CHAPTER 1: ETHICS
Its meaning and Scope
Ethics is derived from the Greek word
“ethos” which may mean in English as
custom or a particular way and manner of
acting and behaving.
Ethos Ethics came from the greek word
Ethos It means in English as custom or a
particular way and manner of acting and
behaving.
mos or mores The Latin equivalent for
custom is
mos or mores the term moral is derived.
True (True/False) The two terms, ethics
and morality, in this sense, therefore,
have literally the same meaning.
False (True/False) But in Morality, we
specifically study Ethics. Ethics gives
Morality a particular perspective of what
to study about – that is the rectitude of
whether an act is good or bad, right or
wrong.
Morality It gives ethics a particular
perspective of what to study about – that
is the rectitude of whether an act is good
or bad, right or wrong.
Morality It provides with a quality
that determines and distinguishes right
conduct from wrong conduct.
Ethics It is defined as the practical
science of the morality of human act or
conduct and of the good life.
Ethics As a science, it is a body of
knowledge systematically arranged and
presented in such manner that it reaches
at its conclusions coherently and logically.
Moral Philosophy Ethics, as a branch
of Philosophy, is also known as
Ethics It tries to investigate and examine
critically as well as systematically,
through the use of natural reason, certain
principles and codes of right or wrong,
good or bad, particularly those pertaining
to human action.
philosophical discipline; Ethics As
a___________, ______ deals with
ultimate principles and truth concerning
the morality of human conduct through
the use of human reason alone, without
the aid of divine revelation.
Ethics It explores certain and
fundamental and intriguing questions
such as: “What constitutes the good life
for human beings?” “What is the basis or
standard by which human actions can be
judged as good or bad, right and wrong?”
“What makes good – good and what
makes wrong – wrong?” “How man ought
to behave so as to live a life that is truly
human?”
ETHICS: A Philosophy of Action It
has been said that the farthest distance
for a person to cross is the distance
between the head and the heart.
between the head and the heart It
has been said that the farthest distance
for a person to cross is the
distance_________.
False; tragedy (True/False) It is a major
serenity to confine ethics to a purely
intellectual exercise.
True (True/False) Ethics should be a
discipline which has an intimate
connection with the daily lives of man. It
should be taken as a way of life.
Animal; failure It can be said that without
moral perception, man is only an______.
Without morality, man as a rational and
free being is a _____.
Ethos Every era has its own _____that
defines its character and soul.
Ethics and Morality They served as the
very foundation of every human society.
 Ethics is important. Big and small,
the choices and decisions that we
make every day affect the kind of
life we live to a lesser or greater
extent. We become good and bad
persons based on our choices.
 Making moral decisions is
oftentimes difficult. The study of
Ethics can provide us with certain
moral paradigms or perspectives
that will, in a way, guide us in
determining what’s right and
what’s wrong under such
condition.
 The study of Ethics will also
enable us to reason out our moral
beliefs and of why we hold them.
We have to know the reason why
we have them. Ethics, as a critical
discipline, will enable us to
examine more closely the ground
and foundation of our moral
beliefs and claims.
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN
ETHICS AND LAW
 Legality is not identical with
morality. ¡ At times, what is legal
may not be moral.
 At other times, what is moral is not
always legal.
 Morality is still important even if
we have laws to guide us in our
daily conduct is that the laws are
only concerned with actions that
are usually public; actions that in a
way often harmed those around
us.
 Even actions that we do in private
are covered under the umbrella of
Ethics.
 Our innermost motives and
intentions, even if they are not
carried out in concrete, fall under
the scope of morality.
 Laws are usually the product of a
collective agreement of some sort.
This means that laws, more often
than not, are decided by a
majority vote. Morality is much
deeper than that.
 What is right is right even though
no one is doing it. Wrong is wrong
even if everyone is doing it.
 We need Ethics even if we have
laws because ethics serves as the
foundation of our laws.
 Making decision as to what’s good
and bad is not a popularity
contest.
 Morality precedes legality. Its
scope and implications are deeper
and wider than that of law.
MATERIAL OBJECT OF ETHICS
 The material object of a science is
its subject matter, the thing, or
things, or that which the science
deals with in its study.
 The subject matter of Ethics as a
particular field of study is human
conduct or the human act.
 Human conduct refers to the act
that is done by a human person
which he/she is conscious of,
which proceeds from one’s
deliberation and freewill, and thus,
for which one is held morally
responsible.
FORMAL OBJECT OF THE ETHICS
 The formal object of any science
is the special or particular way
and viewpoint that a science
employs in dealing with its specific
subject matter.
 The formal object of ethics in its
investigation is the morality or the
moral rectitude of human act or
human conduct through the use of
human reason alone.
