Ethics: A Comprehensive examination reviewer

Ethics

Reviewer for Comprehensive Examination

(Revised Edition)

by

Sem. Dave C. Montero, rcj

Rogationist Seminary College of Philosop

1
 Ethics: A Comprehensive examination reviewer

1. Introduction:

What is Man Capable of?

What are Man’s natural tendencies?

What is Ethics for?

2. How does the human person Act?

What makes an action right and wrong?

What makes the Human person Free?

3. What is Good for Man?

What is Virtue?

What makes Man to have Pleasure and Pain?

4. What is the end of our Action?

How does the Human person attain the end of our action?

What is Happiness?

5. Status Questionis

6. Bibliography

2
 Ethics: A Comprehensive examination reviewer

Introduction

What is Man Capable of?

The human person is capable of both knowing and doing, as he himself is

composed of body and soul, his Intellective soul makes him distinct from any animals. For he

has the capacity to think deliberately, that is with his will. Hence, knowing and doing comes

together in every situation that he has. Ethics refers to the practical science and field in

Philosophy which concerns the morality of the human conduct. It has been evolved from its very

term “Ethos” which means conduct in Greek. However, for Copleston, Ethics is just a branch of

Socio-Political Science which studies the good. For this reason, Individual Ethical Science

comes first before Aristotle himself treats the Politics. For it is with man’s action as conductive

to man’s good that supports the emerges of Social Politics.

What is Man’s Natural Tendencies?

The human person’s capability of knowing treats human conduct through an

actual moral judgement as a way of looking towards man’s action. Through this capacity of

knowing the human person (through the use of deduction, which is from universal to particular,

way of thought) process the general principles of human action which is found in ethics. Further,

the human conducts reflect the capacity of man to act to what is deliberate, good and with an

attainment of an end. Hence, by saying that the human person has a character, man is capable of

action. As everything starts from one’s conduct to form a character which will be a basis for

Human action. Whereas human act itself is the subject-matter of ethics.

3
 Ethics: A Comprehensive examination reviewer

What is Ethics for?

Often the human person reflects the way he acts. For this reason, he must come

to understand how and why he acts and what does he mean of the certain action since he can do

such. Simply the human person acts as always in accordance with his sensation and

consciousness or with both of his reason and will. And the human person aswell is capable

through his natural tendency to use his faculty (reason and will) freely. Which is why the human

person with his free-will acts the same with his intellectual capacity as the way he is.

The Three Branches of Ethics

Ethics appears to be in many ways. Starting from Aristotle who first used the

term and makes him the one to begin the study of human conduct in his Nicomachean Ethics.

Aristotle thinks that virtue is part of man’s action. For him, man cannot have a conduct without

acting it. Man cannot just do nothing and by acting itself he become moral. Yet not all actions

are to be called moral. There are even actions that needs to be questioned. For this reason, it is

good to ask whether an act is according to human reason. This is the case of Normative Ethics

which is common among all the branches of ethics for it is where that one should focus on the

made guidelines of morality regarding its own conduct. Among those included is that of Aristotle

that centers on Virtues (the so-called Virtue Ethics), the one of Kant (Deontology or Kantian

Ethics) that centers on duty, and another one from the Utilitarianism perspective that focuses on

the certain levels of the greater happiness of the greater number.

Metaphysics is also involved with ethics. Questions such as where are our

actions come from? What are its principles for it to be done? and where do we get such

principles? Our actions are being examined based on the reality of things as Being qua Being.

4
 Ethics: A Comprehensive examination reviewer

For we cannot act by our own and even if we have the reason to do such act, we must come first

to think of the potentiality of our action. For it is from Potentiality to Actuality that proceed the

human person to his proper essence and existence (esse). That is also how Aristotle treats the

study of individual ethical science in the morality of the human conduct. Hence, this kind of

treatment in ethics is respectively called as Metaethics.

Our reality has a lot of standards, principles, and perspectives. Different it may

be the underlying discipline of a lot of the events that involves the actions of man which found

through the study of ethics. For it covers a lot of human states of affair both within and beyond

the study of Philosophy. There are endeavors that can be considered in ethics, as the different

principles of ethics can be applied to many different issues, events and within human encounters

in the course of his history. Hence, there is also an Applied Ethics such us in business,

environment, medicine and so on. For it seems that Ethics is a guide for all our decisions and

actions. In this case, Ethics does not only concern our conducts and actions but even as the way

we think through our different endeavors, status quo, and other necessary circumstances.

5
 Ethics: A Comprehensive examination reviewer

How does the Human person act?

