Ethics 10
maintaining certain moral principles.
What is ETHICS?
 It is the study of right and wrong in human
endeavors.
 At a more fundamental level, it is the method
by which we categorize our values and pursue
them.
 Do we pursue our own happiness, or do we
sacrifice ourselves to a greater cause?
 Is the foundation of ethics based on the Bible,
or on the very nature of man himself, or
neither?
Study of MORALITY of HUMAN ACTS
MORALITY
is more often used in connection with the ways in which
individuals conduct their personal, private lives, often in
relation to personal financial probity, lawful conduct
and acceptable standards of interpersonal behaviour
(including truthfulness, honesty, and sexual propriety).
Human Acts – Natural in occurrence
Act of Man – with consciousness
CLASSIFICATION OF HUMAN ACTS
• 1. GOOD – in harmony with the dictates of
reason
• 2. EVIL – in opposition to the dictates of
reason
• 3. INDIFFERENT – stand no positive relation to
the dictates of reason
CONSTITUENTS OF HUMAN ACTS
• KNOWLEDGE – requires deliberation
• FREEDOM – an act of free being
• VOLUNTARINESS – free will
• Direct and Indirect -Meta-ethics  Systematic attempt to establish the validity of
MODIFIERS OF HUMAN ACTS • which focuses on the meaning of ethical terms
themselves (for instance, ‘what is goodness?’) Common Sources of Authority
A. IGNORANCE – Absence of intellectual knowledge. • and on questions of how ethical knowledge is
obtained • LAW
• Ignorance of law
(‘how can I distinguish what is good from • RELIGION
• Ignorance of fact what is bad?’)
• rather than on the more applied question of • CULTURE
• Ignorance of penalty what should I do in a particular situation?
LAW
• Meta-ethics is therefore concerned with the
• Vincible ignorance
nature of ethical properties, statements, • Enactments, regulations, policies and rules
• Invincible ignorance attitudes and judgments.
which are implemented by authorities of the
• Meta-ethics examines such themes as what state (national and local government) that
B. CONCUPISCENCE – The passions :love, moral questions mean, and on what basis
joy, hatred, grief, horror, despair. requires compliance.
people can know what is ‘true’ or ‘false’.
C. FEAR – shrinking back of the mind from • Example : constitution, republic acts,
-Normative ethics city/municipal/barangay ordinances…etc.
danger.
• is the study of ethical acts. • Ethical violations to laws : murder,
D. VIOLENCE – External force
• It therefore focuses explicitly on questions of theft, kidnapping
E. HABIT – frequently repeated acts. ‘what is the right thing to do?’ in general.
• is concerned with questions of what people  Critic
THE ENDS OF HUMAN ACTS ought to do, and on how people can decide There are actions which are not forbidden by
what the ‘correct’ moral actions to take are. laws but is ethically questionable.
• ENDS – both a termination and a goal (final o Example
cause)  death penalty
-Applied Ethics
Every action tends towards an end.  Drinking and smoking
• is concerned with how people can achieve
CLASSIFICATION OF ENDS moral outcomes in specific situations. RELIGION
 End of the act • Therefore, it is concerned with the • Divine theory – God, Allah, Supreme Being
philosophical examination of particular – and
-end towards which the act of its own nature tends • Example : thou shall not kill, steal…
often complex – issues that involve moral
etc.
judgments.
 End of the agent
 Critic
• Areas such as bioethics, environmental ethics,
- the agent intends to achieve The problem of multiplicity of religion.
development ethics and business/corporate
Understanding the connection between ethics
Proximate and Remote ends ethics may be regarded as areas of applied
and the divine.
ethics.
• Proximate is the end intended as the “perhaps we shall learn
immediate outcome of an act • The distinction between normative and better, my friend. For consider: is the holy
loved by the gods because it is holy? Or is it
applied ethics, however, is becoming
• Remote – that which the agent wishes to increasingly blurred. holy because it is loved by the gods?”
achieve later on. -
Socrates (Euthypro by Plato)
Areas of Ethical Study
MORAL THEORY
 Is killing bad because God said thou shall not 3. ETHICAL EGOISM
kill? Or is it really bad that is why God said
thou shall not kill? – it prescribes that we should make our own ends, our
own interests. It is the single overriding concern.

-Man performs a good deed because there is something

CULTURE that he/she wants.

• Cultural relativism – ethically acceptable or

unacceptable actions are relative to or
dependent on one’s culture.

• What may be acceptable for the

Americans may not be acceptable
for us Filipinos.

 Critic
 It is premised on the reality of
difference, thus, there can never be
an action which can be right/wrong
for all humanity.
 We are in no position to make or
render any judgment on the
practices of other culture.
 We are in no position to render
judgment on the practices of even
our own culture.
 The difficulty of identifying what is
the culture.

SENSES OF THE SELF

1. SUBJECTIVISM – The recognition that the

individual is at the heart of all moral
valuations.

“I am entitled to my own opinion:

“no one can tell me what is right and wrong.”

2. PSYCHOLOGICAL EGOISM -“Human beings are

naturally self-centered, so all our actions are already
motivated by self-interest.”

Man is naturally self-centered.