Day 1 - Nasa Module iba yung iba wala

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Module 1 - PPT

Philosophical Methods of Inquiry

Philosophical inquiry (in response to human issues)

Logic - the science and art of correct thinking.

- based on valid arguments (premise conclusion)

Epistemology - study of the theory of knowledge particularly its scope, method, and validity.
truth based on facts and evidences.

Metaphysics - study of the nature of things, of what

is real and apparent.

moral skepticism (uncertainties and doubts)

Module 2

THE GOOD LIFE

• Human speculation (target)

Man has been devising tools for the accomplishment of purposes, means for the attainment of
ends and they know what they are for (right way)

• Still these questions remain:

What am I for?
what goal am I destined to achieve?
what is the purpose of human life?

There is always the right and wrong way in everything man does.

• The right way of living is the good life.

ORIGIN OF ETHICS

• Greeks - as primitive speculation in the 6th century which is integrated to philosophy

Philosophers (out of curiosity)penetrated knowing human life and society; encountered people;
learned customs, laws, and institutions which led to the examination of human conduct.
This study of human conduct (customs), as part of philosophy, is called ethics also known as
moral philosophy.

Ethics - Moral Philosophy

Inherent - inborn / innate

ORIGIN OF ETHICS

Ethics deals with more fundamental customs inherent in human nature (telling the truth, paying
our debts, honoring our parents, respecting the lives and property of others) which are not only
customary but right; not from arbitrary whim but from some fixed principle in human nature, that
to deviate from it would be wrong.

Ethics is the study of right and wrong in human conduct.

WHAT ETHICS STUDIES

Kinds of acts:
(1)Those that a man ought to do (good)
(2) Those that he ought not to do (evil)
(3) Those that he may either do or not do (indifferent)

WHAT ETHICS STUDIES

Philosophy, as an interpretation of life, investigates/studies the judgment made by man without

prejudice (discrimination)

Subject matter (material object) - actions which a man performs consciously and willfully, and for
which he is held accountable.

Act perform itself, right good or evil ( ano ginawa nya, willfully and responsibly)

Point of view (formal object) - the rightness and wrongness of human conduct (judgment), its
oughtness.

Ought to do (good) or not to do (evil)

NEED MAGKASAMA ANG DALAWA NETO

Relation to Other Studies

Anthropology and ethics both deal with human customs (origin and development) on various
levels of culture and civilization.
Psychology and ethics both deal with human behavior, with the abilities and acts of man. (the
how and the ought to)

Sociology, economics, and political science study man's social life, and so also does ethics. (the
ought to be in terms of human rights and duties)

The study of law is perhaps more closely related to ethics than any other.

The study of civil law deals only with external acts and positive legality, ethics with internal acts
of the will and the tribunal of conscience. There is a difference between crime and sin, legal
immunity and moral worth, outward respectability and true virtue of soul.

Moral theology and ethics both study the rightness and wrongness of human conduct.

Moral theology proceeds from the standpoint of divine revelation and ecclesiastical law, ethics
from the standpoint of natural human reason alone.

Ethics is philosophy and not religion.

PRESUPPOSITIONS OF ETHICS

Every science has to begin somewhere, and therefore starts by laying down certain
presuppositions. These are truths or propositions not proved by the science in question but
presupposed by it.

PRESUPPOSITIONS OF ETHICS

Three philosophical truths stand out as of primary importance to any sound system of ethics:

1. The freedom of the will. - Unless the human will is free, a man cannot choose between right
and wrong, is not responsible for what he does, and cannot direct the course of his life.

2. The immortality of the soul. - Unless the human soul is a spirit that outlives the present life,
there is no sufficient motive for doing the right and avoiding the wrong.

3. The existence of God. Unless God exists, there is no Highest Good. God is not only man's
Creator, the Source from which he comes, but also man's Last End, the Goal of all his striving.
METHOD OF ETHICS
• Depends on the nature of the subject matter itself and of the viewpoint adopted

1. The deductive, synthetic, a priori, or rational method - application of laws and principles

2. The inductive, analytic, a posteriori, or empirical method - construction of laws and principles

NOTES:

We want to reach him - GOD

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Module 2 - PPT

What precisely is a conduct?

What precisely is aconduct?

•CONDUCT- It consists of voluntary or human acts.
In contrast to involuntary acts, human acts are those of which a person is master by consciously
controlling and deliberately willing them.

