It comes from the Greek word “ethos”

which means customs, habit, or

character (characteristic way of
acting).
 Traditional manners, customs, habits,
character or attitude of a community
or a group which pertains to the
group’s standards or norms.
In Latin,
mos (moral)
mores (morality)
Ethics is a philosophical science
dealing with the morality of human
acts.
Set of rules of human behavior, which
has been influenced by the standards
set by the society or by himself in
relation to his society.
Ethics, also called moral philosophy,
the discipline concerned with what is
morally good or bad, right and wrong.
Some of the questions treated by the
field are: what is morally right?, are
there any objective standards of right
and wrong?, are moral values absolute
or relative?
It is the branch of
philosophy that deals
with the rightness and
wrongness of human
conduct and a mediation
on how we ought to live.
 Ethics, for example, refers to those standards that impose the
reasonable obligations to refrain from rape, stealing, murder,
assault, slander, and fraud. Ethical standards also include those
that enjoin virtues of honesty, compassion, and loyalty.
 Ethics refers to the study and development of one's ethical
standards. So, it is necessary to constantly examine one's
standards to ensure that they are reasonable and well-founded.
Ethics also means, then, the continuous effort of studying our
own moral beliefs and our moral conduct, and striving to ensure
that we, and the institutions we help to shape, live up to
standards that are reasonable and solidly-based.
 Ethics is a system of moral principles.
They affect how people make decisions
and lead their lives.
 Ethics is concerned with what is good for
individuals and society
 Ethics can provide the tools we need to
examine and live an ethical life.
 Ethics covers the following dilemmas:
 how to live a good life
 our rights and responsibilities
 the language of right and wrong
 moral decisions - what is good and bad?
NATURE OF
ETHICS
Ethics is a practical and
normative science, based
on reason, which studies
human acts, and provides
norms for their goodness
and badness
NATURE OF ETHICS

Ethics is a normative
philosophical science.

Ethics sets a basis or a norm for

the direction and regulation of
human actions.
NATURE OF ETHICS

As a normative science, ethics

aids man in distinguishing
whether one’s action can be
considered good or bad.
NATURE OF ETHICS

Ethics should be based on

reason.

All ethical theories must have

its basis from the power of
reason.
NATURE OF ETHICS

Ethics studies human acts.

Human acts are those actions

that are done by the human
person based on knowledge
and the full consent of the will.
NATURE OF ETHICS

A human act is that which

proceeds from the deliberate
free will of the human person.
NATURE OF ETHICS

Ethics provides norms for the

goodness and badness of a
certain action.
NATURE OF ETHICS

Ethics is a dimension of
human existence whereby
man is always oriented
towards
NATURE OF ETHICS

Every human person is in

constant search for the
meaning of good own life.
NATURE OF ETHICS

Man has an ideal vision or a

goal. Such vision or goal is
that which lead him to
happiness.
Man by nature is good.
Imago Dei
Because God is considered as the
Summum Bonum or the Highest Good,
man is also naturally good (cf. Genesis 1,
26-27).
It is the nature of the human person to
incline himself towards the good. The human
person naturally finds beauty in doing good
deeds.
He will eventually obtain meaning in his
existence if he will be in constant search of
goodness.
 There is always the
possibility that he may
choose to turn away from
goodness.
 Man needs to study ethics to
be guided so that he may be
able to fully understand what
real happiness is.
 Through ethics, the human
person will be able to
understand that the goal of a
human being is not merely the
acquisition of material goods.
His actual fulfillment lies in
the development of the moral
quality, which places human
person above all other
creation.
 Ethics gives direction to
people who are in search for
goodness.
Ethics provides for a person an idea
of what right living is all about.
It gives a person the necessary
guidelines for the acquisition of his
goal.
ETHICS VS.
MORALS
ETHICS VS. MORALS

Ethics - right or wrong

Moral - good or bad

ETHICS VS. MORALS

Ethics
- it is applicable to everyone
regardless of belief.
ETHICS VS. MORALS

Moral
- it applies to a specific group
of people, community,
culture, or even personal.

i.e. Cultural Relativism

ethics undertakes the systematic study
(that is, questioning and critical
examination) of the underlying principles
of morality. Hence, it is interested
primarily in the illustration of a more
general problem and the examination of
underlying assumptions and the critical
evaluation of moral principles.
 Morality, on the other hand, is more prescriptive in nature. It
tells us what we ought to do and exhorts us to follow the
right way. According to Terrance McConnell (1994),
“morality is characterized as an ‘end-governed rational
enterprise’ whose object is to equip people with a body of
norms (rules and values) that make for peaceful and
collectively satisfying coexistence by facilitating their living
together and interacting in a way that is productive for the
realization of the general benefit”
 ETHICS MORALITY
 “Theory” of right action and the greater good  “Practice” (rightness or wrongness of human
 Follow rules of conduct
action)
 Social system
 principles or habits

 The society says it’s right  Individual or internal

 More general  Belief of right or wrong

 Ethics – science of Morals  More specific and personal

 Interested in the examination of the underlying  Practice of Ethics

assumptions and critical evaluation of moral  Gives us a picture of what it really means to be a
principles morally upright person

“There is no Morality without Ethics”

TYPES OF ETHICS
TYPES OF ETHICS
Normative Ethics or Prescriptive
Ethics: the study of moral problems
which seeks to discover how
one ought to act, not how one does in
fact or how one thinks one should act.
TYPES OF ETHICS
 More specifically, (normative)
ethics is the discipline
concerned with judgments of
setting up norms for the
following:
 a. When an act is right or
wrong—
 Example is it wrong to liter on
campus when we pay
someone to pick up the litter.
TYPES OF ETHICS
 b. What kinds of things are good or
desirable—
 Example: is knowledge to be sought
for its own sake or is it to be sought for
money? Is money to be sought for its
own sake or is it to be sought for
power? And so on.
 c. When a person deserves blame,
reward, or neither—
 Example: a person who stole your
wallet returns it intact two weeks later,
how do you judge his actions? What
would be appropriate to say or do?
In normative ethics, a conclusion is drawn
from the observation made above,
namely that some action is wrong in one
society and is right in another. This is
a normative claim because it goes
beyond simply observing that this action
is treated as wrong in one place
and treated as right in another.
Descriptive Ethics or Applied
Ethics: a study of human behavior as
a consequence of beliefs about what
is right or wrong, or good or bad,
insofar as that behavior is useful or
effective.
In descriptive ethics, a conclusion is
drawn from the observation made
above, namely that some action is
wrong in one society and is right in
another.
This is a descriptive claim because it
goes beyond simply observing that
this action is treated as wrong in one
place and treated as right in another.
In a sense, morals is
the study of what is
thought to be right
and what is generally
done by a group,
society, or a culture.
In general, morals
correspond to what
actually is done in a
society.
Normative Ethics or Descriptive/Metaethics
Prescriptive Ethics or Applied
 DO GOOD AT ALL  WHAT IS GOOD?
TIMES!  What is justice
 Why should I be moral?
 seeks to discover how
one ought to act OR  study of human behavior
as a consequence of
how one thinks one beliefs about what is
should act. right or wrong, or good
or bad,