  Ethics differs from all other fields
of study which also deal with
human conduct or human act,
such as the science of
Psychology, Sociology,
Economics and the like.
 These sciences deal with the way
humans actually behave, without
telling and judging the rightness
and wrongness, goodness and
badness of their actions, while
ethics studies how one ought to
behave
 Ethics tries to assess and
determine whether the actions are
moral and worth doing, or
immoral, and have to be avoided.
POSTULATES OF ETHICS
1. The existence of God.
2. The freedom of the will.
3. The immortality of the human
soul.
DIVISION OF ETHICS
1. General Ethics
 Usually considered as the basic
course in the study of ethics. This
mainly deals with the morality of
human acts (its major elements or
constituents and modifiers), the
norms of morality (law and
conscience), and the specific
determinants of morality (major
sources of morality).
2. Special or Applied Ethics
 Essentially applies the specific
and fundamental norms and
principles of General Ethics in
various specific areas of human
life and activity, both in the
individual and social domain.
CHARACTERISTICS OF MORAL
PRINCIPLES
1. Prescriptivity
 This refers to the practical, or
action-guiding nature of morality. ¡
Moral principles are intended to
direct people on what to do and
what to avoid. ¡ It tries to influence
the way we act in accordance with
certain rules and conduct.
2. Impartiality
 This means that an ethical or
moral rule should be neutral when
it comes to the question as to who
will be its recipient. ¡ Moral
standards should apply to
everyone regardless of one’s
status and situation in life.
 Moral rules should not advance
the interest of a few, or worse, of
one person alone. ¡ Self-interest
does not have a place in a proper
moral standard.
3. Overridingness
 Moral standards must have
hegemonic authority.
 They should tower over all the
other standards or norms of
evaluation, whatever they may be.
4. Autonomous from Arbitrary
Authority
 Moral standards should stand on
their own logic independent of the
arbitrariness of the majority.
 We can always challenge on
logical grounds the tyranny of
numbers and the tide of public
opinion on matters of right or
wrong.
 Something is right or wrong
regardless of what the majority
decides or says.
5. Publicity
 This simply means that moral
rules and principles must be made
 public if they are to serve as
guidelines to our actions.
 The obvious reason for this is that
principles are made and
promulgated to render advice as
well as assign praise or blame to
certain behaviors.
 It would be self-defeating
therefore to keep them from public
knowledge.
6. Practicability
 Moral rules should not be
impossible to achieve or else they
are not for men but for angels.
 This further means that ethical
standards must not be over what
any ordinary human being is
capable of doing.
 It should not lay a too heavy
burden on people.
 For what practical use is a norm if
it is simply impossible for anyone
to follow?
CHAPTER 2: THE
MORALITY OF HUMAN
ACTS
HUMAN ACTS
 Refer to actions that proceed from
insight into the nature and
purpose of one’s doing and from
consent of free will.
 An act which proceeds from the
deliberate free will of man.
 That which is classified as good or
bad, right or wrong, and thus,
subject to morality and its norms.
ELEMENTS OF HUMAN ACTS
 Human acts are the free and
conscious acts of a human person
which are proper to humans
alone.
 Human Acts are different from the
acts of man since acts of man are
those that humans share with
animals whose actions and
movements emanate from purely
sensual nature. These things are
performed without deliberation
and free will. The person here is
not morally responsible for these
kinds of action.
1. Knowledge
 The act must be deliberate.
 It must be performed by a
conscious agent who is very much
aware of what he/she is doing and
of its consequences – good or
evil.
 Thus, children who are below the
age of reason, the insane, the
senile, and lunatics are said to be
incapable of acting knowingly and
with sufficient knowledge.
2. Freedom
 The act must be performed in
freedom.
 It must be done by an agent who
is acting freely, with his/her own
volition and powers.
  An action against duress and
against one’s own free will cannot
be strictly considered a free and
voluntary action.
 The person who is performing the
action should be free from any
force beyond his/her control, or
from any powerful influence from
outside.
3. Voluntariness
 The act must be done voluntarily.
 It must be performed by an agent
who decides willfully to perform
the act.
 The act, to be truly a voluntary
one, must come from the core of a
person’s being.
 This willfulness is the resolve to
do an act here and now, or in
some other time in the future.
DETERMINANTS OF HUMAN ACTS
1. The Act Itself or the
Object of the Act
 Refers to the action that is done or
performed by an agent, or simply,
WHAT the person does.
 From the standpoint of its object,
morality can be objective and
intrinsic. This means that
objectively, there are actions by
themselves, as good and bad,
right and wrong, moral or immoral.
 Every act, in the practical sense,
done in the concrete, has its
intrinsic character or quality that
defines its morality.
 The nature and object of the act is
the most important and crucial
consideration in judging the moral
worth of the act.