Two Main Kinds of Acts

1. Voluntary acts or human Acts:

- those acts that we consciously control and deliberately will and for which we are held
responsible.
 - it is impossible to have a human act unless it is guided by the intellect and will
- Human act can be either be physical or mental provided it is deliberately willed.

2. Involuntary acts or Acts of Man:

- those acts that a person happens to perform but that he or she does not consciously
control or deliberately will and for which the person is not held responsible.

Note: This distinction between voluntary and involuntary acts is not a distinction between mental
and physical acts.

What Commands our actions?

● Commanded Acts

Will - We think of the Will as the controlling factor in us

- The will can command itself, as when it decides to reach a decision now or put it off until later.

The will can command, then both bodily acts and mental acts.

What Commands our actions?

Act of the Will is the HUMAN ACT

• for it is in the will that choice and consent reside and give an act its specifically human
character.

Ex. If a person chooses to do something with clear consent of will but is prevented by
circumstances from carrying out the choice, he or she is responsible for this consent.

Qualities of Human Acts

Knowledge
•It should be evident that there can be no voluntariness without knowledge.

We cannot strive for what we do not know.

Knowledge
•The will can make no choice without the intellect.

Voluntariness
• For a human Act to be performed, it is not sufficient that it be guided only by knowledge it must
also be willed
•A voluntary act is one that proceeds from the will with a knowledge of the end or good

—-

Voluntariness
● For a human Act to be performed, it is not sufficient that it be guided only by knowledge
it must also be willed

● A voluntary act is one that proceeds from the will with a knowledge of the end or good

What do '"I" do when I make choice?

Deliberation of the Will (2 elements)

1.CONSENT- Taken absolutely, as the yielding to the attraction of the object.

2.CHOICE- Taken comparatively, as a preference for one alternative over the other.
Is Deliberation itself a human act?

"Deliberation itself is not human act unless we reflect on it and initiate a

secondary deliberation."

"the acts proceeding the deliberation process are indeliberate, and those following upon the
process are deliberate if the choice is made"
Commanded Acts

● Responsibility- It looks to the agent who is responsible, answerable, accountable for the
act.
● Imputability (Attributability)- it looks to the act as it relates to the agent, who is
chargeable or gets the credit for the act.
• (e.g) If a person murders someone but it is apprehended only years later, we feel justified
blaming the murder now, even though the evil act lasted only a moment years ago.

A soldier receives a medal for bravery long after the battle is over even though his deed is only
a memory, something of. It remains in him and calls for a praise.

“ moral reality or property relating the human Act done to the doer”

“PRAISEWORTHINESS & BLAMEWORTHINESS”

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Module 3 - PPT
Important Elements In Making Moral Decisions

Three Dimension Of Acts

1. The object or nature of the act

2.The intention of the act
3. The circumstances of the act

A. Nature of the Act act involved?

• It answers the fundamental question: What is the

In judging the moral act, the OBJECT refers to what one has actually done or is considering to
do.
Example:

Spreading gossip to malign the good reputation of a classmate

The nature of the a moral act always includes an"intention" that makes it a free moral act, not
just a physical act like breathing or digestion.

The nature or object of the act is the most important in judging the morality of the act, but it
should not be separated from the other two intrinsic dimensions of the moral act.

B. Intention of the act --- its interior, subjective aspect---- answers the question:
"Why are you doing the act'
The intention here refers to the person's intended goal for doing the act. While the object of the
act already has built-in intention --- to malign, to steal or to commit adultery the intention we
referto here is the motive or reason for the act.

IMPORTANT PRINCIPLE: A GOOD END DOES NOT JUSTIFY A MORALLY EVIL MEANS

It means that a good end intended can never justify using morally evil means

THE END OR INTENTION CAN MODIFY HUMAN ACTIONS IN FOUR WAYS:

1. An indifferent act may become morally good or evil.

2. An objectively good act may become morally evil
3. An objectively good act may receive more goodness
4. An objective evil act can never become in spite of the good motive or intention.

C. The context/circumstances of the act

These answer the question: What are the other important factors involved in the act?

Several other questions are often related to the circumstances of the act: who, where, with what
means how, and when. (Peschke, 1996)

CIRCUMSTANCES --- are conditions modifying human actions, either by increasing

(aggregating) or by diminishing (mitigating) the responsibility attending them.

