1 Ethics Lesson # 1 – 2: What is Ethics?

& Branches of Ethics

What is Ethics? • Meta-Ethics - This branch seeks to understand

 The Latin word mos or moris (and its plural
mores) from which the adjective moral is derived
is equivalent to ethos.
 Etymologically, ethics is but a survey of patterns
of behavior that is done by the human being in
general or a society in particular.
 Ethics, generally speaking is about matters such
as the good thing that we should pursue and the
bad thing that we should avoid; the right ways in
w/c we could or should act and the wrong ways
of acting. It is about what is acceptable and
unacceptable in human behavior. It may involve
obligations that we are. Ethics as a subject for
us to study is about determining the grounds for
the values w/ particular and special significance
to human life.
 Ethics – Ethos = Custom or character
o Studies the rightness or wrongness of
human action
How human persons ought to act?
What is a Right conduct and a good life?
NOTE: THERE IS NO SINGLE ABSOLUTE DEFINITION
OF ETHICS
the nature of ethical properties and judgments
such as if truth values can be found and the
theory behind moral principles.
• Aims to understand the nature and dynamics of
ethical principles , and the way we learn and
acquire moral beliefs
Normative Ethics -> Do Good at All Times
Meta-ethics -> What is good?
• Applied Ethics - This is the study of applying
theories from philosophers regarding ethics in
everyday life. For example, this area of ethics
asks questions such as "Is it right to have an
abortion?" and "Should you turn in your friend at
your workplace for taking home office supplies?"
• Moral Ethics - This branch questions how
individuals develop their morality, why certain
aspects of morality differ between cultures and
why certain aspects of morality are generally
universal.
• Descriptive Ethics - This branch is more
scientific in its approach and focuses on how
Human beings actually operate in the real world,
rather than attempt to theorize about how they
should operate.

 WHY? Because Ethics is constantly Evolving
Greek Tradition = “Good Life” Happiness (Being Happy)
Judeo-Christian = Righteousness before God; Love of
God and Neighbor (Doing what is Right)
NOTE: Knowing how to best resolve difficult moral and
ethical dilemmas is never easy especially when any
choice violates the societal and ethical standards by
which we have been taught to govern our lives.

Ethics

 “Theory” of right action and the greater good

 “Systematic” study of the underlying principles of
morality

Morality

 “Practice”, rightness or wrongness of human

action
 “Perspective” tells us what we ought to do;
exhorts us to follow the right way

Branches of Ethics

• Normative Ethics - The largest branch, it deals

with how individuals can figure out the correct
moral action that they should take. Philosophers
such as Socrates and John Stuart Mill are
included in this branch of ethics.

• Seeks to set norms or standards that regulate

right and wrong or good and bad conduct
1 Ethics Lesson # 3: Religion and Cultural Relativism

Law

• LAW - It is supposed the law is one’s guide to

ethical behavior. In the Philippines, Filipinos are
constrained to obey the laws of the land as
stated in country’s criminal and civil codes. The
term positive law refers to the different rules and
regulations that are posited or put forward by an
authority figure that require compliance.

Religion

• Does Morality Depend on Religion?

“The Good consists in always doing what God wills at
any particular moment”.

“I respect deities. I do not rely upon them.”

Man’s Laws cannot make moral what God has
declared immoral. Even if a sin is legalized, it’s still a
sin in the eyes of God.

- Anonymous

• Why clergymen are regarded this way? The

Ethical Dilemma
• Also known as a moral dilemmas, are
situations in which there is a choice to be made
between two options, neither of which resolves
the situation in an ethically acceptable fashion.
In such cases, societal and personal ethical
guidelines can provide no satisfactory outcome
for the chooser.
• Ethical dilemmas assume that the chooser will
abide by societal norms, such as codes of law or
religious teachings, in order to make the choice
ethically impossible
Issues about Death Penalty
• Came from Hebrew word “Ratsach” meaning
illegal killing or murder. Therefore, Death
Penalty is not a murder
• Death Penalty - the punishment of execution,
administered to someone legally convicted of a
capital crime.
• Murder- the unlawful premeditated killing of one
reason is not that they have proven to be better
or wiser than other people - as a group, they
seem to be neither better nor worse than the
rest of us. There is a deeper reason why they
are regarded as having special moral insight. In
popular thinking, morality and religion are
inseparable: People commonly believe that
morality can be understood only in the context of
religion. So because the clergymen are the
spokesmen for religion, it is assumed that they
must be spokesmen for morality as well.
Culture
• Culture is the beliefs, behaviors, objects, and
other characteristics shared by groups of people.
Given this, someone could very well say that
they are influenced by internet culture, rather
than an ethnicity or a society! Culture could be
based on shared ethnicity, gender, customs,
values, or even objects
• Some cultures place significant value in things
such as ceremonial artifacts, jewellery, or even
clothing. For example, Christmas trees can be
considered ceremonial or cultural objects. They
are representative in both Western religious and
commercial holiday culture.
• In addition, culture can also demonstrate the
way a group thinks, their practices, or behavioral
patterns, or their views of the world.
2 Ethics Lesson # 3: Religion and Cultural Relativism

