ETHICS  Ex: learning how to bake, the

right thing to do is to mix dry

 Good things that we pursue and bad
ingredients first before liquids.
things we should avoid.
 Learning how to play basketball.
 Right way of acting and wrong ways
– against the rules to walk more
of acting.
than 2 steps without dribbling
 Acceptable and unacceptable in
the ball.
human behavior.
 MATTERS THAT CONCERN LIFE AND
 Ethics is about determining the
DEATH SUCH AS:
grounds for the values with
 War
particular and special significance to
 Capital punishment
human life.
 Abortion
KINDS OF VALUATION (not included in the  MATTERS THAT CONCERN HUMAN
discussion of ethics) WELL-BEING SUCH AS:
 Poverty
1) Aesthetics
 Inequality
 derived from the word
 Or sexual identity
“aesthesis” (sense or feeling)
 Are included in the discussion of
and refers to the judgement of
ethics.
personal approval and
disapproval that we make about ETHICS AND MORALS
what we see, hear, smell or
1) Morals
taste.
 Refers to specific beliefs or
 Personal aesthetics preferences.
attitudes that people have or to
 Ex: his taste of music and her
describe acts that people
taste of clothes.
perform.
2) Etiquette
 Individuals personal conduct
 Approval or disapproval
 Immoral (fallings short of
concerning certain actions.
behavior)
 Concerned with right and wrong
2) Ethics
actions.
 Discipline of studying and
 Ex: it is right to knock on
understanding ideal human
someone’s door upon entering
behavior and ideal ways of
while it is wrong and rude to
thinking.
barge into someone’s room.
 Intellectual discipline belong to
3) Techniques
philosophy.
 Technique is derived from Greek
 Acceptable behavior (ethical)
word techne which refers to the
 Unacceptable behavior
proper way of doing things.
(unethical)
  Professional ethics – legal ethics
for the proper comportment of
lawyers and other people in legal
profession: medical ethics for
doctors. Media ethics for writers
and reporters.
 PHILOSPHY – “love of wisdom” Philia
and Sophia.
 Remains as the unique
discipline.
 Metaphysics – Reality
 Epistemology – basis of
determining what we know.
 Axiology – study of value and
is often divided into
aesthetics. 1) value of beauty
and ethics 2) value of human
actions.
DESCRIPTIVE AND NORMATIVE
1. Descriptive
 Reports how people or
groups make their moral
valuations w/o making
any judgement either for
or against these
valuations.
2. Normative
 What could/should be
considered as the right
way of acting?
 Refers on what we ought
to maintain as the
standards or bases for
moral valuation.
ISSUE, DECISION, JUDGEMENT AND
DILEMMA.
1. Moral issue – the question of
respect for one’s property.
2. Issue – refer to the particular
situations that are often the
source of considerable and
inconclusive debate. Ex:
euthanasia
3. Moral dilemma - one is torn
between choosing one of two
goods or choosing between the
4. lesser of two evils.
- individual can choose only one
from a number of possible
actions and there are compelling
ethical reasons for the various
choices.
- example: a mother wanting to
feed her hungry child, but then
recognizing that it would be
wrong for her to steal.
REASONING
 asking “why” can bring us
to another level of
thinking
PRINCIPLES
 rationally established
grounds by which one
justifies and maintains
her moral decisions and
judgements.
MORAL THEORY
 systematic attempt to
establish the validity of
maintaining moral
principles.
 Framework – theory is a
system of thought of
ideas. Theory of
 interconnected ideas and
the structure through
which we can evaluate
our reasons or valuing a
certain decision or
judgement.
SOURCES OF AUTHORITY
1. LAW
 A guide to ethical behavior
 Criminal and civil codes
 Law is enforced by the system of
sanctions administered through
persons and institutions which all
help compelling us to obey.
 Law is the basis of ethics providing
with the objective standard that is
obligatory and applicable to all.
 The law cannot tell us what to
pursue only what to avoid.
