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Chapter 1 Module Basic Concepts in Ethics
Chapter 1 Module Basic Concepts in Ethics
2. Introduction
This chapter provides key ethical terms and concepts that recur throughout the
other chapters of the course. It is recommended that you study this chapter before
attempting to move further on the other chapters as it provides useful knowledge and
understanding of those significant terms and concepts.
3. Learning Outcomes
At the end of this chapter, the student is expected to:
a. differentiate ethics from morality;
b. distinguish between moral and non-moral standards;
c. detect a moral dilemma;
d. identify the three levels of moral dilemmas; and
e. explain freedom as a foundation of morality.
4. Learning Content
Topics for Chapter 1
Topic 1: Ethics and Morality
Topic 2: Moral vs Non-moral Standards
Topic 3: What are Moral Dilemmas?
Topic 4: Freedom as a Foundation of Morality
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7. Flexible Teaching Learning Modality (FTLM) adopted
Modular Distance Learning (MDL) – Module
Online Distance Learning (ODL) – VideoCon/Google Classroom,
Email, Messenger, Zoom
8. Assessment Task
Learning Outcomes:
Upon completion of this topic, the student must be able to:
1. distinguish Ethics from Morality;
2. explain the difference of good from right; and
3. explain the implications of following rules.
Introduction
Meacham (2011) describes two ways of thinking about ethics, which manifest
themselves as two clusters of concepts and language, or domains of discourse, used
to recommend or command specific actions or habits of character: they are called the
good and the right (The subsequent discussion was availed with a special permission
from the author).
The good has to do with achievement of goals; the right, with laws and rules.
The goodness paradigm recognizes that people have desires and aspirations, and
frames values in terms of what enables a being to achieve its ends. The rightness
paradigm recognizes that people live in groups that require organization and
regulations, and frames values in terms of duty and conformance to rules. Goodness
and rightness “are not complementary portions of the moral field but alternative ways
of organizing the whole field to carry out the tasks of morality.”
Another approach, virtue ethics, focuses on qualities of character and motives
for action. Within Virtue Ethics the distinction between the good and the right is also
applicable. Questions about what sort of character traits one should cultivate can be
answered on the basis either of what is good or of what is right. Compassion and insight
are typical goodness virtues, and a disposition of conscientious obedience is a typical
rightness virtue.
The good and the right each have their area of applicability; they often get
confused and students need to know the difference so that errors in ethical judgements
are avoided.
The Good
Instrumentally, what is good for a thing enables that thing to serve its purpose.
To make sense, an instrumental usage of the term “good” requires reference to
somebody’s purpose or intention. Thus, all products of technologies are good for
students, professionals, businessmen and everybody in this fast-paced environment for
so many reasons. We want the comfort and utility they afford us. The instrumental
usage is expressed in terms of usefulness, of utility for achieving a purpose or intention.
Some gadgets are better than others in that they have better and updated software and
applications and thus can be used more effectively and efficiently.
The instrumental usage leads to the biological usage. Why is it good for human
beings to have comfort and utility? It is because comfort and utility nourish us and keep
us alive. Unlike the instrumental usage, the biological usage does not require reference
to conscious purpose or intention.
The instrumental usage intersects the biological when we consider what is good
for something that is itself good for a purpose or intention. For instance, keeping one’s
clothes clean and taken cared of from dirt is good for the clothes; if they get too dirty or
tattered easily to provide a good impact on your personality, they are not useful as
clothes. So we can talk about what is good for the clothes in a way that is analogous to
what is good for a living being. The good, in this sense also, is that which enables a
thing to function well.
The Goodness approach to ethics uses the terms “good” and “bad” and their
variants and synonyms to evaluate actions, things, people, states of affairs, etc., as well
as maxims or guidelines for conduct. Some synonyms for “good” in this context are
“helpful,” “nourishing,” “beneficial,” “useful” and “effective.” Some synonyms for
“bad” are their opposites: “unhelpful,” “unhealthy,” “damaging,” “useless” and
“ineffective.”
There are degrees of goodness and its opposite, badness. That some plants
need full sunlight to thrive and others need shade means that full sunlight is good for
the former and not so good for the latter.
The Right
The language associated with this school uses the terms “right” and “wrong” to
evaluate actions. Some synonyms for “right” are “proper,” “legal” and “correct.” Some
synonyms for “wrong” are “improper,” “illegal” and “incorrect.”
The problem, of course, is how to determine the moral rules. Humans seem to
have an innate sense of morality, of right and wrong; but, notoriously, the actual set of
rules they espouse varies from culture to culture. Although many people unreflectively
adopt the rules taught them by their parents, teachers, religious leaders and culture,
the task of philosophy is to provide a rational grounding for one’s choice of what rules
to follow. Philosophers have proposed numerous ways of determining what the rules
are, such as divine command, the dictates of pure reason, and using an intuitive moral
sense to apprehend an unseen but existent world of values. So far, there is no
agreement on which of these is correct.