• For example, in some countries like China, it is

acceptable to stare at others in public, or to
stand very close to others in public spaces

• In South Africa, if you board a nearly empty bus

or enter a nearly empty movie theater, it is
regarded as polite to sit next to the only person
there.

Ethnocentrism

• A Feeling of superiority towards one group

• Is ethnocentrism bad or good? On the one hand,

ethnocentrism can lead to negative
judgments of the behaviors of groups or
societies. It can also lead to discrimination
against people who are different.

• But on the other hand, ethnocentrism can

create loyalty among the same social group
or people in the same society. For example,
during the World Cup or Olympics, you may tend
to root for your own country and believe that the
players or teams representing your country are
much better. National pride is also part of
ethnocentrism.

NOTE: To avoid judging the cultural practices of groups

that are different to yours, we can use the cultural
relativism approach.

Cultural Relativism

• Cultural relativism refers to not judging a culture

to our own standards of what is right or wrong,
strange or normal. Instead, we should try to
understand cultural practices of other groups in
its own cultural context
1 Ethics Lesson # 4: Sense of the Self
Subjectivism
The starting point of subjectivism is the
recognition that the individual thinking person (the
subject) is at the heart of all moral valuations. She is the
one who is confronted with the situation and is burdened
with the need to make a decision or judgment. From this
point, subjectivism leaps to the more radical claim that
the individual is the sole determinant of what is morally
good or bad, right or wrong.
Psychological Egoism
• “Human beings are naturally self-centred, so all
our action are always already motivated by self-
interest.”
• The theory that describes the underlying
dynamic behind all human actions. As a
descriptive theory, it does not direct one to act in
any particular way. Instead, it points out that
there is already an underlying basis for how one
acts. The ego or self has its desires and interest,
and all our actions are geared toward satisfying
these interests.
• This theory has a couple of strong points. The
first is that of simplicity. When an idea is marked
by simplicity, it has a unique appeal to it; a
theory that conveniently identifies a single basis
that will somehow account for all actions is good
example of this. The second is that of
plausibility. It is plausible that self-interest is
behind a person’s actions.
Ethical Egoism
Ethical egoism differs from psychological egoism
in that it does not suppose all our actions are already
inevitably self-serving. Instead, ethical egoism
prescribes that we should make our own ends, our own
interest, as the single overriding concern. We may act in
a way that is beneficial to others, but we should do that
only if it ultimately benefits us.
Utilitarianism
• Utilitarianism is an ethical theory that argues for
the goodness of pleasure and the determination
of right behavior based on the usefulness of the
actions consequences. This means that
pleasure is good and that the goodness of action
is determined by its usefulness.
• Utilitarianism is consequentialist. This means
that the moral value of actions and decisions is
based solely or greatly on the usefulness of their
consequences; it is the usefulness of results that
determines whether the action or behavior is
good or bad. While this is the case, not all
consequentialist theories are utilitarian.
Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)
• (Born February 15, 1748, London, England—
died June 6, 1832, London), English
philosopher, economist, and theoretical jurist,
the earliest and chief expounder of utilitarianism.
Bentham defined as the "fundamental axiom" of his
philosophy the principle that "it is the greatest happiness
of the greatest number that is the measure of right and
wrong". He became a leading theorist in Anglo-American
philosophy of law, and a political radical whose ideas
influenced the development of welfarism. He advocated
for individual and economic freedoms, the separation of
church and state, freedom of expression, equal rights for
women, the right to divorce, and the decriminalising of
homosexual acts. He called for the abolition of slavery,
of the death penalty, and of physical punishment,
including that of children. He has also become known as
an early advocate of animal rights. Though strongly in
favour of the extension of individual legal rights, he
opposed the idea of natural law and natural rights (both
of which are considered "divine" or "God-given" in
origin), calling them "nonsense upon stilts". Bentham
was also a sharp critic of legal fictions.
The Principle of Utility
• The principle of utility is about our subjection to
these sovereign masters: pleasure and pain. On
one hand, the principle refers to the motivation
of our actions as guided by our avoidance of
pain and our desire for pleasure. It is like saying