The Seven Circumstances Affecting the Morality of Our Actions:

a. WHO--- is the subject or the person who does or receives the action.
b. WHERE ---- is the setting or place of an action.
c. WHAT ----iS the object intended
d. BY WHAT MEANS----- although man's intention may be morally
good, if the means of attaining the end are illicit or unlawful, his acts
are immoral.
e. WHY ---- is the intention or motive that moves the agent to an action.
f. HOW-------The circumstances involves different conditions or modalities such as
voluntariness, consent, violence, fear, ignorance.
g. WHEN is the time of the action performed

HOW CIRCUMSTANCES AFFECT MORALITY

First Principle: Circumstances may increase or diminish the goodness or badness of an
action.
Ex. To kill one's parents is not only a crime but parricide.
To steal a working animal from a farmer is a worse act than to steal it from a rich man.
Second Principle: Circumstances may change a good or indifferent act into a punishable
one.
Ex. To sleep is an indifferent act. But a security sleeping at his post during wartime will be
sentenced by a military court to capital punishment.

A human act, in order to be morally good, must be perfect according to the three elements:
object, end and circumstances. Any deficiency will make a human act morally evil. "Bonum ex
integra causa; malum ex quocumque defectu"

The good results from whole perfection; the evil from any defect.
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Module 4 - PPT

Introduction to Emotion

Elements of Human Consciousness or Reason

- Reason in the sense of consciousness is not only intellectual and volitional, it is emotional as
well.
* intellect
* will
* emotions
- usually accompanied with images & thoughts
- the value is first picked up by the emotional side of our consciousness.
- important in making a choice

* emotions
- perception of good & bad (response by our emotion)
- no emotions, no forming of values
- basis of intellectual judgment of something good and bad (attraction & repulsion)
- mixed & mingled with our sensations

Emotions, Mood, Desires

•Emotion
-an immediate appreciation of the value and significance of persons, things & situations
- It is an activity that we do (evaluation).
- love, hate , joy, sorrow, shame, and guilt (immediate responses)

Emotions, Mood, Desires

• Mood
- generalized emotion; it also an immediate appreciation of the value, but a mood tends to
focus on the world/ rather than on a particular person, thing or situation.
- depression (set of emotions unable to let go)

•Emotions, Mood, Desires

•Desire
- is something wanting, striving for someone or something valuable to me.
- not always based on our emotions
- based upon base or structure provided
- personal reputation, friendship & love, happiness

Emotion as Judgment
Objectivity or Subjectivity

•Emotions as Judgment
* Emotion is neither sensation nor feeling
- nausea, stomach pain, back or neck pain (sensations)
- anger, love, hurt, embarrassed, shamed, anxious, tired, bored, envious, upset, proud (special
feelings)
EMOTION
1. Unarticulated, undeliberated, unreflective immediate appreciation that we make an active
response to the objects as we perceive that object.
2. Emotion is a judgment and not expressed in words, my anger at: someone for something
is my judgement about my situation
FEELINGS
- Feelings is recognition of Emotion
- Is Identifiable only in terms of object.

• Emotions as Judgment
* A person whose life is meaningless is a person who is not emotionally committed to anyone or
anything
* emotions make myself the self that I am.

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Module 5 - PPT

Responsibility

ETHICS IN THEORY AND PRACTICE 2017

UP DILIMAN, COLLEGE OF SOCIAL SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY

Problems:
1.What are the main kinds of
voluntariness?
2.What precludes or weakens
our responsibility?
3.Are unwanted but foreseen
consequences voluntary?
4.When may one permit
foreseen evil
consequences?

Levels of willing and not willing

Levels of willing and not willing
Argument 1: For my act to be voluntary I must will it knowingly
Q1. Can I be responsible for an act done in a state of
complete distraction?
Q2. For any responsibility to remain, must a previous
decision to act may still influence my behavior, or may
have entirely ceased its influence?
Q3. Can I be responsible for something that I never did
Will but presumably would have willed if ever thought of it.

Four (4) levels of Intention

Actual/Active intention is one that a person is conscious of the moment he or she performs
the intended action. The person pays attention not merely to what he or she is doing but also to
the fact of here and

A virtual Intention is one that was once made and continues to influence the act now being
done, but it is not present in the person's consciousness at the moment of performing an act.

An Unrevoked intention is one that was once made and not retracted, but it does not influence
the performance of the act intended at present

An Interpretative or presumed intention is one that has not been made if the person were
aware of the circumstances.

