong
and the immediate consequences of our actions. This unit will discuss the different moral
standards sets within our society that guides our actions. Lastly this unit will provide the
readers to be acquitted to the different dilemmas that we could encounter in our daily
interaction with our fellow people and members of our core group or the society at large,
this unit will help us in our decision making.

Unit Aims
  To provide a concrete understanding on how morality is vital in our social
interaction.
 To help readers to be guided to the different moral standards.
 To elucidate our cognition to the various ethical dilemmas.

Unit Learning Outcomes

By the end of this unit, students should be able to:

 Explain morality and ethics.

 Differentiate the various moral standards and the dilemmas of our moral actions.

The moral agent

Moral Agent

A moral agent is a person who has the ability to discern right from wrong and to be held
accountable for his or her own actions. Moral agents have a moral responsibility not to
cause unjustified harm. Traditionally, moral agency is assigned only to those who can be
held responsible for their actions. Children, and adults with certain mental disabilities,
may have little or no capacity to be moral agents. Adults with full mental capacity
relinquish their moral agency only in extreme situations, like being held hostage. By
expecting people to act as moral agents, we hold people accountable for the harm they
cause others.
General understanding of Culture

Culture generally refers to the patterned ways of thinking, feeling and acting that people
share and communicate to one another. Marcus Tullius Cicero, one of rome’s greates
orator in his Tusculanae Disputationes 945 b.C.) equated culture as a cultivation of the
soul or cultura animi, his understanding of culture was prevalent until the 17th century until
German jurist, Samuel Pufendorf (1632-1694), in his two books on the duty of man and
citizen according the the natural law, used culture as all the ways in which human beings
overcome their original barbarism and through artifice, become truly human. In the 19th
century, English anthropologist Edward taylor (1832-1917), first coin the term culture, he
was considered as the founder of cultural anthropology. He believed that the study of
society becomes incomplete without propwer understanding of culture of that society
since culture and society go together. Culture is unique possession of man. Taylor’s
understanding of culture is that a complex whole which includes knowledge, beliefs, arts,
morals, laws, customs and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a
member of society.

Culture and moral behavior

Each of us has a set of values and beliefs that differs somewhat from anyone else. This
difference in individuals beliefs spring from the core values of our culture. Some
philosophers and social scientists believed that these core values affects a particular
culture orientation. To five aspect of human conditions: human nature, environment, time,
activity and human relationships. Our worldviews towards these phenomena affect the
type of interaction with people, organizations and society as a whole.

Taking as an example the view on human nature, we can clearly see that the culture of
each social group is based on expressed and implied positions about human nature.
Based on the prevailing philosophical beliefs, all cultures develop answers to questions
such as; is human nature basically good, evil, or neutral? A person who agrees with the
teachings of Mencius (c. 371-289 B.C.) that man is fundamentally good and moral would
behave differently in treating people that someone who would advocate another. Chinese
philosopher, Li Si (c. 280-208 B.C.), would taught that human nature is essentially evil,
not moral; championing the ideas of legalism which proposed strict laws to produce an
ordered state. We can also mention the philosopher from Geneve, Switerland Jean
Jacques Rousseau 91712-1778) who climed that man is good by nature, and that is is
civilization which ruins him. In his book, discourse on the Sciences and the Arts (1750),
he denied that the sciences and arts had contributued toward the purification f manners,
and he even argued that the arts and sciences corrupt human morality.