The primary meaning of “right” in an ethical context is conformance to moral
rules. There are a number of other uses of the term “right” in addition to conformance
to moral rules, such as the following:
1) Correct, truthful, as in “the right answer.” This implies that rightness is exclusive, that
there is one right answer or opinion and that others are wrong.
2) The best possible option or a very good option, as in “the right choice.” This also
implies exclusivity, but is problematic. Often one does not need to do what is best.
Sometimes one only needs to do something good enough to get a useful response,
a response that gives feedback so one can further hone one’s strategy, one’s
response to what is happening.
3) Fitting, appropriate, in harmony with the way things are. This sense is more akin to
the goodness paradigm. It asserts an aesthetic component of rightness, as when
one artistically puts an element of a composition in “the right place.”
4) What the speaker approves of or assumes people generally approve of. This is an
uncritical usage and is the least useful.
All too often people confuse the notions of good and right. Both concepts apply
to what one should do, and often the debate is really about persuading someone to act
in a certain way. Clarity of language and conceptual rigor seem to be less important
than rhetoric. Here is an example on iPhones and android phones: “Some phones are
problematic to unsuspecting consumers. We certainly respect companies’ desires to
protect their products, but the whole thing has become a mess. You want to install some
very important applications, and guess what, they do not work as they should, and you
have to ask help from a lot of people to make them work, and worst you are paralyzed
of an activity if they do not totally function well. That's just wrong.”
Here is another example: “With the glaring poverty being experienced by almost
all Filipinos including average families, both the senate and congress should be figuring
out more ways for poor families to have foods on their table and eat three times a day.
Unfortunately, it appears both the TRAIN Law and Rice Tariffication Law have found
their way to stab the poor and send them to their graves alive. That is wrong ....” “With
the Balik Probinsya Program of the government on this pandemic, a lot of locally
stranded individuals in the National Capital Region (NCR) are transporting the Corona
Virus to the provinces thereby deliberately spreading the virus. That is a wrong …”
Again one does not need to understand TRAIN Law or Rice Tariffication Law to
understand what the remark is pointing but then says “That is wrong” as if the lack of
benefits of TRAIN Law or Rice Tariffication Law is what caused it to be wrong. It is the
same way with the remark on the Balik Probinsya Program of the government.
It is this way of using “right” and “wrong” – to express emphatically one’s approval or
disapproval – that leads some thinkers to assert that moral discourse is actually
meaningless and merely expresses the speaker’s preference or the speaker’s attempt
to influence someone else’s behavior.
Why It Matters
If someone says something is good, one can always ask “good for what?” If
someone says something is right, one can always ask “according to what rule?” The
two domains of discourse really are separate, and it is not useful to mix them. Mixing
them is a form of category error, that is, an error “by which a property is ascribed to a
thing that could not possibly have that property.” That something has good effects does
not make it right. That something is in accordance with a moral rule does not make it
good.
Rules are not just sufficient but rather necessary to social beings in the promotion
of the common good in every society. Making the distinction between good and right is
important because it promotes clarity of thought and allows an individual to assess
oneself and understand why rules have to be followed. It does not mean, however, that
clarity of language is a necessary condition for clarity of thought, but it certainly helps.
The clearer one’s thinking, the more likely one is to follow rules. Accurate thinking based
on accurate perception leads to accuracy of action, action that leads to attainment of
one’s goals.
Topic 2: Moral versus Non-Moral Standards
Learning Outcomes:
Upon completion of this topic, the student must be able to:
1. differentiate Moral from Non-moral standards;
2. cite the metaphors for moral standards; and
3. 3. explain the characteristics of moral standards.
Introduction
What do moral standards do? First, they promote human welfare or well-being;
second, they promote the “good” (animals, environment, and future generations); and
third, they prescribe what humans ought to do in terms of a.) Rights (responsibilities to
society); and b.) Obligations (specific values/virtues).
Some individuals may have heard the term “Amoral” (n.d). What makes this word
different from the descriptions above? It means not influenced by right and wrong. If a
person who is immoral acts against his conscience, a person who is amoral does not
have a conscience to act against in the first place. Infants could be said to be amoral
since they have not yet developed a mature mind to understand right and wrong. Some
extreme sociopaths are also amoral, since they lack a conscience as a result of a
cognitive disorder. In other words, an immoral person has a sense of right and wrong
but fails to live up to those moral standards. An amoral person has no sense of right
and wrong and does not recognize any moral standard.