Key points:
• For an act to be voluntary an actual intention is not necessary; a virtual intention suffices
• The unrevoked and interpretative intentions have much less importance.

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MODIFIERS OF RESPONSIBILITY
Ethics of Theory and Practice

Presumed Arguments
• Voluntariness is said to be complete and perfect if the agent has full knowledge and full
consent.
• If either the knowledge where wholly lacking or the consent were wholly lacking there could be
no voluntariness.

Question/s for Discussion

• What sort of things render voluntariness imperfect, reducing the specifically human character
of the act and making the agent less responsible?
Five (5) modifiers of responsibility
• Ignorance, affecting the knowledge Strong emotion, affecting the consent of the will.
Intellectual fear, opposing to the will a contrary wish
• Force, actual use of physical compulsion
• Habit, a tendency acquired by repetition

Five (5) modifiers of responsibility

• Ignorance the lack of knowledge affects the voluntariness of a human act so as to make
the act less human act.
The only ignorance that has ethical import is ignorance an agent ought not to have; an
ignorance that ought not to exist.

Three (3) kinds of Ignorance

Ignorance that can be overcome by acquiring the requisite knowledge is called
vincible ignorance.
Ignorance that cannot be overcome because the requisite knowledge cannot be acquired is
called invincible ignorance.
Ignorance deliberately cultivated in order to avoid knowing what ought to be known is
called affected or studied ignorance.

Invincible Ignorance Precludes responsibility

• The knowledge is simply unobtainable 2 reasons:
a). Being unaware of his or her ignorance, the person does not know there is any knowledge to
be acquired.
b.) being aware of his/her ignorance the person's effort to obtain the knowledge are no avail.

● since in either case the knowledge is unobtainable and

● since no one can be held to do the impossible, what is done in invincible ignorance is not
voluntary, and so the agent is no responsible.

Vincible Ignorance
● does not preclude responsibility, but lessens it
● The person knows that he or she is ignorant and that the knowledge is obtainable
● If a person deliberately fails to make sufficient effort to overcome the ignorance and so
allows the ignorance to remain, the effects that follow from such ignorance are indirectly
voluntary, By willing to remain in ignorance, the person is responsible for the
consequences.

The blameworthiness of vincible ignorance depends on the amount of effort put forth to
overcome it, and the amount of effort called for depends on the importance of the matter and
the obligation of the agent to possess such knowledge
Affected Ignorance
● In a way lessens, in a way increases responsibility.
● ignorance, deliberately cultivated, increases the responsibility if the person intends to
use ignorance as an excuse.
● It lessens, for example, to lessen the risk of punishment or to avoid having to carry out a
known duty.

2. Strong Emotion
- Strong emotion increases the force of the willed act, but to the degree such emotion
lessens voluntariness it also lessens responsibility, and so the act is to that degree less a
human act, “If u know what I mean.”

Strong emotions, (a) if prior to the act ,is called antecedent and may preclude responsibility by
making deliberation and therefore voluntariness impossible; usually such emotions lessens
responsibility: (b) if generated after and as a result of our own deliberate choice, is called
consequent and does not lessen responsibility but may increase it.

Key points
- Very strong or violent antecedent emotion may preclude responsibility.
- Very strong or violent antecedent emotion usually lessens responsibility.
- Strong or violent consequent emotion does not lessen responsibility but may increase it.

3. Fear
Intellectual fear
- consisting of an understanding of a threatened evil and a movement of the will to avoid
this evil by rationally devised means, affects voluntariness only when it is the motive for
acting and does not preclude responsibility lessens it because of the contrary wish
mingled with our actual will
.
Fear
• The aim of fear is to protect the self from anticipated evil
• It is intellectual fear only when we act from fear as a motive for acting and not merely with fear
as accompaniment of our act.

Key points
● Intellectual fear does not preclude responsibility. Why?
- This kind of fear does not produce panic and loss of self- control. The person still
makes a deliberate choice for an escape to an impending evil.
● Intellectual fear lessens responsibility
- an act motivated by intellectual fear is one that we deliberately will; however, we would
not will it except for the fear we experience.
- reluctance weakens the consent of the will. lessens our self control.
- the person chooses something they are not obliged to do.
4.Force
● Force is the actual use of physical might to make us do something against our will. We
must considered force in its strictest sense as not merely a threat but as the actual use
of physical might.
● The Victim of force has no responsibility if he or she does not consent.