After knowing the capabilities (or Potentiality) and Natural Tendencies in order to deal

with the universal characteristics of human nature. It is now possible to treat the human action

under the scrutiny of ethics. The human person is capable of being involve in doing every

pursuit. All his human activities follow his human conducts. Yet, a human person may differ on

how he acts simply because there are acts that only remains into the basis of sensation which we

called as the Acts of Man. These acts are being performed without any motive and intervention

of the free will. Further, Ethics does not concern actions base on our sensations such as the

heartbeat. But it does not mean that it does not require consciousness. Acts of man is also

affected by our consciousness aswell, such as the act of breathing. For we ourselves can control

our breath. Whether we want to stop breathing or continue to do such is a matter of our

consciousness, but not with our will. Since our will in deliberation, would still provoke us to

breathe for it is part of his sensation. Yet the fact that heartbeat and breathing is part of the

sensation which the human person itself cannot handle alone with his very own free will and so

there is a kind of act that must be distinct from man’s sensation, which we refer to as human

acts.

According to the Ethics of Paul Glenn, human act is a kind of act that proceeds from

man’s deliberation of free will. It is far different on how he acts based on his sensation. Since the

human person has now the tendency to choose what is right and wrong, best from worst, true or

false, good, or bad and so on. The human acts would basically affect the human person’s habit or

character, freedom of choice (or his decision), values, virtues, and morality in general. Unlike

man’s potentiality of an animal-like acts from sensation, such as the use of his senses and his

6
 Ethics: A Comprehensive examination reviewer

appetites out of his bodily tendencies, which includes the tendency to feel hunger, thirst, even

sexual arousement and the like, such things still reflect his being in consciousness since he still a

human person who is capable of knowing. Hence, the human person himself is aware of what he

acts as he his capable aswell of doing. However, human act does not only proceed from pure

consciousness or reason but aswell on deliberation for we can chose what he wants as it is seen

from his actions. Hence, the human person’s free will to act is part of one’s own consideration

of morality pointing out to the deliberate human acts.

It is part in the inquiry of ethics to consider how man should act for him to be human and

distinct to any animal for he is not simply animal but a rational and political animal. Back to Paul

Glenn’s classification of human acts, there is no possible human act if the human person himself

does not have knowledge. At some point, the will cannot function by its own without the intellect

itself. For in human acts, the human person could not simply follow his will if he does not

acquire the knowledge of why he wills to do so in the first place. It is like why will-to do good if

he has no knowledge of what is good or how to be good in general? Hence, we could create a

certain inquiry of what is right and wrong. By which our action to be good it must follow a

certain criterion for it to be called as good.

What makes an action right and wrong?

In Normative Ethics we deal with certain realities that follows a norm which is prescribed

to be observe so as to evaluate a certain action. There are sets of criteria to point out what is right

and wrong. One should treat the Human person first as an Agent by which he must act in

accordance with the certain conditions in morality that would be the “norms” of his action base

from what is right and wrong. As morality has its own conditions, an act is considered to be right

if it is in line with a certain norm which provoke that such and such is right as long as such is

7
 Ethics: A Comprehensive examination reviewer

given to a moral standard. Whereas Morality is part of the norm, a person should be involved in

making one’s choice to act as right and wrong through the process of moral judgement.

What is morality all about? Morality is a kind of an agreement and disagreement in

human activities or conducts that follows the dictates of reason. However, Morality is still far

away different from ethics. For Ethics involves Philosophy in a way that Ethics becomes the

philosophy behind what is right and wrong while morality in the other hand is an agreed set of

rules from what is right and wrong.

What is right and wrong in the first place? In the ethics of Aristotle, it is considered that

what is right and wrong comes in a way socio-political. For he considered the Society as self-

sufficient since man alone cannot live without being political or within the society (since man is

a political and social animal). One of the normative standards of ethics is a result of habit. Habit

makes the human person as he is, and virtues furtherly developed through it. Habit does not rise

from nature as what Aristotle mentioned in his Nicomachean Ethics. Rather habit makes the

nature of the human person perfect. Yet this realization would be possible for man himself alone

since in the first place he has nothing else in mind (since in the beginning man is a tabularasa,

has nothing in mind and so his idea of what is right and wrong) the human person so to speak

does not have an idea of what is right and wrong. So where does the idea of right and wrong

came about?

