ETHICS

Foundations of Moral Valuation

Prof. Javier B. Sarmiento
 Class Orientation
Ethics Subject
I. Introduction
Name of the Professor
I. Overview of the Subject
Description: What Ethics is all about?
I. Grading System
II. Requirements
1. Major Examinations – 50%
2. Quizzes – 20%
3. Attendance – 10%
4. Participation in all class Activity – 20%
5. Group Report – 100%
Case Study
1. Art and offense
2. Animal Rights and welfare
3. Post – truth
4. Whistle – Blowing and the Duty of Speaking
Truth to Power
5. Pornography
INTRODUCTION
In August 2007, newspapers reported what seemed to
be yet another sad incident of fraternity violence. Cris
Anthony Mendez, a 20-year-old student of the University
of the Philippines (UP), was rushed to the hospital in the
early morning hours, unconscious, with large bruises on
his chest, back, and legs. He passed away that morning,
and the subsequent autopsy report strongly suggested
that his physical injuries were most probably the result of
“hazing” (the term colloquially used to refer to initiation
rites in which neophytes may be subjected to various
forms of physical abuse).
VALUE
• Ethics, generally speaking, is about matters such as the good
thing that we should pursue and the bad thing that we should
avoid; the right ways in which we could or should act and the
wrong ways of acting.

• Ethics as a subject for us to study is about determining the

grounds for the values with particular and special significance
to human life.
The open space activity: A, B, C…

Materials:

1. Cartolina cut-out
2. Pilot Marker
 CHAPTER I
THE ETHICAL DIMENSION OF HUMAN
EXISTENCE

CHAPTER OBJECTIVES
At the end of the discussion, students should be able to:
1. identify the ethical aspect of human life and the scope of ethical
thinking;
2. define and explain the terms that are relevant to ethical thinking;
3. evaluate the difficulties that are involved in the maintaining certain
commonly-held notions on ethics
 Kinds of Valuation
• Aesthetics – from the Greek word “aisthesis” which means “sense”
or “feeling” and refers to the judgments of personal approval or
disapproval that we make about what we see, hear, smell, or taste.
• Etiquette – concerned with right or wrong actions, but those which
might be considered not quite grave enough to belong to a
discussion on ethics
• Technical – from the Greek word “techne” and refers to a proper
way—(or right way) of doing things
CLARIFICATIONS AND TERMINOLOGY
KINDS OF VALUATION

Beautiful Interior Design Eye-sore Waiting Area

“Good” “Bad”
Fashion
Food : Taste Music : Hearing
… concerns of

AESTHETICS! Latin: Aisthesis

PLEASURE!
“Sense” or feeling “Taste”

… but NOT of Ethics

Approval Disapproval
Concern for Indifferent
the elderly
… concerns of

ETIQUETTE
Actions > right… wrong… approval… disapproval

… but not quite grave enough to

belong to a discussion on Ethics
Technique/Techne

… but not necessarily ethical.

 AESTHETIC AND
TECHNICAL VALUATION
Ethical Valuations: Life Death
Capital
War Punishment
Abortion
Human Action
Characterized by Well – Being
certain gravity and
concern the human
well – being or human
life itself.
Sexual
Poverty Inequality Identity
Are clothes always just a matter of
taste or would provocative
clothing call for some kind of
moral judgment?
Can we say that a man who
verbally abuses his girlfriend
is simply showing bad
manners or does this
behavior deserve stronger
moral condemnation?
Another point of clarification

Ethics and Morals

 Ethical  The use of “not”
 Unethical 1. Example: Cooking is not
 Immoral ethical.
 Amoral 2. Lying is not ethical.
 Morality
 Other Clarifications and Terminology
Descriptive and Normative
• A descriptive study of ethics reports how people, particularly
groups, make their moral valuations without making any
judgment either for or against these valuations.
• A normative study of ethics, as is often done in philosophy or
moral theology, engages the question: What could or should be
considered as the right way of acting? In other words, a
normative discussion prescribes what we ought to maintain as
our standards or bases for moral valuation.
 Descriptive and Normative
Descriptive study of Ethics
 Reports how people how their moral valuations without
making any judgment either for or against these valuations.

 Historian
 Sociologist
 Anthropologist
Normative study of Ethics
 Done in Philosophy or moral Theology.