HABIT

• Habit is a constant way of acting and is acquired by the repetition of the same act.
• The acquisition of a habit may be:
a.) directly voluntary/deliberately acquire and if so, the agent has complete responsibility not
only for habit but for the acts that results from it.
b.) indirectly voluntary, and because the habit is formed by deliberately doing acts we know to
be habit forming, the agent has complete responsibility for the habit, which was foreseen, and
for the acts resulting from the habit.
• We may not intend to acquire a habit for its own sake but voluntarily perform acts that we know
are habit forming.
c.) involuntary/unintentionally acquired, and as long as the agent remains unaware of his or her
habit, the agent is not responsible for the habit or for the acts resulting from the habit. In this
case we are not responsible for the existence of the habit or the acts that unintentionally follow
from it, so long as we remain ignorant that we have the habit.

What will happen if we decide to let the habit remain?

• Our possession of the habit now becomes directly voluntary. And the acts unintentionally
follow from the habit are indirectly voluntary.
•the agent has complete responsibility for it and the resulting acts.

What will happen if we decide to get rid of the habit?

• if the agent chooses to get rid of the habit and deliberately works at countering it, the acts that
inadvertently reappear would be, less voluntary and so the agent would be less responsible or,
in some case, not responsible at all.

• We are now the victim of two opposite pulls, a.) the voluntary decision of our will to suppress or
get rid of the habit and the b.) involuntary persistence of the habit itself.

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Module 6

Anything willed with its consequence(s)vare directly voluntary (good or evil).

Something is indirectly voluntary when it is the unintended but foreseen consequence

of something else that is directly voluntary;
the agent does not will this consequence either as end or as means but sees that he cannot get
something else without getting it.

Principle of Double Effect

1. The act to be done must be good in itself or at least indifferent
2. The good intended must not be obtained by means of the evil effect.
3. The evil effect must not be intended for it self but only permitted
4. There must be proportionately grave reason for permitting the evil effect.

Principle of Double Effect

A man passing by a burning building dashes in to save a child trapped there, though he may be
severely burned and even lose his life.

An employee of a bank embezzles money to pay for the care of his sick child, hoping to pay it
back later

An employee of a bank embezzles money to pay for the care of his sick child, hoping to pay it
back later

The owner of a private plane has his pilot fly him through exceedingly dangerous weather to
complete a business deal that will net him a small profit.

RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ACTS OF OTHERS

Only the person who knowingly and willingly does an act can be responsible for it. In this sense
no one can be responsible for the acts of another person.

Occasion of Evil
We give occasion of evil to another directly if we intend his or her evil act either as an end or
as a means (inducing others to evil)

Cooperation in Evil
Cooperation in another's evil deed may occur by joining that person in the actual performance of
the act or by supplying him or her with the means for performing it (formal cooperation).
material cooperation - forced to cooperate in the
completion of the crime

Scandal (occasion of evil)

a.Something we trip on and fall over in our moral career.
B. Old meaning, we shall call it occasion of evil.
C. It is any word or deed tending to lead, entice, or allure.
D. It may be only given or only taken or both given and taken.
We give occasion of evil to another directlv:
a. If we intend his or her evil act either as an end or as a means.
b. the intention looks to the moral destruction of the other person. (e.g selling addictive drugs)
c. The direct voluntariness of this direct giving of occasion of evil makes for complete
responsibility for the evil on the part of the giver.
d. The taker's responsibility is also complete if the evil is done knowingly and willingly; his or her
responsibility may be diminished by any of the modifiers of responsibility.

We give occasion of evil to another indirectlv:

a. If we do not intend the person's evil act either as an end or as means but foresee it as a
consequence of something else we do.

Occasion of evil is taken but not given:

a. When someone with peculiar subjective dispositions is led to evil by another person's
innocent words or deeds.
b. It may be due to the taker's malice. then is wholly the taker's responsibility.
c. Or it may be due to the taker's weakness to his ignorance, youth, inexperience,
prejudices etc.

Cooperation of Evil
Cooperation in another's evil deed may occur by joining that person in the actual performance
ofthe act or by supplying him or her with the means for performing it.

1. Formal Cooperation
-All the cooperators share completely in the responsibility for the act.
"If we intend the evil directly; this kind of cooperation, being completely voluntary, brings with it
complete responsibility for the evil the other does.