that in our everyday actions, we do what is
pleasure as good if, and only if, they produce
more happiness than unhappiness.
• For Bentham and Mill, the pursuit for pleasure
and the avoidance of pain are not only important
principles--they are in fact the only principle in
assessing an action’s morality. Why is it
justifiable to wiretap private conversations in
instances of treason, rebellion, espionage, and
sedition? Why is it preferable to alleviate poverty
or eliminate criminality? Why is it noble to build
schools and hospitals? Why is it good to improve
the quality of life and the like? There is no other
answer than the principle of utility, that is, to
increase happiness and decrease pain.
What kind of pleasure is morally preferable and
valuable? Are all pleasures necessarily and ethically
good? Does this mean that because eating or exercising
is good, it is morally acceptable to eat and exercise
excessively?
2 Ethics Lesson # 4: Sense of the Self
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)
John Stuart Mill was born on May 20, 1806 in
Pentonville, London, United Kingdom. He was the son of
James Mill, a friend and disciple of Jeremy Bentham.
John Stuart Mill was home-schooled. He studied Greek
at the age of three and Latin at the age of eight. He
wrote a history of Roman law age eleven, and suffered a
nervous breakdown at the age of twenty. He was
married to Harriet Taylor after Twenty-one years of
friendship. His ethical theory and his defense of
utilitarian views are found in his long essay entitled
Utilitarianism (1861). Mill died on May 8, 1873 in
Avignon, France from erysipelas
• Mill dissents from Bentham’s single scale of
pleasure. He thinks that the principle of utility
must distinguish pleasures qualitatively and not
merely quantitatively.
• Human pleasures are qualitatively different from
animal pleasures. It is unfair to assume that we
merely pursue pleasures appropriate for beasts
even if there are instances when we choose to
pursue such base pleasures.
• Mill argues that quality is more preferable than
quantity. An excessive quantity of what is
otherwise pleasurable might result in pain. We
can consider, for example, our experience of
excessive eating or exercising whereas eating
the right amount of food can be pleasurable,
excessive eating may not be.
• “It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than
a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied
than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, is
of a different opinion. It is because they only
know their own side of the question. The other
party to the comparison knows both sides.”
Principle of the Greatest Number
• Equating happiness with pleasure does not aim
to describe the utilitarian moral agent alone and
independently from others. This is not only about
our individual pleasures, regardless of how high,
intellectual, or in other ways noble it is, but it is
also about the pleasure of the greatest number
affected by the consequences of our actions.
• Utilitarianism is interested with the best
consequence for the highest number of people.
It is not interested with the intention of the agent.
Moral value cannot discernible in the intention or
motivation of the person doing the act; it is
based solely and exclusively on the difference it
makes on the world’s total amount of pleasure
and pain.
Justice and Moral Rights
• What is a right? Mill understands justice as a
respect for rights directed toward society’s
pursuit for the greatest happiness of the greatest
number. For him, rights are a valid claim on
society and are justified by utility.
• Mill expounds that the above mentioned rights
referred are related to the interests that serve
general happiness. The right to due process, the
right to free speech or religion, and others are
justified because they contribute to the general
good. This means that society is made happier if
its citizens are able to live their lives knowing
that their interest are protected and that society
(as a whole) defends it.
Lawrence Kohlberg’s
Stages of Moral Development.
Lawrence Kohlberg, a professor of psychology in
Harvard University is a prominent moral development
theorist, but his thinking grew out of Jean Piaget’s writing
on children’s intellectual development. His theory is
descriptive, rather than, proven facts.
Kohlberg presumes that there are six stages of moral
development that people go through in much the same
way as infants learned first to role over, to sit, to crawl, to
stand and finally to walk. Kohlberg clearly emphasized
the following system of his theory:
• Everyone goes through each stage in the same
order, but not everyone goes through all the
stages and
• A person at one stage can understand the
reasoning of any stage below him but cannot
understand more than one stage above.
A. Pre-conventional level
(Pre-conventional because individuals do not yet speak
as members of society, instead they see morality as
something external to themselves)
Stage 1 – Punishment and Obedience
DESCRIPTION: The first stage is characterized by a