• What could or should be considered as the right way of

acting?
• It prescribes what we ought to maintain as our standards or
bases for moral valuation.
Moral Issue
Whether or not the act is moral?
Ex. A person who cannot afford to buy an item.
Poverty and hunger = stealing/robbing = survival
Moral Decision
When one is confronted with a situation.
He is called to make a choice.
Moral Judgment
When one makes an assessment on the actions or behavior
of someone.
Moral Dilemma
When one is torn between one of two goods or
choosing between the lesser of two evils.
 REASONING

Why do we suppose that a certain way of acting is

right and its opposite is wrong?

What reason do we give to decide or to judge

that a certain way of acting is either right or wrong?
 Cheating is wrong.
Why?
vs
Fear of Desire for
Punishment Reward
Cheating is wrong.
Another level of thinking
• Recognizing proper reasons
• Moral valuation
 Cheating is wrong.
• Based on “Fair Play” or Respect
for the importance or validity
of Testing.
Sources of Authority

Law Religion Culture

 The term Positive Law refers to
Law the different rules and
regulations that are posited or
put forward by an authority
figure that require compliance.
The prohibitive
nature of law
Acts that we
should not do.
The law cannot tell
us what to pursue,
only what to avoid.
Forbidden by law
but ethically
Regularization vs.
questionable.
Contractualization

Permitted by law
but ethically Casino, Motel,
questionable. Night Club
The Law does not
oblige people to
help.
Religion “Love the Lord, your
God, therefore, and
always heed his charge:
his statutes, decrees,
and commandments.”
Deut. 11:1 (New American
Bible)
 “Thou shall
not kill.”

“Divine “God has

Command spoken to me
Theory” directly.”

“There are a
lot of claims.”
Problem of First, Practical
religion Level: “Multiplicity
of religion”

Second, Conceptual Level:

“understanding of the
connection between ethics
and Divine”
Culture
Exposure to different societies and their
culture makes us aware that there are ways
of thinking and valuing that are different
from our own.
 What is ethically acceptable or
unacceptable is relative to, or that
is to say, dependent on ones
culture.

Cultural relativism
 SOME APPEALING FEATURES OF CULTURAL
RELATIVISM

Cultural relativism
Cultural teaches us to be tolerant
Cultural relativism of others from different
as a way of relativism has cultures, as we realize
that we are in no position
thinking seems to provided us a to judge whether that
conform with our basis for our ethical thought or
practice of another
experience.
valuations. culture is acceptable or
unacceptable.
 Problems of Cultural Relativism
1. The argument of cultural relativism is premised on the reality of difference.
Because different cultures have different moral codes, we cannot say that any
one moral code is the right one. ?
2. The ‘no-position’ to render any kind of judgment barred us to give a reasonable
comment on the practices of another culture. What if the practice seems to call
for comment? Ex. Head-hunting in in certain societies like Cordillera province,
or the practice in Inuit, Alaska.

3. Under cultural relativism, we realize that we are in no position to render

judgment on the practices of even our own culture. Since the basis of
determining right or wrong is our culture, then we would be unable to say
something within our cultural practices was problematic, precisely because we
take our culture to be the standard for making such judgment.

4. There is a presumption that culture is single, clearly define substance or

something fixed and already determined.
 Subjectivism

Senses Psychological
Egoism
of the Self
Ethical
Egoism
 Subjectivism
“No one can tell me what is
right or wrong.”
 The individual person (the subject)

“No one knows my

situation better than “I am entitled to my
myself.” opinion.”

“it is good if I say that it is

good.”
 Psychological Egoism
Human beings are naturally
self-centered, so all our
actions are always already
motivated by self-interest.
An underlying Actions are
basis on how one geared towards
acts. Ego or self has its satisfying these
own desire or interest.
interest.
 Ethical Egoism
• Ethical egoism differs from psychological egoism in that
it does not suppose all our actions are already
inevitably self-serving.
• Ethical egoism prescribes that we should make our own
ends, our own interest, as the single overriding concern.
• Acting or doing in a way that will benefit others should
only be done if it ultimately benefits us.
SENSES OF THE SELF
• Subjectivism
– The starting point of subjectivism is the recognition that the individual
thinking person (the subject) is at the heart of all moral valuations. From this
point, subjectivism leaps to the more radical claim that the individual is the
sole determinant of what is morally good or bad, or right or wrong.
• Psychological Egoism
– “Human beings are naturally self-centered, so all our actions are always
already motivated by self-interest.”
– It points out that there is already an underlying basis for how one acts. The
ego or self has its desires and interests, and all his/her actions are geared
toward satisfying these interests.
• Ethical Egoism
– It 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, but
we should do that only if it ultimately benefits us.
 Aesthetics
Etiquette
Technique
Ethics
Morals
Descriptive
Normative
Issue
Decision
Judgment
Dilemma