Another word that needs clarification is the adjective “Unmoral” (n.d.). It refers to
something to which right and wrong are not applicable, such as animals, forces of
nature, and machines. For example, Typhoons cause damages to properties and loss
of lives but they are unmoral, since they are formed by unconscious natural processes
that exist outside the bounds of morality. When talking about non-moral agents, such
as animals or weather patterns, we use unmoral.
“Moral norms” (n.d.) have different forms. They can be expressed as principles,
dispositions, character traits, and even through the life of a person. These are different
ways of specifying criteria for moral judgments.
1. Carpenter’s Square
Moral norms are like a carpenter’s square used to measure human freedom and
construct morally good character and right actions. Moral norms are standards or
criteria for judging and acting. Its purpose is first, to provide moral standards, criteria,
or measures for judging; and second is to guide one’s conscience in making moral
judgments.
2. Overriding
They should be preferred to other values including self-interest. If a person has a
moral obligation to do something, then the person ought to do that even if this conflicts
with other non-moral values or self-interest. At work, for instance, moral values of
honesty and respect for lives come first rather than compromising them for keeping a
well-paid job.
Learning Outcomes:
Upon completion of this topic, the student must be able to:
1. recognize and recall a moral experience;
2. detect a moral dilemma; and
3. give examples of the three levels of moral dilemmas.
Introduction
A dilemma is a situation in which a difficult choice has to be made between two or
more alternatives, especially equally undesirable ones. It is a conflict in which you have
to choose between two or more actions and have moral reasons for choosing each
action.
1) An individual is presented with two or more actions, all of which the individual has
the ability to perform.
2) There are moral reasons for the individual to choose each of the actions.
3) The individual cannot perform all of the actions and have to choose which action, or
actions to perform when there are three or more choices.
Since there are moral reasons to choose each action, and the individual cannot
choose them all, it follows that no matter what choice the individual makes, he or she
will be failing to follow his or her morals. In other words, someone or something will
suffer no matter what choice he or she makes.
Learning Outcomes:
Upon completion of this topic, the student must be able to:
1. explain freedom as an essential characteristic of ethics;
2. explain the moral dimension; and
3. identify other basic foundations of morality.
Introduction
The comment above leads us to the question of choice, freedom or liberty and
decision. It also leads to the question of end.
Freedom or liberty may be described as the power or right to act, speak or think
as one wants without hindrance or restraint. But this power is not absolute. It has
limitations. “Great power comes with great responsibility.” Imagine the world if there is
no limit to freedom and no appeal for responsibility. When one changes the question
from “what do I want to do?” to “what do I ought to do?”, all moral acts become clearer
and point to freedom of choice. There is the invocation for people to use their freedom
in way that they won’t harm anyone including animals, plants and the whole of nature,
to not abuse their freedom and to give limitation to it. The exercise of freedom to act
morally liberates us from our selfish passions and desires. If we are not free in making
decisions, then the ethical value of our decisions are questionable.
2. The moral dimension refers to the concern for the good and happy life.
Moral philosophy claims an essential connection between goodness and
happiness. The moral dimension is concerned with defining ultimate goal of man or
what constitutes his happiness. The path to being happy is the way of goodness.
2) Fairness/Reciprocity
This is related to the evolutionary process of reciprocal altruism. This foundation
generates ideas of justice, rights, and autonomy. This foundation leads us to seek out
people who will be good collaborators in whatever project we are pursuing. It also leads
us to punish people who cheat the system. People on both the right and the left believe
in fairness, but they apply this foundation in different ways. Haidt explains: “On the left,
fairness often implies equality, but on the right it means proportionality – people should
be rewarded in proportion to what they contribute, even if that guarantees unequal
outcomes.”
3) In-group/Loyalty
This is related to our long history as tribal creatures that are able to form shifting
coalitions. This foundation underlies virtues of patriotism and self-sacrifice for the group.
It is active anytime people feel that it’s “one for all, and all for one.” We love the people
on our team, and loyalty makes our team more powerful and less susceptible to our
failure. Likewise, we have a corresponding hatred for traitors. Those who betray our
“team” for the other side are worse than those who were already on the other side.
4) Authority/Respect
This is shaped by our long primate history of hierarchical social interactions. This
foundation underlies virtues of leadership and followership, including deference to
legitimate authority and respect for traditions. Authority plays a role in our moral
considerations because it protects order and fends off chaos. “Everyone has a stake
in supporting the existing order and in holding people accountable for fulfilling the
obligations of their station.”
5) Purity/Sanctity
This is shaped by the psychology of disgust and contamination. This foundation
underlies religious notions of striving to live in an elevated, less carnal, nobler way. It
underlies the widespread idea that the body is a temple which can be desecrated by
immoral activities and contaminants (an idea not unique to religious traditions). No
matter the era, humans have always considered certain things “untouchable” for being
dirty and polluted. The flipside is that we want to protect whatever is hallowed and
sacred, whether objects, ideals, or institutions.