2. The Motive or the
Intention
 This is the purpose or intention
that for the sake of which
something is done. It is the reason
behind our acting.
 Depending on one’s motive or
intention, a particular act or
conduct can be modified in its
moral worth.
 4 principles to be considered:
(a) An indifferent act can become
morally good or morally evil
depending upon the intention of
the person doing the act. (b) An
objectively good act becomes
morally evil due to a wrong or bad
motive. (c) An intrinsically morally
good act can receive added
goodness, if done with an equally
noble intention or motive. (d) An
intrinsically evil act can never
become morally good even if it is
done with a good motive or
intention.
3. The Circumstances
 The moral goodness or badness
of an act is determined not only by
the object or act itself and the
motive or intention of the moral
agent, but also on the
circumstances or situation
surrounding the performance of
the action.
 Circumstances refer to the various
conditions outside of the act.
 They are not, strictly speaking,
part and parcel of the act itself.
 Circumstances are conditions that
influence, to a lesser or greater
degree, the moral quality of the
human act.
 They either affect the act by
increasing or lessening its
voluntariness or freedom, and
thus, affecting the morality of the
act.
FOUR TYPES OF
CIRCUMSTANCES THAT AFFECT
THE MORALITY OF THE ACT
1. Mitigating or Extenuating
Circumstances
  Diminish the degree of moral good
or evil in the act.
 Example: To kill an innocent
person is a grave sin. However,
suppose a person commits it for
the first time or without any
premeditation and later admits
his/her guilt, then these
circumstances lessen the severity
of the act and its punishment.
2. Aggravating Circumstances
 Increase the degree of moral good
or evil in an act without adding a
new and distinct species of moral
good or evil.
 Example: The same act of killing
can become murder if it is carried
out at night and with the use of
superior arms by a known
recidivist.
3. Justifying Circumstances
 Show adequate reason for some
acts done.
 Example: A person charged with
murder can vindicate himself if he
can prove that he killed a superior
aggressor and that he did so in
defense of his own life.
4. Specifying Circumstances
 Give a new and distinct species of
moral good or evil of the act.
 Example: The moral quality of the
act of murder changes if the
murderer is the wife of the victim.
Evidently, therefore, not only the
nature of the act itself, but also the
circumstances which served as a
reason for it, render it worthy of
approval or condemnation.
SPECIFIC KINDS OF
CIRCUMSTANCES WHICH AFFECT
THE MORALITY OF HUMAN
ACTION
1. Who
2. Where
3. By what means
4. Why
5. How
6. When
7. With what ally
PRINCIPLES GOVERNING
CIRCUMSTANCES
1. An indifferent act becomes good
or evil by reason of its
circumstances.
2. A good act may become evil by
reason of circumstances.
3. An act may become better or
worse, or may take on a new
goodness or evil by reason of
circumstances.
4. An evil act can never be made
good by circumstances.
5. A gravely evil circumstance
entirely vitiates a good act.
6. A slightly evil circumstance does
not entirely vitiate a good act.
MODIFIERS OF HUMAN ACTS
 These are factors and conditions
that affect to a considerable extent
man’s inner disposition towards
certain action.
 They influence specifically the
mental and/or emotional state of a
person concerned to the point that
the voluntariness involved in an
act is either increased or
diminished.
 They affect human acts in the
essential qualities of knowledge,
freedom, voluntariness, and so
make them less perfectly human
(Glenn 1965: 25).
1. Ignorance
 Is the absence of necessary
knowledge which a person in a
given situation, who is performing
a certain act, ought to have.
TYPES OF IGNORANCE
1. Vincible Ignorance
 can easily be remedied through
ordinary diligence and reasonable
efforts on the part of the person
who is in this particular mental
state. This specific type of
ignorance is therefore
conquerable since it is correctible.
 Vincible ignorance does not
destroy, but lessens the
voluntariness and the
corresponding accountability over
the act.
 To act with vincible ignorance is to
act imprudently. Ignorance could
have been dispelled if there was
an effort to dispel it.
2. Invincible Ignorance
 is the kind of ignorance which an
individual may have without being
aware of it, or, having knowledge
of it, simply lacks the necessary
means to correct and solve it. This
type of ignorance is
unconquerable, and thus not
correctible.
 Invincible ignorance renders an
act involuntary.
 A person cannot be held morally
responsible or liable if he or she is
not aware of his or her ignorance.
3. Affected Ignorance
 under the classification of vincible
ignorance is. This is the kind of
ignorance which an individual
keeps by positive efforts in order
to escape blame and
accountability.
 Affected or pretended ignorance
does not excuse a person from his
bad actions; on the contrary it
actually increases their malice.