Eventually the human person is thought of what is right and wrong. As long as the human

person learn things by doing through his conduct. The human person learns doing what is good if

good habits become his central activity in the very beginning. Hence, our habit affects the way

he thinks and act. As every act in doing something maintains a potentiality beforehand and so in

maintaining the necessary human conduct in order for a human person to distinguish what is

8
 Ethics: A Comprehensive examination reviewer

right and wrong. Hence, to practice what is right and wrong is both intellectually and morally

inherited from the human person’s birth and growth at the same time. (As what Aristotle used to

think)

What makes the Human person Free?

The reality of freedom is part of the human person’s engagement through his act base on

his intellect and will that work together within his human conduct. As the Human person cannot

distinctively put what is right and wrong at the first place, his free will intends to make his habit

to follow certain realities to be right and wrong and so manifest these in the process of actual

moral judgement. A human person’s moral judgement comes basically from the habit; hence one

could say that a person is good at music if that person has a habit in singing or playing musical

instruments. And so, a person may exhibit to practice this certain act as right if he is being

thought to follow that act as right and so with the wrong acts. Take for instance, the act of lying,

if lying becomes morally good for a certain person and so lying becomes his habit and so he

would consider lying as natural in his human conduct. This also comes the act of free will, and

such is different from freedom.

Free will can only be applied in human act as long as the intellect is concern. For this

reason, there is the idea of Conscience. And conscience is a manifestation of moral judgement,

which means that a human person tends to make judgements out of the facts that these certain

realities are indeed good and evil, as such refers to the correct and true judgement of human acts.

Yet a human person cannot distinctively realize what is right and wrong only from one source of

actual moral judgement but rather that of the society. It seems that the role of society to dictate to

the human individual that these certain realities are right and wrong are essential. So that through

the process of conscience (which makes possible through his capability of knowing) one could

9
 Ethics: A Comprehensive examination reviewer

simply judge what is good and bad base on the knowledge being imparted to him from the actual

moral judgement of the many (that is within the society as long as it is self-sufficient) that these

certain conducts are indeed good or bad as it is, which is being brought through in the human

consciousness.

Within the realm of consciousness, there are five modifiers to be considered as an

impediment for a human act. These are Ignorance which refers to the absence of knowledge.

Habit if it is in line with the vices (to be discussed further). Passion which is a kind of a

powerful emotion and appetite such as love and revenge. Violence when an external force is

being exerted to the human person. Fear a mental reaction to something that a human person

finds uncomforting or being threaten.

Basically, where does our free-will lies in? The human person has a free will to act since

he is the agent, the one performing the act which makes him as the efficient cause of his being.

In the idea of cosmology man is by nature the direct agent of all his pursuits, simply because

there is free will. And in every free-will there is an adequate cause coming from the human act.

Which makes the human act as elicited when the human act begins in the will and perfected

within the will. And commanded acts that begins in the will and proceeds from the other

faculties to make a human act perfect. In the different types of Elicited Act, a human person can

practice his free will through wish and intention. Wishes are inclination of the will towards

something, it that may be realizable or not. While intention has a purposive tendency towards

something considering that it is realizable, yet it may be done or not.

There are stages of intention from being actual which is present in the human act, and it

is willed in that exact point of time. Virtual in a sense that it is present in the human act as a

result of the former (elicited actual intention). Habitual which is already present in the human

10
 Ethics: A Comprehensive examination reviewer

act and is being performed in harmony yet not as a result of the former elicited and unprovoked

intention. Interpretative refers to a given chance for the human act to be present. Consent

which is the acceptance of the will in order to realize the main intention. Election as it is a

choice of being carried out of the intention. The Use of the intention as it is being applied by the

powers of the will of the former or whether or both of the bodily or mental state of the human

person. Finally, Fruition as the end of something which is willed and done in the intention.

What is Good for Man?

Given the questions on freedom, pleasure, and happiness in the study of ethics one must

be inclined in treating what is good for the Human Person. Is it that he has a freedom? Is in it that

he must be happy? Is in it that he must have pleasure over pain? However, these questions may

be concerned all together at the human person’s being ethical by how he ought to do so. As it

follows that the human person can act freely, following with his inclinations and going further in

seeking the end of his own pursuits. The human person is capable of classifying how he with a

free will in his human act must ought to do some good through right actions.

From the human conduct man must ought to do some good. That good refers to right

actions. As we treat what is right basically from his moral judgement the human person must

ought for some good. That good must come from the habit that is being transform into a conduct

and with having something to treat as a value, a human person may have a sense of character. A

character that must be manifested within his virtues.

What is Virtue?

