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Philosophy and Moral Philosophy

The term philosophy comes from the Greek φιλοσοφία that means love of wisdom. For the
ancient Greeks it meant the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake and it covered all areas of
knowledge as we know them today: sciences, ethics, politics, art, music, etc. Historically it was
from the study of philosophy that all the branches of knowledge we know now have originated.
Know that Isaac Newton’s celebrated work that inaugurated the era of modern science was
entitled Principia Mathematica Philosophiae Naturae: Mathematical Principles of the
Philosophy of Nature.
Philosophy now has many divisions: Philosophy of Man (Anthropology), Philo of Nature
(Cosmology), Philosophy of Language, Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Knowledge
(Epistemology), Philosophy of the Good (Ethics), Philosophy of Law, etc.
But the basis of all the studies of Philosophy is the Philosophy of Being or Metaphysics. The
subject matter of Metaphysics is all reality. It studies all things from the most general point of
view: from the viewpoint of their being real, their existence as real things, as simply being.
Aristotle is credited for having introduced this study with his work on Metaphysics.
Aristotle thought that in order to know what anything is you have to know four things about
it: What is it made of? This is its matter or its material cause. What is its form? This is its formal
cause. Who or what made it? This is its efficient cause, what brought it into being. What is it for?
This is its final cause, the reason for which the thing was made.
Aristotle thought that any material thing is composed of two metaphysical principles: matter
and form. He conceived of these two principles as behaving in the manner of potency and act.
Potency is the capacity of anything to pass from the state of not having an act to having it. Act is
any perfection whatsoever. And so, a white wall has the potency to become red. Once it is
painted red, it passes from the potency to be red to the act of being red. Matter is the potency to
receive any form. Form is the act of the matter. Matter that can be anything is prime matter.
Prime matter is considered to have the potency to be anything, depending on the form it receives.
Thus, prime matter can receive the form of a horse, a bird, a whale, a tree, and a man. Each form
“makes” the matter be the specific thing it is.
Aristotle considered the matter informed by a form to be a “substance”: the thing that
actually is. Both matter and form are “nothing” just by themselves. They really exist only in the
substance. The substance is further modified by “accidents”. There are nine of them: quantity,
quality, relation, place, time, action, passion, position, and possession.
Between act and potency, Aristotle thought that act is superior. Potency can exist only when
united to an act. We know that someone has the potency to do something only when we see him
actualize it. But act by itself can exist without potency and so there can be pure acts. Thomas
Aquinas raised this vision to God himself, who is the Pure Act. In fact, Aquinas’ primary
metaphysical vision is that of the act of being as the most fundamental, intrinsic, and intensive
act of anything. Any being has its act of being but limited by a potency which is its essence. The
act of being of the horse is limited by its essence: its “horse-ness”. But the essence of God is to
be. His essence is the same as his act of being. And so, it is infinite. Being so, he can give acts of
being: he can create.

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 Philosophical Ethics or Moral Philosophy is the part of Philosophy that studies the moral life
of man, that is, his free behavior. Ethics is a philosophical discipline: a rational and systematic
investigation that studies the moral life of man from a total perspective with the purpose of
understanding its deeper and universal aspects. Ethics differs, on the one hand, from spontaneous
moral knowledge and on the other, from theological studies and the positive sciences.
The distinction between Philosophical Ethics and spontaneous moral knowledge consists in
this: spontaneous moral knowledge is an integral part of the moral life, since it is first and
foremost a lived reality and an essential dimension of human existence. Every man, whether he
studied Ethics or not, carries out daily a moral existence, and possesses a set of ideas and criteria
according to which he makes certain decisions regarding his specific behavior and the direction
of his life (what kind of person do I want be?), and in accordance with these he also judges the
behavior and the lives of others.
Philosophical Ethics is, on the other hand, a systematic and critically elaborated reflection,
which not every man performs. Ethics aims to clarify philosophically the essence of moral life
and the fundamental relationships involved in it, with the purpose of formulating norms and
criteria of judgment that may constitute a valid orientation for the responsible exercise of
personal freedom. Obviously, moral life and spontaneous ethical knowledge constitute the
starting point and the main source of ethical-philosophical reflection.
The etymological origin of the term “Ethics” can clarify the nature of this study. Ethics is a
very old term. It appears already in the title of the three moral treaties of the Aristotelian Corpus
(Ethics to Nicomachus, Ethics to Eudemus and The Great Ethics). It comes from the word
“éthos” (ηθος), which means “Character”, “way of being”. Aristotle warns that éthos (spelled
with η) comes from “éthos” (εθος), which is translated as “habit” or “custom.” This allows us to
specify that the character or way of being that we are talking about here is not temperament or
innate psychobiological constitution, but the way of being that the person acquires for herself
throughout her life, related with the habit (héxis, εξής), which is good (virtue) or bad (vice).
The etymology of the word “Ethics” allows us to complete the notion of Ethics with two
new aspects. On the one hand, Ethics is a practical treatise, because it refers to human actions
and moral life with the goal of not only knowing them, but above all to direct them. On the other
hand, the Ethics considers the actions of human beings in their relationship with the mode of
being (ethos, ηθος) that the person acquires through them. We can say then that the scope of
reality studied by Ethics is constituted by the human person, considered directly not in his being
physical or psychological, but in the being and in the good configuration (virtuous) or bad
(vicious) that the person gives himself through his actions.
The actions of the human person are the material object of Ethics insofar as they are free
acts, that is, insofar as they presuppose the action of rational deliberation and the will. The moral
demands affect the human person because he has freedom, and not because he has done
something with some human relevance. The following hypothesis will clarify this. If someone
puts his own life in danger to save the life of his neighbor, we would approve and praise that
person. But if we came to know that this apparent heroism did not come from his inner free
decision, but was completely caused by alcohol, by a drug or by hypnotism, then the moral
approval of our previous judgment would disappear.

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 The goodness or badness of human actions is generally called morality. The formal object of
Ethics is the morality of human acts. When they are used in their ethical meaning, good and bad
have an absolute meaning. The moral good and evil is the good and evil that actions possess as
human acts, and that is why they affect the human person as such, in his entirety: they make the
man good or bad as a person absolutely and without restrictions. It should be said, therefore, that
moral good coincides with the good of the person in the exact measure in which this good is at
stake in free action and this good has to be achieved through the action. The reference to the
integral good of the person considered in his unity and totality distinguishes the properly moral
dimension of practical reason, from the artistic and technical dimensions of it. These latter
dimensions are judged by the former.
We all have the experience of regretting having done a project that proved effective and we
regret not the technical efficiency of the deed we have done, but we might regret that we have
not obtained a real good. I admit that I was wrong by proposing to myself as an end what was
only apparently good. The explanation of this common experience is that, in a level deeper than
that defined by the goods here and now attracting me, there is “something” that is the object of a
necessary and inalienable desire in me. In reality, it is the object that gives rise to my desire and
the constitutive measure of all my desires, and I have discerned that the action I have done is not
congruent with that “something” much more precious and beloved, that from the Aristotelian
philosophical tradition is called the ultimate goal, the happy life or happiness, and that it points
to, in a still general sense, the perfect good of the person, to the fullness of the meaning of the
human condition.