ETHICS

ETHICAL THEORIES

esthebenmbautista@gmail.com/0917-738-6899
FORMS OF ETHICAL ANALYSIS
1. DESCRIPTIVE ETHICS
Aims to discover what moral beliefs are held by a given society, social group or
social organization. It does nor prescribe, nor does it attempt to assess, the
moral soundness of any ethical system. Rather, it objectively presents or
describes what kind of values people come to have.

2. NORMATIVE ETHICS
Seeks to discover norms that ought to guide our actions. Though the search
may sound theoretical, ethics nevertheless has a practical purpose; that is,
tries to produce a practical knowledge about how we should conduct our lives.
MAJOR NORMATIVE ETHICS
1. CONSEQUENTIALISM (TELEOLOGICAL) ETHICS
The morality of an action is determined solely by its consequences.

A. UTILITARIANISM
• Utilitarianism is an example of a consequential ethics. It is the theory
that states that the greater happiness or good of the greatest number
of person is the test of right and wrong.
• States that we should act in such a way that our actions produce the
greatest happiness or pleasure.
• The concept of utilitarianism was developed by; JEREMY BENTHAM
& JOHN STUART MILL
MAJOR NORMATIVE ETHICS
TYPES OF UTILITARIANISM

a. Act Utilitarianism
An action is moral if it produces the greatest happiness for the most people.
b. Rule Utilitarianism
We should act so that the rules governing our actions produce the greatest
happiness for the most people.
MAJOR NORMATIVE ETHICS
MODIFIED PLEASURE CALCULUS
a. Intensity (I) - How intense is the pleasure or pain?
b. Duration (D) - How long does the pleasure or pain lasts?
c. Certainty (C) - What is the probability that the pleasure or pain will occur?
d. Propinquity or remoteness or nearness (N) – How far off in the future
is the pleasure or pain?
e. Fecundity (F) – What is the probability that the pleasure will lead to
another pleasure?

f. Purity (P) – What is the probability that the pain will lead to another pain?
g. Extent (E) – How many persons are affected by the pleasure?
MAJOR NORMATIVE ETHICS
2. THE PRINCIPLE OF UNIVERSALITY (DEONTOLOGICAL APPROACH)
The morality of an action depends on its accordance with some rules or
principles and not on its consequences.

A. CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE
• An action is good if it can be universalized; that is it can be practiced
by all men at all times without bringing about its own negation or
abolition.
MAJOR NORMATIVE ETHICS
B. AUTHORITARIAN ETHICS
• The theory of morality that appeals to authority and force in
determining what constitutes right from wrong, good from bad, and
moral from immoral.

Theological Ethics; Divine Command Theory and Natural

Law Ethics
• The will of God is what determines the rightness and wrongness
of an act.
• The will of God is expressed through the Holy Scriptures and
through the dictate of reason inspired by faith.
MAJOR NORMATIVE ETHICS
a. Divine Command Theory or The Will of God
• According to Samuel Von Pufendorf, an act is good because
God willed it to be so and bad because God condemned it.

Criticisms on Divine Mandate or Command Theory

1. Belief in either Divine Being or exemplary individuals
2. The questions of interpretations are not insurmountable
3. Command theories generally doesn't have a “no excemption”
clause, either explicit or implicit.
4. Command theory has what we called the “EUTHYPHRO
PROBLEM”- from the platonic dialogue from which it originated.
MAJOR NORMATIVE ETHICS
b. Natural Law Theory
• Humans should live according to nature. There is a kind of universal natural
order in the world put there by God that the human mind can discover.
Cicero (43 BC)
Natural Law is an innate power to which we ought to conform. This power is
reason, prudential, and thoughtful judgement.
Ulpian (228 AD)
Natural law is what man shares in common with the animals; and, following
natural law in this interpretation is living in conformity with the facts of life.
Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)
“Synderesis”-human conscience: do good and avoid evil.
MAJOR NORMATIVE ETHICS
c. Legalism or Legalistic Morality