Our habit helps the human person to know what it is to practice the virtues. Yet acquiring

virtue is not an easy process, simply because virtues are being produced and destroyed. The

11
 Ethics: A Comprehensive examination reviewer

things that the human person does affects his virtues. The human conduct and character are being

developed enough by a certain habit (ethos). For virtue refers to the completeness of the human

person in a way that such is the habitual act of performing what is good. It is at the same time

with the human action as the moral habit of acting with the dictate of reason. Such virtues are

being developed in the transactions of every man. For instance, when a human person cannot just

simply arrive at being courageous unless faced with a certain danger in his life. With the reaction

of the human person in such a dangerous situation can he only be identified courageous or

coward enough in dealing with such condition.

A certain human conduct can truly imply who the human person is, with how he lives

and how he attains the virtues and that is from not letting a certain virtue to be destroyed from

vices which is being referred to the defects and excesses. However, Virtues are being treated

through the golden mean (as what St. Thomas Aquinas used to think). As Virtues (from the

Aristotelian view) refers to the level of balance within the human conduct. For an act to be

virtuous it must be in accordance with that balance. Hence, the human person is ought to be

virtuous by avoiding any point of vices within his human conduct. For instance, it is not proper

to the human person to be for such reason so much coward and to not be coward at all or to be

strong enough and not to be strong at all. Since the human person must maintain the balance of

the two extremes for him to have a certain virtue of courage. Same is true with the other virtues.

Hence, the human person ought for the good of his life by acquiring the virtues that he has to

maintain with the golden mean in the process of his actions.

What makes Man to have Pleasure and Pain?

One must understand that the good means something essential for man (the
good for man so to say). Such as every time that Aristotle and St. Thomas thought about human
actions it always pertains to human deeds as the right action at some point. However, St. Thomas

12
 Ethics: A Comprehensive examination reviewer

explain that the good being as the completion is the object of the human person’s inclination or
appetite. Man has a lot of inclinations because he is complex. Each of these inclinations has its
proper end. For St. Thomas there are order of inclinations as far as his notion of natural law is
concern. Further, both pleasure and pain are realities in man’s natural tendencies. The human
person gains pleasure since it is a natural accompaniment and a replenishment for pain which
refers to the deficiency or falling short of natural state.

What is the end of our action?

For St. Thomas it is not the means of attaining something that we should
considered as good or bad but rather the end. For the end is the aim of every human action as
such are also moral action and vice versa. For St. Thomas, this idea of human action as moral
action itself captures the sense of how morality pervades the lives of the human person. Further,
St. Thomas defined human acts as conscious, deliberate, and free base on Ethica Thomistica of
Ralph McInerny. This idea should scope the questions of “Why do I do that?” or “What should I
need to do that?” This only means that for St. Thomas human action is undertaken for a purpose.
The end as the view of becoming the purpose itself. As human person tends to aim at an end,
such end itself for St. Thomas is the good. For he meant to say that human action aims only for
what is good. Hence, the aim and the good are one indeed. However, for an action to become
good it must be a human act. Hence, one could point out that through the end of human act the
human person should seek for what is right and wrong.

How does the Human person attain the end of our action?

St. Thomas base all his assertions on human action with the purpose that serves
as an end which has the character of the good from Aristotle. As Aristotle points out in his
Nicomachean Ethics that every art and inquiry together with one’s action and pursuits has always
thought to aim at some good. For this reason, the good itself is the aim of all things. Thus, the
term Teleological that points to maintain the underlying purpose that something is being done
with an end (telos) as its view. For the good is the aim, which is the purpose and end of every
action, (in the case of St. Thomas, human action.)

13
 Ethics: A Comprehensive examination reviewer

What is Happiness?