2. Material Cooperation
"If without intending the evil we actually assist in its performance by an act of our own that is not
itself Evil.

-We are responsible to some extent for the evil, because while we do not intend it, we do permit
it.
-We incur no guilt when we limit our material cooperation according to the principle of double
effect.

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Module 7

Morality & Conscience

PHILO 102

• The judgement about responsibility is a factual judgement about the degree of voluntariness;
the judgement of conscience is an evaluative judgement about the moral value or disvalue of
my act and so of myself as a person.
• All people, no matter what their system of morals might be, make the kind of evaluative
judgements associated with conscience and admit that they make them
• This personal judgement in these terms about my own actions and about myself as a person is
what we mean in this by the judgement of conscience.

We shall use the following points to guide us in

our discussion:
• What do we mean by morality?
• What is conscience?
• How is the judgement of conscience formed?
• What part do our emotions play in forming the judgement of
conscience?
• Must we always follow the judgement of conscience?
• May we act with a doubtful conscience?
• How can doubts of conscience be solved?

MEANING OF MORALITY
• Morality is the quality or value human acts have by which we call them right or wrong, good or
evil.
• The term "moral" is also used at times as a general term covering both good and bad qualities
or values in the same way that morality is used.
• The terms moral and immoral mark the extremes of good and bad within morality, in the field of
morals when moral is used as the opposite of immoral.
• The term moral means
"morally good" only when it is clearly opposed to immoral, which means "morally bad."
• When moral and immoral are used in opposition to one another to describe human acts, each
indicates that the act has a definite moral quality or value.

• An act is moral when it has the quality or value of being good; an act is immoral when it has
the quality or value of being bad
• The field of morals, that is morality, is possible because of the kind of beings are namely,
beings who have the power to do both good and evil.
• There is this negativity or limitedness about our being, we as personal beings can fail to live
always in accord with our potentialities and our vision of the good.
• We are imperfect and weak at times even when we would like to be more perfect and strong.
Because of our limitedness as persons, we have the possibility of doing evil rather than good.

Morality (objective and Subjective)

• In judging the morality of a human act, we take into consideration the subjective peculiarities of
the agent.
(Considered in this way, morality is subjective, the goodness or badness being determined by
whether the act agrees or disagrees with the agent's own judgement of conscience.)
• Then we ask not whether this individual is (excused from responsibility for the act because of
strong emotion, ignorance, or any other modifier of responsibility, but whether, if any normal
person with full command of his or her own powers deliberately willed that kind of act, the result
would be a morally good act.)
We would be judging the objective nature of the act done, not the subjective state of the doer.
Morality considered in this way is obiective morality,

If we ask
"did this man fully realize what he was doing when he killed that child?" "Did this woman intend
to tell the truth when she blurted out that remark?
(we are asking about subjective morality.)
Thus, Morality in its completeness includes both its subjective and its objective aspects

•The study of ethics generally stresses objective morality.

• But each person has a life to live, must personally account for his or her deeds as he or she
saw them, and will be judged morally good or bad in terms of the sincerity in following his or her
conscience even if his or her moral judgements turn out to have been objectively incorrect.
• In this sense, subjective morality is paramount for each person; but at the same time, each of
us tries to conform his or her judgement of conscience to what is objective morality is
paramount.

Summary of Morality
• Morality refers to be rightness or wrongness of human acts,
• We speak of objective or subjective morality accordingly as it overlooks the particular
characteristics of the doer of the act and his or her circumstances or else take them into
consideration.
• The norm of subjective morality is the evaluative judgement of conscience.
—-

MEANING OF CONSCIENCE
• conscience is often thought of as an "inner voice," sometimes as the "voice of God.
• conscience is not a special power distinct from our intellect.
• Conscience is not a special faculty but a practical function of the intellect, under the impulse of
the desire to do the right and good, judges the concrete act of an individual person as morally
good or evil
• Conscience is only the intellect itself exercising a special function, the function of judging the
rightness or wrongness, the moral value, of our own individual acts according to the set of moral
values and principles the person holds with conviction.
"Thus, Conscience, in this traditional sense, can then be defined as the intellect's practical
judgement about an individual act as good and to be done, or as evil and to be avoided.”