• Determines right from wrong, based on a body of clearly stated and well-
documented body of laws.
• These laws are imposed by the government to its citizen and their
observance are ensured through overwhelming police and military force.
MAJOR NORMATIVE ETHICS
C. Ethical Egoism
• We act morally when we act in a way that promises our own best long-term
interests.
• An action is right only if it is in the interest of the agent or the doer of the act.
MAJOR NORMATIVE ETHICS

Hedonism
• An example of egoistic ethics.
• “HEDONE”- Greek word which means pleasure.
• The good act is those act which brings sense of pleasure, either directly or
indirectly, and the bad act is that which results in pain or unpleasant
sufferings.
• ARISTIPPUS- Believed that pleasure is the only good, and he identified
happiness with pleasure. He emphasized sense pleasure than intellectual
pleasure.
• EPICURUS- The goal of man is rational pleasure, which consists mainly of
tranquility of souls, peace of mind, and harmonies living in a society.
MAJOR NORMATIVE ETHICS
D. Situation Ethics
• Situational ethics asserts that the morality of an action depends on the
situation and not in the application of moral laws to the case.
• For each case, there is a duty to perform and the nature of condition in
which one finds himself/herself, not the categorical principles of morality
that determines what one ought to do.
MAJOR NORMATIVE ETHICS

The six fundamental propositions of Situation Ethics:

• 1. Love only is always good.
• 2. Love is the only norm.
• 3. Love and justice are the same.
• 4. Love is not liking.
• 5. Love justifies the mean: “only the end justifies the means, nothing else”.
• 6. Love decides there and then: “love’s decision are made simultaneously,
not prescriptively.
MAJOR NORMATIVE ETHICS
E. Virtue Ethics
• The moral life should be concerned with cultivating a virtuous character
rather than following rules of actions.

• In ethics, a virtue is a morally good character trait such as honesty, courage,

or integrity.
MAJOR NORMATIVE ETHICS
F. Social Contract Theory
• Moral laws are made to control human behaviors.

1. Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)

• Before the formation of civil societies, men were in a constant state of war
with one another. There was no law, no morality, no distinction between
what is right or wrong. For him, “MAN IS A WOLF UNTO OTHERS”.

• To check and control man’s wolfish tendencies for mankind to survive, men
came together to form a state and to concede to the rule of the government.

• Thus, under this view, the source of good and evil is the will of the
government.
MAJOR NORMATIVE ETHICS

2. Jean Jacques Rousseaus (1712-1778)

• Men were selfish by nature, and selfish interest was transformed into moral
obligation by the social contract.

• The basis of the social contract is the general will.

• He believed that, in obeying the general will, we obey ourselves and thus
remain free. However, authority has co-coerce the selfish individual to
comply with his “real” will, “forcing him to become free”
MAJOR NORMATIVE ETHICS

3. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

• Believed in the “Will of the Strong Man”.
• The origin of the concept of the good and evil is attributed to the domination
of the strong men over the weak. The masters who were beyond good and
evil, imposed their will on the slaves and consequently they became the
object of criticism of the oppressed who called the masters evil.
MAJOR NORMATIVE ETHICS

4. August Comte
• Concerned with social pressure and social opinion.
• Opinion polls on matter about right and wrong could be very well now serve
as the basis of moral behavior.
MAJOR NORMATIVE ETHICS
G. Practical Ethics and Moral Skepticism
1. Practical Ethics
• Primarily concerned with answering matter-of-fact questions.
2. Theoretical Ethics
• Aims to study the meaning of ethical concepts such as good, right, and
fairness.
3. Moral Skepticism
• Skepticism comes from the Greek word “SKEPTICESTHAI” meaning to
examine or to consider.
4. Personal and Societal Ethics
• Personal ethics tries to study how a person should act in relation to himself,
while social ethics concerns how a person should act in relation to others.
MAJOR NORMATIVE ETHICS

end