2. Positive Law
 Refers to the different rules and
regulations that are posited or put
forward by an authority figure that
require compliance.
3. RELIGION
 The idea that one is obliged to obey
her God in all things.
 Divine Command Theory – the
divinity called God commands and
one is obliged to obey her creator
 Thou shall not kill thou shall not
steal.
 Religion is not simply prohibitive,
but it also provides ideals to pursue.
 Religion as basis of ethics has the
advantage of providing us only set of
commands but also a supreme
authority that can inspire and
compel our obedience in a way that
nothing else can.
 The divine can command absolute
obedience on one’s part as the
implications of her actions involves
her ultimate destiny.
CONS
 Multiplicity of religions. Each faith
demands differently from its
adherents which would apparently
result in conflicting ethical
standards.
 Conceptual level. One requires
believer to clarify her understanding
of the connection between ethics
and the divine. Ethyphro by Plato is
an example.
4. CULTURE
 Cultural Relativism – ethically
acceptable and unacceptable is
relative tom or that is to say,
dependent on one’s culture.
 Cultural relativism seems to conform
to what we experience, which is the
reality of the differences in how
cultures make their ethical
valuations.
 By taking one’s culture a s a
standard, we are provided a basis
for our valuations.
 Teaches us to be tolerant of others
from different cultures. We are in no
position to judge whether the
ethical thought or practice of
another culture is acceptable or
unacceptable.
 Our own’s culture moral code is
either superior or inferior to ``any
 other but provide standards that are
applicable to us.
ARGUMENTS ON CULTURAL RELATIVISM
1. REALITY OF DIFFERENCE
 Different cultures have different
mora codes, we cannot say that any
one moral code is the right one.
2. Open minded
 We are in no position to render any
kind of judgement on the practices
of another culture. Generous and
open minded way of respecting
others.
3. Judgement on our own cult
 If our culture was the basis for
determining right and wrong, we
would be unable to say that
something within our cultural
practice was problematic precisely
because we take our culture to be
the standard for making
judgements.
4. We can maintain it only by
following the presumption as
a single- clearly defined
substance or something fixed
and already determined.
SENSES OF THE SELF
1. Subjectivism
 Individual thinking is at the heart of
all moral valuations.
 She is the one who is co9nfronted
with the situation and is burdened
with the need to make a decision or
judgement.
 Individual is the sole determinant of
what is morally good or bad, right
and wrong.
 “no one can tell me what is right and
wrong. “no one knows my situation
better than myself” I am entitled to
my own opinion” it is good if I say it
is good.
 Sense of personal independence.
2. Psychological Egoism
 Human beings are naturally self-
centered, so all of our actions are
always motivated by self-interest.
 Describes the underlying dynamic
behind all actions.
 Underlying basis for how one acts.
This ego or self has its desires and
interests, and all of our actions are
geared towards satisfying interests.
 “ I watch a favorite movie or read a
book because I want to go. I want to
go to mall and shopping because I
enjoy that.
 We do things in pursuit of our own
self-interests all the time.
 Motivation behind many of the
actions one perform which are
obviously self-serving.
3. Ethical Egoism
 It does not impose all our actions
are already inevitably self-serving.
 Instead, ethical egoism prescribes
that we should make our own ends,
our own interests, as the single
overriding concern. We may act in a
way that is beneficial to others.
 Not just some pleasant pursuit of
one’s desire, but the imposition of a
will power that is potentially
destructive of both self and others.
CHAPTER II
 Utilitarianism is an ethical theory
that argues for the goodness and
pleasure and the determination
of right behavior based on the
usefulness of the actions
consequences.
 Means that pleasure is good and
that the goodness of an action is
determined by its usefulness.
 One action or behavior is good
as much as they are directed
toward the experience of the
greatest pleasure over the pain
for the greatest number of
people.
 It is the usefulness of results that
determines whether the action
or behavior is good or bad.
 Mill and Bentham is interested
whether these actions
contribute or not to the total
amount of resulting happiness in
the world. Sssss