The term conscience can actually be applied to any of the three distinct aspects of this
judgement process:
• The intellect as a person's ability, under the influence of a desire to do the right and the good,
to form judgements about the right and wrong of individual acts
•The process of reasoning that we go through, under the influence of that desire, to reach such
a judgement
• The conclusion of this reasoning process, which is called the evaluative judgement of
conscience

We arrive at the judgement of conscience by a kind of "shortcut" that seems to conceal the
deductive process. For example:
• "Should I say this? No, that would be a lie."
"Must I correct this mistake? Yes, it may hurt someone."
"May I keep this? Of course, no one else owns it"
(If we were to formulate explicitly each of the deductions in
these examples, this is what we would have:
Lies are immoral. This explanation of my conduct is a lie.
This explanation of my conduct is immoral.)

EMOTION AND CONSCIENCE

• If emotion was not at all involved, there would be no judgement of conscience in the first place.
• We would have been aware of no values either to form convictions.
• The evaluational elements that we use in living my life have their beginnings in our emotions,
the affective side of my being.
• It is a Personal value orientation, my set of moral values and principles that I hold with
conviction, the values and principles I have found for myself and tested out with my own
emotions and then integrated into my own moral approach to life.
• Conscience is not developed by critical thought alone. Emotion also enters into its
development along with imagination, for conscience is not merely our power to judge the past in
moral terms but also our ability to see alternatives in moral situations that have implications for
the future.

• All moral knowledge has an emotional dimension, and our emotions draw the values we
experience into the interior of our personality.
• These values enter into our intellectual framework for use in making our evaluative judgements
of conscience.
• The person who is morally good is one who loves the good and is sensitive to its presence.
• Another way we can see how much emotion is involved in conscience is to realize that our
most profound interpersonal relationships are precisely relationships in which one moral
consciousness meets another at the level and in the intimacy of conscience
• Since conscience is the total moral personality, conscience is also more than intellect and
includes emotion, willing, imagination, and natural inclination as well.
• Conscience is not a matter of me against them; it is an affair of me distinct from them but
together with them. (What we must not do is allow ourselves to be engulfed and dominated by
others.)
• If I am to follow my own conscience; then I must also question my own conscience and test it. I
can do this only with the help of others, being emotionally sincere and intellectually honest with
them.
• we live our lives in dialogue with others, and so the moral self that I am mirrors my social
nature.

KINDS OF CONSCIENCE
For the purpose of ethics, conscience as a guide to future
actions is more important. Its acts are chiefly four:
1. commanding or forbidding:,
2. when the act must either be done or avoided;
3. persuading or permitting:,
4. when there is a question of the better or worse course of actions without a strict obligation.

KINDS OF CONSCIENCE
1. A correct conscience judges as good what is really good, and as evil what is really evil. The
term correct to the objective truth of the person's judgement; the person's judgement of
conscience represents the real state of things.
- subjective and objective morality correspond.
2. An erroneous conscience judges as good what is really evil, or as evil what is really good.

A person's judgement of conscience may also be certain or doubtful.

3. We are certain when we judge without fear that the opposite may be true in fact.
- is the subjective assurance of the goodness or evilness of the act.
4. We are doubtful when we either hesitate to make any judgement at all or make a judgement
but with misgivings that the opposite may be true.

KINDS OF CONSCIENCE
5. The fact that people differ in their levels of sensitivity to moral values gives habitual
characteristics to their judgements of conscience strict or lax.
-that which is inclined to follow the easy way.
6. A perplexed person is one who cannot make up his or her mind and remains in a state of
indecisive anguish, especially if he or she thinks that whatever alternative he or she chooses will
be wrong.

7. A scrupulous person torments himself or herself by rehearsing over and over again doubts
that were once settled.
-finding new sources of guilt in old deeds that were best forgotten, striving for a kind of certainty
about one's moral state that one simply cannot be a serious form of self-torture

————

Following the judgement of conscience

There are two chief rules, but each of them involves

a problem. The two rules are:
1. Always follow a certain conscience
2. Never act with a doubtful conscience

Always Follow a Certain Conscience

• The word certain refers to the subjective state of the person judging namely, how firmly assent
to the judgement has been given, how thoroughly fear of the opposite has been excluded.

What degree of certainty is required to call our judgement certain?

•Traditionally it has been said that prudential certainty is sufficient.

• This kind of certainty excludes all prudent fear that the opposite may be true, but it does not
require us to rule out imprudent fears based on bare possibilities.
•that the person would feel safe in practice even though there is theoretically a chance of being
wrong.