Happiness is defined to be the most desirable of all things. It follows that a

human person chose nothing else than to be Happy. Thus, Happiness is considered final, self-
sufficient and end of an action more than a mere emotion of fulfillment and satisfaction, material
such as riches and pleasure and internal possessions such as power, fame and honor. Aristotle
and St. Thomas both pointed out that Human action is in line of what is good which is something
that a human person desires more than anything else. It is part of one’s nature to consider what is
good. Hence, Happiness is related to something good.
Back with Aristotle, in the seventh book of Nicomachean Ethics, the good that
man is seeking for are the things which is according to his end (the final cause of the human
person). The things that he was seeking for is different base on the pursuit that he has. Which
means the good of man’s action is the completion of its purpose which varies the end of a certain
pursuit. This is for Aristotle, something behind man’s pursuit. For a human person does
something for the sake of something good. Hence, the human person aspires something that is
good and is final. For Aristotle there is a final good and not all ends are to consider as the final
end. Rather the final of all the end is above all the chief and highest good. Which is the
supreme good for St. Thomas (which would be refer to the Divine in a theocentric sense).
What is to consider as the final end? What do Aristotle mean when he gives
distinction of such? The chief good is plainly something final, and the one that the human person
is seeking for. More than satisfaction, pleasure, honor, and reason which the human person chose
for themselves. For this reason, the human person chose always for his own good and not always
for something else. It is the very reason why the human person chose happiness as the final end.
For the human person chose happiness for himself as worthy of all the end of his certain pursuit.
This may be pertained to the very satisfaction and fulfillment of his function, as the human
person finds himself fulfilled with his action which is conductive as always to what is the good.
Whereas Aristotle also refers Happiness with leisure.
However, for St. Thomas happiness refers to the good and perfection of man’s
rational activity. An activity that distinct the human person from any kind of species especially
with animals. An activity aswell that makes the good action as human action. Whereas the
human conduct makes the human person to think (power to decide) and choose (act) base in his
free-will and so to distinguish what is right and wrong. Finally, the human conduct is behind the

14
 Ethics: A Comprehensive examination reviewer

human person’s potentiality to be happy more than anything else. The human person free will to
act in accordance with his rationality (capable of knowing) and nature (capable of acting) is by
this same means that he chose happiness for anything other than itself.

Status Questionis

Th human person has a lot of natural tendencies given his potentiality of

knowing and doing. Hence, one’s mixed thoughts and action makes one Ethical. A lot of

challenges that the human person faces becomes part of the concern of Philosophy through

Ethics. The study of ethics is not only for one’s thoughts to be nourished but even of one’s whole

being. Further, ethical doctrines like that of Kant, Marx, Nietzsche and among others may be

aswell known as a development of principles within the course of ethics. Following the emerges

of different ideologies from ancient, medieval, modern, and postmodern periods. Through the

intervention of other disciplines and school of thoughts such as Phenomenology, Existentialism,

Positivism, Pragmatism, Deconstructionism and so on. Considering aswell how Ethics emerges

and being practiced within the Philosophies of the east such as Confucianism, Taoism,

Buddhism, and other orthodox and heterodox schools in Indian Philosophy. All these matters and

other “features of ethics” follow the inquiry of how one ought to live and act beyond what is

good and evil by choosing his own standards of ideas and principles in morality relatively which

could even rise further acknowledgement in studying the human actions in philosophy through

ethics.

Nowadays, Ethics is being challenged with a lot of current concerns and social issues in

the world. The most common of those are regarding the COVID 19 Pandemic, the issues on

Vaccines, Ayuda (or Ammulation funds and reliefs), Lockdown, Health Protocols such as current

violations, injustices, and the case of amendment to such, spread of Variants and so on. There is

15
 Ethics: A Comprehensive examination reviewer

an important relevance of how our human action can be seen especially regarding our solidarity

and voluntariness during these times. I commend in this the one that is being discuss to us by Sr,

Ferdinand Mangibin during St. Thomas Aquinas Week on Community Pantry and Bayanihan

and among others regarding such. In regards of the end of our action and to the possible question

of how we can attain happiness during these times of the pandemic. It is fitting enough to

analyze the situation of our health workers and frontliners and might aswell those who are poor

and marginalized that were most affected by this pandemic, together with the injustices and

unethical events that were taking place. Lastly, regarding to the question of How we must ought

to do? It may be fitting that while struggling with the pandemic together with its issues is the

reality of the approaching presidential election. How could our present action of choosing who to

vote can affect the future of our country while this pandemic is still going on. I would like to add

up aswell together with all the possible ethical notions and the central questions in this reviewer

the status of online learning and the economic lifestyle today of our people both within the

aspects of our country and the church.

Bibliography
Aristotle “Nicomachean Ethics” trans. W.D. Ross

Copleston, Frederick “A History of Philosophy” Greece and Rome. Image books, volume I, part III 1962.

Fieser, James “Ethics” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, United States 2015. Accessed from:
https://www.scribd.com/document/283447099/Ethics-Internet-Encyclopedia-of-Philosophy

Glen, Paul J. “Ethics” A Class manual in moral philosophy. B. Herder Book Co., United Kingdom. 1930
reprinted 1965, Philippine Copyright 1968.

McInerny, Ralph “Ethica Thomistica” The moral philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas. The Catholic University
of America Press, United States. 1982, Revised edition 1997.

Sumner, L. W. “Normative Ethics and Metaethics.” Ethics 77, no. 2 (1967): 95–106.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2379582.

16