GEC 123

MIDTERM
Ethics

NAME: Joanna Marie Maglangit BSN 1 - FITZPATRICK 03/01/2021

TEACHER:Meghann Sarceno

Biography about “THOMAS AQUINAS”

Thomas Aquinas was born the youngest son to a Sicilian noble family in a year of
1225. Although Aquinas was intended from a young age to become an abbot, Italian
political and papal infighting redirected him to a university in Naples, where his
studies, including his earliest encounters with Aristotle, were directed by members of
the newly founded Dominican Order, an order of which Aquinas eventually became a
member despite prolonged, powerful objections from his family.

Traveling to France in 1245, Aquinas continued his studies under the renowned
Aristotelian commentator and fellow Dominican, Albert Magnus, before joining the
University of Paris’ faculty as regent master in theology, during which time he began
work on his Summa contra Gentiles. Upon completion of his regency in Paris,
Aquinas returned to Italy in 1259, where he was eventually called to Rome, in 1265,
by Pope Clement IV to serve as a papal theologian. While in Rome, Aquinas
continued to teach, now at a newly established Dominican school at Santa Sabina, and
began to write his most famous work, the Summa Theologiae, sometimes called the
Summa Theologica.

In 1268, Aquinas was called once again to serve as regent master in Paris, where
“Averroism”—or heterodox Aristotelianism—had risen to prominence within the
university. Upon the completion of his second regency in Paris, Aquinas returned to
Naples, where he founded a new Dominican university and once again assumed the
position of regent master and continued work on his Summa Theologiae. In 1274,
Pope Gregory X called the Second Council of Lyons in an attempt to repair the great
schism that had taken place within the Church in 1054. Summoned to the council,
Aquinas suffered an accident while traveling, fell ill, and died several days later on
March 7, 1274. Fifty years following his death, Aquinas ascended to sainthood and,
then, in 1567, was named a Doctor of the Church.

Activity:
Post-Truth
We find the lines blurred between fact and fiction, between news reports and
advertisements. We are accustomed to hearing and reading fake news. We are
inundated by figures and statistics that can barely comprehend, much less confirm.
We are told to consider alternative facts and not to take seriously everything we might
hear our political leaders say. We read and revel in and then repost the most
hyperbolic and hysterical statements without asking ourselves whether we or anyone
else should reasonably maintain this. We are now in the “post-truth” era.
This label of “post-truth” means that we are more and more becoming habituated to
disregard or least to devalue the truth. It is a tendency to think of truth as insignificant
in view of other concerns. This is a significant question in the field of media ethics as
practitioners in that field-(news reporters, writers, investigative journalist and
advertisers-ought to ask the question as to what extent the integrity of their work
might be compromised in view of other interests, such as popularity, profit, higher
viewershipor stronger sales. Yet, this issue is not limited to people working in media.
It should be re recognized as relevant by anyone who makes use of social media,
caught up in statements and exchanges of dubious worth. It should be considered by
anyone who wants to take seriously Aquinas’ claim that reason and concern for the
truth are what make us human.

I. Go online and look for an instance of what might be “fake news.” See whether
you are able to determine the veracity of the news report. Detail your findings and
opinion below.

II. In view of Aquinas’s assertion that reason is what makes us uniquely human and
that being reasonable opens up both an epistemic concern for truth also a social
concern of being in relation with others, provide an assessment on the value or
disvalue of post-truth phenomena such as fake news or alternative facts.
III. Consider other topics within the realm of media ethics. Select one and give an
initial presentation of the significance of discussing this topic.

Reflection:
Write in the box below what you have learned from this unit/lesson.

I’ve learned in this lesson was about Aristotle held that any contingent event
(particularly a material event) was explainable in principle. That is, for Aristotle there
are no uncaused contingent events in the universe. Much of his work in the Physics
and Metaphysics is dedicated to articulating an exhaustive account of causation. He
built on the work of Plato and the Natural Philosophers who had offered various
theories to explain the observable universe. However, Aristotle believed all the
previous accounts of causation were incomplete; they either failed to account for the
rational element which explains order (nous) or they failed to account for the natural
elements out of which order is formed (phusis). This commonly known as the
hylomorphic composite, the explainable combination of matter (hulos) and form
(morphos) that is the observable universe.Aristotle attempts to bridge the seeming gap
between mind and matter by synthesizing the previous accounts of causation into a
single four-fold account: Material Cause - the stuff out of which something is made,
Formal Cause - the defining characteristics of (e.g., shape) the thing, Final Cause - the
purpose of the thing and lastly,efficient Cause - the antecedent condition that brought
the thing about. In philosophy, ive learned about the essence and the varieties of law,
essence is the property or set of properties that make an entity or substance what it
fundamentally is, and which it has by necessity, and without which it loses
its identity. Essence is contrasted with accident: a property that the entity or substance
has contingently, without which the substance can still retain its identity. And
Aquinas recognizes four main kinds of law: the eternal, the natural, the human, and
the divine.