view that right action is to behave according to social
acceptable norms imposed by some authority figure
(e.g., parent, teacher) in order to avoid punishment.
CONTENT: Right is a literal obedience to rules and
authority, avoiding punishment, and not doing physical
harm. What is right is to avoid breaking rules, to obey for
obedience’s sake and to avoid physical damage to
people and authority. Thus follow and obey because of
3 Ethics Lesson # 4: Sense of the Self
the consequence of punishment and due to superior
power of authorities.
SOCIAL PERSPECTIVE: This stage takes an
egocentric point of view, a person at this stage does not
consider the interests of others and does not relate two
points of view. Actions were justified in terms of physical
consequence rather in terms psychological interests of
others. Authority’s perspective is confused with one’s
own.
Stage 2 – Individual and Instrumental exchange
DESCRIPTION: Is characterized by a view that right
behavior means acting in one’s own best interests.
CONTENT: What is right is following rules when it is to
someone’s immediate interest. Right is acting to meet
one’s interests and needs and letting others do the
same. Right is also what is fair, that is, what is an equal
exchange, a deal, an agreement. The reason for doing
what is right is to serve one’s own needs/interests in a
world where one must recognize that other people have
their interests as well.
SOCIAL PERSPECTIVE: This stage takes a concrete
individualistic perspective. A person at this stage
separates his own interests and points of view from
those of authorities and others. The person integrates or
relates conflicting individual interests to one another
through instrumental exchange of service, need for
others and other’s goodwill. Perhaps through fairness
giving each person the same amount.
B. Conventional Level
(It speaks on isolated individuals rather than as
members of the society. It sees individual exchanging
favors, but there is still no identification with the values of
the family/community)
Stage 3 - Mutual and interpersonal conformity
DESCRIPTION: Characterized by an attitude which
one seeks to do that will gain the approval of others.
CONTENT: It sees what is right is living up according to
the expectations by people that are close to them, like
the family, community. Being good and having good
behavior means having good motives and interpersonal
feelings such as empathy, love, trust, and concern.
SOCIAL PERSPECTIVE: This stage takes the
perspective of the individual in relationship to other
individuals. Thus, a person in this stage is aware of the
shared feelings, agreement and expectations that take
primacy over the individual interests.
Stage 4 - Law and Order
DESCRIPTION: Is characterized by abiding the law
and respecting authority and performing one’s duty so
that social order is maintained.
CONTENT: What is right is fulfilling one’s own duty to
which one had agreed. The reasons for doing what is
right are to keep the institutions going as a whole.
SOCIAL PERSPECTIVE: This stage differentiates
societal point of view from interpersonal agreement or
motives. A person at this stage takes the viewpoint of
the system, which defines roles and rules, individual
relations in terms of one’s own place in the system.
C. Post-conventional level
(Moral decisions are generated from the rights, values or
principles that are or that could be agreeable to all
individuals composing or creating a society designed to
have fair and beneficial practices)
Stage 5 - Social Contract and Individual Rights
DESCRIPTION: Is characterized by thinking about a
society in a very theoretical way, stepping back from
their own established society and considering the rights
and values of the society ought to uphold.
CONTENT: What is right is the awareness of the fact
that people hold a variety of values and opinion that
most values and rules are relative to one’s group. The
reason for doing what is right, is in general, feeling
obligated to obey the law, because one has made a
social contract to make and abide by laws for the good
of all and to protect their own rights and the rights of
others.
SOCIAL PERSPECTIVE: This stage takes a ‘prior-to-
society’ perspective. It means that individuals are aware
of the values and rights prior to social attachment and
contract. The person integrates perspective by formal
mechanism of agreement, contract, objective impartiality
and due process.
Stage 6 - Universal Ethical Principles
DESCRIPTION: Is characterized by an attitude of
respect for universal principle and the demands of
individual conscience.
CONTENT: The right action on this stage is guided by
universal ethical principles, particularly law, social
agreement are usually valid because it is anchored to
principles. When law perhaps violates the universal
principle one is often acts in accordance with the
principle. The principle of equality, justice, respect and
others. These are not only values but regarded as
principle that is of used in order to generate decisions.
4 Ethics Lesson # 4: Sense of the Self