 This specific kind of ignorance
happens when a person really
wants and chooses to be ignorant
so that he can eventually escape
any accountability arising from the
wrongfulness of the act later on.
2. Passions or
Concupiscence
 Understood as a strong or
powerful feeling or emotion.
 Refers to the bodily appetites or
tendencies as experienced and
expressed in such feelings as
fear, love, hatred, despair, horror,
sadness, anger, grief and the like.
 Also known as sentiments,
affections, desires, etc.
 These are inclinations toward
desirable objects or a tendency
away from undesirable or harmful
things.
 These include both positive and
negative emotions.
CLASSIFICATION OF
PASSION
1. Antecedent
 are those that precede an act.
 It may happen that a person is
emotionally aroused to perform an
act.
 Antecedent passions predispose a
person to act.
2. Consequent
 are the direct results of the will
which fully consents to them
instead of subordinating them to
its control.
PRINCIPLES GOVERNING PASSION:
1. Antecedent passions do not
always destroy voluntariness, but
they diminish accountability for the
resultant act.
 They weaken the will power of a
person without, however,
completely obstructing his
freedom.
  Thus, the so called ‘crimes of
passion’ are voluntary.
 But in so far as passions interfere
with the freedom of the will, one’s
accountability is diminished.
 Consequent passions do not
lessen voluntariness, but may
even increase accountability.
 This is because consequent
passions are the direct results of
the will which fully consents to
them instead of subordinating
them to its control (Panizo 1964).
 Here, the person concerned who
wilfully acts following his passion,
allows himself to be completely
controlled by it and hence, is
considered morally responsible for
it.
3. Fear
 The disturbance of the mind of a
person who is confronted by an
impending danger or harm to
himself or loved ones (Agapay
1991).
 Considered a passion which arise
as an impulsive movement of
avoidance of a threatening evil,
ordinarily accompanied by bodily
disturbances (Panizo1964).
Principles Governing Violence:
 It is treated as a special kind of
passion since it is a kind of a test
of one’s mental character.
Principles Governing Fear
1. Acts done with fear are
voluntary.
 This is so because the person
acting with fear is acting in spite of
his fear, and thus, still very much
in control of his conduct.
 Therefore, the person concerned
remains morally responsible of his
action, whether good or bad, right
or wrong.
2. Acts done out or because of
intense fear or panic are simply
involuntary.
 A person when acting out of
extreme fear is not morally
accountable of his action or
conduct.
 An example is a cashier who
hands the money to a robber who
is poking a gun on her head is
acting out of intense fear and
panic, and thus, doing something
involuntarily and without her
consent. Such action exempts the
person from any moral or even
legal responsibility.
4. Violence
 Refers to any physical force
exerted on a person by another
free agent for the purpose of
compelling the said person to act
against his will (Agapay 1991)
 Any act where great and brutal
force is inflicted to a person
constitutes violence.
 This includes acts such as torture,
mutilation and the like.
1. Any action resulting from
violence is simply involuntary.
 If one is compelled to do
something, one should not
consent to it.
 An example is a woman whose
body may be violated but
remained defiant in the presence
of an unjust and brutal aggressor,
whose superior strength
overpowers that of the woman
victim.
2. When a person experiences so
much fear in the face of an
unjust aggressor who is armed
and extremely dangerous, he or
 she is not held morally 4. When a person decides to fight
responsible of his or her action. his habit, and for as long as the
 Active resistance should always effort towards this purpose
be offered to an unjust aggressor. continues, actions resulting from
 But if resistance is impossible, or such habit may be regarded as
if there is a serious threat to one’s acts of man and not accountable.
life, a person confronted by The reason is that the cause of
violence can always offer intrinsic such habit is no longer expressly
resistance by withholding consent; desired (Glenn as cited by
that is enough to save one’s moral Agapay, ibid).
integrity (Panizo as cited in
Agapay 1991).
3. Absolute violence excludes any
voluntariness from the forced
action. - The reason is that lack
of consent precludes a human
act and consequently
imputability (Peschke 1985).
 Relative violence, however, does
not completely destroy
voluntariness but only lessens it.
5. Habit
 Is a constant and easy way of
doing things acquired by the
repetition of the same act.
 Is a lasting readiness and facility,
born of frequently repeated acts,
for acting in certain manner.

Principles Governing Habit:

1. Actions done by force of habit are
voluntary in cause, unless a
reasonable effort is made to
counteract the habitual inclination
(Glenn 1965).
2. A deliberate admitted habit does
not lessen voluntariness and
actions resulting therefrom are
voluntary at least in their cause
(Peschke 1985).
3. An opposed habit lessens
voluntariness and sometimes
precludes it completely. The
reason is that a habit weakens
both the intellect and will in the
concrete situation in a similar way
as passion does (Peschke ibid).