Ethics

Ethics
- A philosophical science that deals with the morality of human conduct or human acts.

Philosophical Science
- means that ethics is one of the many disciplines in philosophy.
- There are 4 disciplines in Philosophy: Descriptive or Speculative, Normative, Practical
and Critical

Descriptive/Speculative
- It is a discipline in philosophy that posits the questions: What is the nature (essence,
substance) of reality? Metaphysics (philosophical science of beings)

Normative Philosophy
- A discipline in philosophy that posits the question: What is good and what is bad? What
is right action or wrong action?
- Ethics or Moral Philosophy is categorized under this.

Practical Philosophy
- A discipline in philosophy which reflects upon truth in relation to action.
- Logic belongs to this discipline.

Critical Philosophy
- A discipline in philosophy that posits the question: What is truth?
- Epistemology falls under this discipline.

Ethics is a science because it systematically establishes standards or norms of human conduct.

It therefore, qualifies human conduct as to whether it is good or bad and right or wrong.
After it qualifies human conduct, ethics also requires a definitive human conduct.
- It requires man to act properly as a human being.
- To act properly as man, ethics idealistically requires man to do what is good and what is
right.

Morality of human acts

- refers to the goodness or the badness, the rightness or the wrongness of human acts.

Difference between Ethics and Morality

On the basis of etymology, there is no difference between ethics and morality. They both mean
custom (Greek word Ethos and Latin word Mos/Moris).
Ethics can be called Moral Philosophy.

BUT there is also a slight difference between the two, the difference is by way of
applying the concept of theory and practice in ethics.
Ethics is a normative philosophical science, is a theoretical science of good and bad or right and
wrong actions. So, ethics provide the principles on the morality of human acts; it equips man
with a theoretical knowledge of the morality of human acts.

We know that knowing is different from doing. It does not necessarily follow that man does
what he knows. This means that ethics does not actually guarantee that man will be moral or
good. One can only become moral (or good human person) when one applies ethics. In other
words, when one does the theories of ethics one actually performs the theory, meaning that one
is actually doing ethics. This is morality: the praxis of the theory (Ethics). If morality is the
practice of ethics, morality, then, should be properly called Applied Ethics.

Ethics provides principles or bases of right or wrong and good or bad actions, morality
actualizes the theory.

Postulates in Ethics
Postulates
- proven facts that need to be presupposed.
- Ethics need not prove them, instead it takes them as they are because they are already
proven by other sciences.
- In moral philosophy, there are three basic postulates:
- A. The existence of God
- B. The existence of intellect and free will
- C. The spirituality and the immorality of the soul

Ethics compared with other sciences that deal with man:

1. Ethics and Psychology
Psychology
- Is a descriptive philosophy that treats of man’s intellect, free will, and conduct while
ethics guides man’s intellect to know moral truths and man’s will to translate his
intellectual knowledge of moral truths into action (conduct).
- Psychology deals with human behavior. It posits the question how does man behave?
- Ethics asserts the question why does man ought to behave?

2. Ethics and Sociology

Sociology
- deals with human relations.
- Human relations presuppose proper setup or order in society.
- The proper order postulates the observance of proper laws.
- These proper laws postulate the moral laws or order of right and wrong action, which is
ethics.
- Ethics and sociology are closely associated with each other. Apart from ethics, there can
be no civilized or humanized relations in society.

3. Ethics and Logic

Logic
- Is the branch of philosophy that deals with man’s correct thinking.
- Ethics on the other hand, deals with man’s correct doing and correct living.
 - Like sociology, logic is closely associated with ethics since a person who does not know
how to think correctly can never live his life rightly.

4. Ethics and Anthropology

Anthropology
- deals with man’s origin and the behavior or primeval man.
- Ethics deals with the principles of right conduct as applied to all men at all times.

5. Ethics and Moral Theology

- Moral philosophy (ethics) and moral theology presuppose God’s existence; they have the
same end , i.e. the attainment of man’s ultimate goal: God.
- They have the same means towards the attainment of this end, i.e., right living.
- However, they differ in their basis.
- Moral philosophy bases its principles on reason. On the contrary, moral theology bases
its principles on Faith or Divine Revelation and reason.

Morality and Human Existence:

1. Man is the Only Moral Being
- Man is the only moral being by virtue of the following reasons:
- A. Man is a being of action.
- Man acts and knows his acts. Because he knows his acts, he knows he is responsible for
his actions.
- B. Man has intellect.
- His intellect enables him to know, to know what is right or wrong and good or bad
actions. Because he is capable of knowing, he is therefore mandated to face the
consequences of his actions. The morality of human acts can be applied only to those
who have the knowledge of right or wrong and good or bad actions. Morons, idiots,
imbeciles, mongoloids, insane persons and the like are not moral agents. The same
thing can be said of infants and children who have not yet reached the age of reason.
- C. Man has will.
- Man is free to act or not to act. Man’s will equips man with the power to choose either
good or bad and right or wrong actions. It is his will that enables him to enjoy freedom
to act or not to act and freedom to choose what course of action to perform. Man’s will,
therefore, requires of man a decision which obligates him to be responsible for the
consequences of his actions.

2. Man as an Animal
Man
A. Animal - Knowledge (Senses)
- Appetency (Instinct)
B. Rational - Knowledge (Senses and Intellect)
- Appetency (Instinct and Will)

Animals do acquire their knowledge through their senses.

Their senses undoubtedly, are their indispensable medium of knowledge.
Appetency
- means the drive to seek or to strive for something.
Animals are driven to seek for something out of their instincts. Instincts are natural biological
drives of animals.
Man is also a subject of these drives, just like any other animal, man desires for food when
hungry and seeks for water when thirsty.

3. Man as a Rational Animal

- It is a man’s being rational that makes man man. It is only in this context that man is to
be understood as a moral being or a moral agent.
- Being rational, man’s knowledge does not stop in the senses since his sensual
knowledge (perception) is further processed by his intellect in the form of abstraction.
- Man’s perceptual knowledge helps him draw judgments as he compares ideas so that
eventually he engages in what is called reasoning.
- Man does not only perceive things but also analyzes, assesses, criticizes or in a word
intellectualizes things.

4. Intellect compared with Will

- Intellect and will are correlative faculties that are intrinsically endowed in man as the
moral agent.
- Because man is a moral being, man possesses intellect and will.
- Through his intellect, man knows and can know right or wrong actions.
- Through his will, man can choose between good or bad actions.

5. Concrete basis of Morality

- Morality is not a mere cerebral affair, it is applied ethics. Therefore, it is also real or
concrete. It becomes real, perhaps, through the following:
A. When one encounters a moral experience
B. Moral experience could ensue when one encounters a moral problem
C. A person encounters a moral problem when the problem injuncts him of moral
obligation.

It is obligation that makes the problem and an experience moral. There can be no morality
apart from obligation.
That is why morality is always associated with the “ought”. And ought is only one of the degrees
of moral obligations.
There are 3 degrees: should, must and ought

When one is caught up in a moral problem, one should face his obligation: what ought I to do?
What must I do? and What should I do?

Because man has will, man can also entertain options on what to do with his obligation. In the
context of the will, we can speak of the polarity in morality. By polarity in morality we mean
that man has freedom to choose between good and bad or right or wrong responses to his
obligation.