BUGHAO, MARIA ANGELIKA A.

ETHICS
BSN - 1B MRS. MELANIE SOLIS
MIDTERM
FRAMEWORKS AND PRINCIPLES BEHIND OUR MORAL DISPOSITION
Utilitarianism

I. INTRODUCTION:

In reality of life, every individual are used to judge all the actions that comes from another person, because
this became their habit towards identifying the disposition of that person, but it doesn’t mean that judging is
always wrong. It can also benefit every individual as this will help them to check whether that person is good or
bad or might possibly cause a good or bad effect on them. In addition, a lot of people says that, “an action is
right if it brings happiness or satisfaction to them”. In short, a person judge an action by its consequences that it
will bring. However, this is not only the case, because some actions are done not just only for the benefit of one
person, instead it can also be made and done for the benefit of all. Therefore, actions has a great role and impact
towards making each individual satisfied or happy as this is also relevant for each and everyone of them.

II. SYNOPSIS:

Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill are the main proponents of the moral theory called Utilitarianism.
However, their idea regarding Utilitarianism are both in different way. For Jeremy Bentham, he proposed the
Principle of Utility wherein he define it as the usefulness of the results of actions. Meaning, the principle of
utility evaluates actions based upon their consequences. In measuring the right and wrong, it all depends upon
the greatest happiness of the people involve. The relevant consequences, in particular, are the overall pleasure
created for everyone affected by the action. In addition, the principle of utility is applied through what you
called “Act Utilitarianism” wherein it focuses on the consequences that are on the action. However, for you to
be able to say that an action is right if, and only if, it gives or bring happiness and satisfaction or the least
amount of bad results to the person. It is based on the situation and determined by its usefulness to people. On
the other hand, for John Stuart Mill he defined utilitarianism as the greatest happiness principle. The
consequences of an action are on the rules followed. Certain rules are made for the benefit of all the people. In
addition, the principle of utility is used to decide the validity of rules of conduct or the moral standards, it is
labeled as the “Rule Utilitarianism”, wherein a rule is right, if it results to an increase satisfaction and happiness
and same as, a rules is wrong, if it results to decrease in satisfaction and happiness. However, utilitarianism is
not that consistent with the view that we do, and to know what is right because the consequences of the actions
are unknown. In general, Utilitarianism helps in making the right action, towards maximizing overall happiness.

III. CONCLUSION:

Utilitarianism gave a lot of impact to the life of people, as this helps to provide happiness and satisfaction
to all of them. It focuses more on making the right action for the benefit of every individual. As a nursing
student, we are committed to help other people as this is our duty to serve the people to the best of our ability.
Even though, we don’t have any experienced yet regarding helping other people, we know to ourselves that we
are knowledgeable enough about the service that we must give to them. In relation to that, Last year, we, nursing
students volunteered ourselves to do a clean-up drive in barangay Sineguelasan, wherein we help our school in
keeping that place clean and we also want to help the environment, but apart from that, we also wanted to
encourage and enlighten the people regarding the importance of keeping the environment clean and also to teach
them on how to care for the environment by their own simple ways. Through that clean-up drive that we did, a
lot of people from that place realizes the importance of the environment to their daily life and broaden up their
knowledge about the advantages they will get in cleaning their places. From what I experienced, I realized that
utilitarianism is not just only about the satisfaction that it will bring to the people. Instead, it can also bring
lesson to the people that will help and improve their life and this can bring more happiness to them.
BUGHAO, MARIA ANGELIKA A. ETHICS
BSN - 1B MRS. MELANIE SOLIS
MIDTERM

FRAMEWORKS AND PRINCIPLES BEHIND OUR MORAL DISPOSITION

Justice and Fairness

I. INTRODUCTION:

Living in a third world country, a lot of people says and believed that, you can only receive justice if you
are a well-known person and capable enough to make a living or in short “rich”. Lack of privilege for everybody
can cause people to misunderstand things and made them feel that they are not taken care of and this will
probably affect the country in a way that, this will start conflicts between the different level of human social
status. However, with this kind of mindset that people have, they are just letting those persons to rule
everything, letting them underestimate the capabilities of those who are in the lower class of the society making
them more powerful. So, instead of being scared and letting them oppress and rule the whole society, the best
thing that each individual can do is to show them that you are not weak and improve your life to be a successful.
Moreover, the government must also do their duty well, serve the people fairly and never let others manipulate
their rule of law.

II. SYNOPSIS:

The book “A Theory of Justice”, written by a known philosopher, John Rawls, is about defining social
justice and his argument about the concepts of freedom and equality being not mutually exclusive which has
greatly influenced modern political thought. He began his work with the idea of “Justice as Fairness” consisting
of two principles of social justice. The first is “Liberty Principle”, where each person should have equal rights to
the most extensive liberties consistent with other people enjoying the same liberties and provides the basic and
universal respect of each individuals. The second is “Fair equality of opportunity and the Difference of
principle”, which is concerned with the social and economic institution explaining the inequalities being
arranged to everyone’s advantage so that no one would be blocked from occupying position. However, the
second principle recognizes that a society could not avoid inequalities among its people. From these, he derived
an Egalitarian concept of justice that would allow not only the inequality of conditions implied by equality of
opportunity, but also give more attention to those born with fewer assets and less favorable social positions. In
general, Rawls’ principle is an example of social justice concept called distributive justice that focuses more on
socially justice allocation of goods in a society. Distributive justice have common types of norms and these are
the following: Equity, Equality, Power, Need, Responsibility and Egalitarian. Apart from that, there are various
Socio-Economic political theories that have differentiated, but somewhat related, view of distributive justice
namely the “Capitalist Laissez-fair capitalist”, for free and fair market system; "Socialist” for the government’s
controls on production of goods and services; “Taxation and Inclusive growth” that imposes charges to every
citizen mandated by the law; lastly “Thought Experiment” that assesses principles of social justice to select the
best ones which is compulsory in the society. Under this is what you called the “Veil of Ignorance”, wherein a
person does not know anything about their position in the society. In addition, Rawls argued that rational human
beings would pick four things which are the primary goods: wealth and income, rights and liberties,
opportunities for advancement and self-respect, that should be distributed fairly among people. In contrast, in
evaluating the Rawls’ principles it shows that there are also conflicts that contradict his principle such as
religions, beliefs, and in terms of beneficiaries that focuses more on less fortunate.

III. CONCLUSION:

The existence of Justice and Fairness in every society, brings a lot of hope for every individual in a way
that they can now be able to voice out their grievances and use their rights as a human. Also, when such
conflicts arise from every society, the principle of justice will help in making a fair judgement. As a student, it is
important to all of us to have a fair judgment, as this will bring all of us to a better path and also this will teach
us to have a better values. In my experience when I was in junior high school, we experienced unfair judgement
towards our school. I witnessed how bias our school was, in terms of how they manage the rooms, academic
subjects and how they treat those science section with full of care or in short the “special treatment” and those
who are in lower sections like me will be treated like a dirt in a way that we are just a burden in the society. This
made me realize that justice and fairness is not just all about improving the system of society and helping people
BUGHAO, MARIA ANGELIKA A. ETHICS
BSN - 1B MRS. MELANIE SOLIS
MIDTERM
towards getting it, but also teaches us to do the right thing and to improve ourselves for the future. Also, I can
say that we should not just rely on our own eyes to see only the appearance of the person, we should also
consider our heart in knowing his personality.