SOCIAL PERSPECTIVE: This stage takes the

perspective that a person takes a stand in view of moral
principle from which social agreement are derived on
which they are grounded.

Application

A nurse and the physician are caring for a

terminally ill man and that the man is in great pain who is
asking the doctor and the nurse for enough barbiturates
to commit suicide. What are the appropriate responses
that the health care provided will take based from the
moral development of Kohlberg?

Stage 1: the health professional in stage one might

reply, ‘I will not do it because I could lose my license if
anybody found out I have done that’.

Stage 2: the stage two, professionals (physician/nurse)

might expressed, ‘I will not do it because if I became
known as a doctor or perhaps a nurse who did that kind
of thing then other doctor or nurse might not refer
patients to me’.

Stage 3: at this stage the reply could be, ‘I will not do it

because if everyone will do it, then, the physician/nurse
would no longer be trusted to save lives of people’.

Stage 4: in this stage, perhaps the physician/nurse

might reply, ‘I will not because it is against the law and
the professional should obey the law’ or maybe, ‘I will
not because my colleagues would no longer respect me
if they knew I have done that’.

Stage 5: the stage five, a health professional might say,

‘yes because no one benefits from keeping individual
alive longer than they want to live’, or perhaps to say, ‘no
even though the patient might suffer less, we need to be
faithful to our respect for life otherwise we might lose our
standards and abuse it’.

Stage 6: at this stage the reply could be, ‘no because I

personally believe that no one has a right to take his or
her own life and so I cannot be a part to such action’ or
maybe be to say it, YES, ‘the decision to exit life is such
a serious one that it needs to be honored if it is made
reasonably’.
1 Ethics Lesson # 5: Model for Ethical Decision Making

Gather the Facts Compare the Alternatives with the Principles

Frequently ethical dilemmas can be resolved
simply by clarifying the facts of the case in question. In
those cases that prove to be more difficult, gathering the
facts is the essential first step prior to any ethical
analysis and reflection on the case. In analyzing a case,
we want to know the available facts at hand as well as
any facts currently not known but that need to be
ascertained. Thus one is asking not only “What do we
know?” but also “What do we need to know?” in order to
make an intelligent ethical decision.
Determine the Ethical Issues
The ethical issues are stated in terms of
competing interests or goods. It’s these conflicting
interests that actually make for an ethical dilemma. The
issues should be presented is a ______versus
_________ format in order to reflect the interests that
are colliding in a particular ethical dilemma. For
example, in business ethics there is often a conflict
between the right of a firm to make profit and its
obligation to the community. In this case, the obligation
pertains to the environment
At this point, the task is one of eliminating
alternatives according to the moral principles that have a
bearing on the case. In many instances, the case will be
resolved at this point, since the principles will eliminate
all alternatives except one. In fact, the purpose of this
comparison is to see if there is a clear decision that can
be made without further deliberations. If a clear decision
is not forthcoming, then the next part is the model that
must be considered. At the least, some of the
alternatives may be eliminated by this step of
comparison.
Weigh the consequences
If the principles do not yield a clear decision,
then a consideration of the consequences of the
remaining available alternatives is in order. Both
positive and negative consequences are to be
considered. They should be informally weighed, since
some positive consequences are more detrimental than
others.
Make a Decision

What ethical principles have a bearing on the case Deliberations cannot go on forever. At some
point, a decision must be made. Realize that one
In any ethical dilemma, there are certain moral common element in ethical dilemmas is that there are no
values or principles that are central to the conflicting easy and painless solutions to them. Frequently the
positions being taken. It is critical to identify these decision that is made is one that involves the least
principles, and in some cases, to determine whether number of problems or negative consequences, not one
some principles are to be weighted more heavily than that is devoid of them.
others. Clearly, biblical principles will be weighted the
most heavily. There may be other principles that speak
to the case that come from other sources. There may be
constitutional principles or principles drawn from natural
law that supplement the biblical principles that come into
play here. The principles that come out of your mission
and calling are also important to consider.

List the Alternatives

Part of the creative thinking involved in resolving

an ethical dilemma involves coming up with various
alternative courses of action. Although there will be
some alternatives that you will rule out without much
thought, in general the more alternatives that are listed,
the better the chance that your list will include some
high-quality ones. In addition, you may come up with
some very creative alternative that you had not
considered before.