"A prudent person, having investigated the case, can then say with prudential certainty that
this business venture is safe, that this person is guilty of a crime, that this employee is honest.
This degree of certainty, since it excludes all reasonable fear of error, is much stronger than
high probability, which does not exclude such reasonable fear.

What happens when I have an erroneous conscience, that is, when I make a mistaken or
incorrect moral judgement?

•If I know my judgment may be wrong and I am able to correct the possible error, then i have an
obligation to do so before acting.

"If I were not obliged to follow my conscience when my judgment is certain even though
mistaken but not known to be mistaken, then I would be forced to the absurd conclusion that I
am not obliged to follow my judgment of conscience when it is certain and correct"

Summary

"Always obey a certain conscience even when it is unknowingly or unavoidably mistaken. A

certain and correct conscience is the clear and proper judgment about one's moral duty or
obligations. Prudential certainty, the exclusion of any prudent fear of the opposite, is all that can
be expected in moral matters.

"A certain but erroneous conscience must also be followed because the agent cannot
distinguish it from a correct conscience and has no other guide; the act is subjectively right even
if objectively wrong.

Never Act with a Doubtful Conscience

• A person who acts with doubtful conscience is willing to do an act whether it is wrong or not,
refusing to take the means to avoid doing moral evil.
• This type of person acts without care for the rightness or wrongness of acts.
• This person has reason to believe that the intended act may actually be wrong and yet is
willing to go ahead and do it anyway.

• The person's first obligation is to try to solve the doubt, to find out the true nature of the act. If I
am a person with a doubtful conscience, I must reason over the matter more carefully to see
whether I can arrive at certainty.

What if a prudentially certain conclusion cannot be reached by doing all of this?

If one should never act with a doubtful conscience, what can one do who is still in doubt?

•no one need ever remain in doubt about what he or she must do.

•To see this, we must distinguish between:

-direct method of inquiry and investigation, in which has just been described, and the indirect
method of forming our conscience by the use of reflex principles.

• If the direct method yields no results, the indirect method of forming one's conscience may
be used.
• This consist in solving not be theoretical doubt (what is the actual truth?), for that is what
cannot be solved if the direct method fails, but in solving the practical doubt alone (how should a
doubting person act in this case?).

FORMING ONE'S CONSCIENCE

The doubting person who has exhausted the direct method described above without obtaining
the knowledge he or she needs has a double doubt:
• What is the actual truth about the matter in hand?
• What is one obliged to do in such a situation?

FORMING ONE'S CONSCIENCE

• What is the actual truth about the matter in hand? Theoretical doubt)-cannot be answered if
the direct method was used and failed to yield results
• What is one obliged to do in such a situation? (question is a practical doubt)- can be answered
in every instance by use of the indirect method

This process of solving a practical doubt without

touching the theoretical doubt is called the indirect method or forming one's conscience.
• The process of forming one's conscience is accomplished by the use of reflex principles, (we
use them while reflecting on the state of doubt and ignorance)
• We have only two possible courses of action open to us: "play it safe" or "take the easier way."

Since these two courses of action are almost always opposite courses, may we take whichever
we please in any case?

No. Forming one's conscience by use of the indirect method consists in determining when to
play it safe" and when to "take the easier way.”

The practical doubt can always be solved by using one of two reflex principles;
1. The morally safer course is preferable.

morally safer course is meant the course of action that more surely preserves moral
goodness and more clearly avoids moral wrong doing.

We have an obligation to follow the morally safer course whenever we have a known
moral obligation to fulfil or an end (goal) that we ought to achieve to the best of our power.
This course is always allowable but sometimes is burdensome. It must be used if the case
concerns not the existence or application of an obligation but the effectiveness of the means
used to fulfil a certain moral obligation or attain an end that must certainly be attained.

• The morally safer course (our first reflex principle), though always allowable, is often costly
and inconvenient, sometimes physically more dangerous and even heroic.

2. A doubtful obligation does not bind.

● This second principle is applicable only when I doubt whether I am bound by a moral
obligation.

● This principle may be used only when there is a question of the obligation itself, when
either the existence or application of an obligation is genuinely in doubt.

The principle that a doubtful obligation does not bind may be used in both of the following
situations:
● I doubt whether such an obligation exists or is genuine.
● I doubt about how to interpret the obligation, that is, I doubt whether the existing
obligation binds me here and now.
(Is there any known moral obligation that is applicable to my case and that certainly forbids my
doing what I am thinking of doing? )