Lec 3 - Sources of Authority

LAW

* Civil Law
➲ Civil code
➲ Barangay
➲ Local
➲ City Ordinances

Positive Law – refers to the different rules and

regulations that are posited or put forward by an
authority figure that require compliance.
 Sources of Authority
LAW

* Civil Law
➲ Civil code
➲ Barangay
➲ Local
➲ City Ordinances

Unethical – Recognizing that there are many acts

that we consider to be immediately not in
compliance with law.
 Sources of Authority
LAW

* Civil Law
➲ Civil code
➲ Barangay
➲ Local
➲ City Ordinances

Discussion

How do we follow rules and regulatios?

 Sources of Authority
LAW
* Civil Law
➲ Civil code
➲ Barangay
➲ Local
➲ City Ordinances
Discussion
Forbidden by law, but are ethically questionable to
us?
➲ Company A pads its profits by refusing to give its
employees benefits may do so within the
parameters of the law.
 Sources of Authority
Deontology – Immanuel Kant
Discussion
➲ A toddler who had been run over by a couple of vehicles. While
there were many passers-by who witnessed what had happened
for quite a long while, no one did anything to help. The child later
died in the hospital.

➲ The law does not oblige people to help other who needs help.
➲ No person help the child
➲ No person is quilty of te child's death
➲ People might be reacting to the sad news report
➲ So none of the people passer-by were guilty of breaking any law
➲ And share a sense that those passer-by were somewhat
ethically culpable in their negligence
 Sources of Authority
RELIGION
“Love the Lord, Your God, therefore, and
always heed his charge:his statutes, degrees
and commandments”. (NAB)
Discussion
Divine Command Theory
➲ Foundation for ethical values
➲ Expresses the claim of many people of a religious
sensibility: finding appealing and immediately valid.
➲ 10 commandments of God
➲ 2 great commandments of the New Testament.
 Sources of Authority
Natural Law (Thomas Aquinas)

Divine Command Theory

➲ Thou shall not Kill
● As commanded by God
● Killing in its self is wrong
● Is this the reason why God commanded it?
● It is wrong to take another's life because God commanded it.
● Thus we were left with the difficult conclusion that there is nothing
inherently wrong with killing. It is only because God said so- -
Thou shall not kill”.
 Sources of Authority
Culture

Cultural Relativism -what is ethically acceptable or

unacceptable is relative to, or that is to say it
dependent on one’s culture.
➲ Conformity with one’s culture.
➲ Culture as a standard
➲ Culture teaches us to be tolent of others from
different culture.
 Sources of Authority
Cultural arguments of
Cultural Relativism:

1. Cultures are different from one another.

2. Realize that we are in no position to render any
kind of judgment on the practice of another culture.
3. Realize that we are in no position to render
judgment on the practices of even our own culture.
4. We can maintain it only by the following
presumption of culture that are single, clearly
defined substance or something that is fixed or
already determined.
 Sources of Authority
Conclusion on
Cultural Relativism:

That the criticism of cultural relativism is by pointing out how

it is a problem in our study of ethics for the following reasons:
➲ 1. It tends to deprive us of our use of critical thought.
➲ 2. On the positive side, it promotes the sense of humility.
➲ 3. With human values it is basically rendering us incapble of
discerning about the values we wish to maintain as we are
forced to simply accept the culture that we have or others
culture do have .