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Morality Introduction
The most basic principle of the Christian moral life is the
Meaning & awareness that every person bears the dignity of being made in the
Presuppositions in image of God. He has given us an immortal soul and through the
Moral Theology gifts of intelligence and reason enables us to understand the order
For the content of this topic, of things established in his creation. God has also given us a free
please visit will to seek and love what is true, good, and beautiful. Sadly,
https://youtu.be/4dBSGzaJnm0 because of the Fall, we also suffer the impact of Original Sin, which
darkens our minds, weakens our wills, and inclines us to sin.
Baptism delivers us from Original Sin but not from its effects—
Objectives especially the inclination to sin, concupiscence. Within us, then, is
At the end of the session, the both the powerful surge toward the good because we are made in
students can: the image of God, and the darker impulses toward evil because of
the effects of Original Sin (USCCB).
Discuss clearly the meaning of In this module, the students are expected to clearly
morality and the understand the meaning of Christian morality and its difference to
presuppositions in moral ethics and respond to the moral challenges of our time with
theology. considerations to some ethical principles.
Definition of Morality
The terms Ethics and Morality can be used interchangeably. However, there is a fine line that
divides the two. Ethics is the systematic study of the rightness and the wrongness of human
actions. The Science of Morals. Morality is the rightness and wrongness of the human action.
The practice of ethics.
Morality refers to principles of right and wrong behavior or rightness and wrongness of human
actions.
In determining the morality of human actions, the moral agent is guided by the broader rules or
principles of ethics.
Ethics attempts to provide systems of moral principles and the reasons why these principles are
valid. Hence, ethics is more concerned with the theories that can be used to explain why a
particular moral principle is valid or not, right or wrong. It is in this for this reason that ethicists
have come up with some of the basic ethical principles that may help determine the rightness or
wrongness of a human action. Some of these basic ethical principles are:
1. Respect for persons
2. Truthfulness and confidentiality
3. Autonomy and informed consent
4. Beneficence
5. Non-maleficence
6. Justice
Ethics: Killing is wrong because it violates the basic ethical principles of “respect for persons” or
“non-maleficence”.
Morality comes from the Latin word mos or mores which means “custom”.
Ethics is derived from the Greek word ethicos or ethos, the English translation of
which is “custom” or “character”, “Customary Behavior”.
Ethics is a philosophical science which deals with the morality of the human acts.
Morality of human acts refers to the goodness or the badness, the rightness or the
wrongness of human acts.
Immoral = Unethical
Moral = Ethical
Moral/ethical person= one who is good and does the right thing.
Immoral/unethical = one who ids bad and does what is wrong.
Customary ways of doing things can, of course, be either right or wrong, good or evil.
When we say that something is “moral” we generally mean that it is “good”.
In the historical past, in times when the social milieu was more uniform, doing the right thing meant
that you did what the generally good people in the society did because this ultimately benefited
the whole community.
To show responsibility for the community is clearly one of the ways in which we “do unto others
as we would have them do unto us.”
In morality, the fundamental value is always the human person and the person in relationship with
society.
We belong to society and the human community by the very nature of our birth; thus, personal
morality can never be divorced from our responsibilities as members of that society.
Since customs, practices, habitual ways of doing things vary from culture to culture, it can be
expected that there will be varying approaches to morality.
The major issue in these varying approaches to morality is that people have different views
of what is good or evil.
Good or evil
• Every human person has an innate tendency to seek his or her fulfilment and perfection.
The mere fact of being alive and being human means that one has purpose, one has
goals, one seeks meaning in life. Also it means that one has needs and desires pursuant
to keeping oneself alive and seeking one’s own fulfillment. This fulfilment, or perfection,
we call “the good”. Hence, we can state another fundamental truth: Anything contributing
to the full actualization of human potential and the proper development of the human
person is good or moral.
Those who believe in God see and understand god as the final end and purpose of human
life, the supreme good.
• For the believer, human development and human perfection are undertaken in accordance
with God’s will, the guiding principle of which is love. God is love.
Just as anything that contributes to the proper growth and development of the human
person is good, so anything that frustrates or acts against this proper growth and
development is considered to be evil.
What are some of the things that frustrate human life and development, and which
everyone would therefore consider evil? Here is a partial list: Death, suffering, pain,
disability, Deprivation of freedom, Discrimination that deprives one of opportunity to
improve oneself, Deprivation of worth and self-esteem. We call these pre- moral evils (that
is, evils in the objective sense before any moral slant has been added).
Human beings may be deprived of what they need for their growth and development as
persons in different ways. One way that pre-moral evil may be caused is by natural
disaster such as earthquakes, floods, epidemics, accidents and in general, things which
are outside of human control. We call such evils “physical evils”. But as we know quite
well, most of the evil in the world does not occur in this way.
Most evil in the world is brought on by the free, deliberate and unjustified actions of human
beings. We call such evils “moral evils”. And so, Moral evils Occur when we voluntarily
and deliberately become involved in the spread of pre-moral evil.
1. Morality has to do with who and what we are as human beings and with our legitimate
development as persons.
One does not have to be a religious person or express belief in god to be bound by morality.
No society can function properly for the good of its members unless there is some form of agreed
upon moral code that binds everyone. Right is right and wrong is wrong, part altogether from
religion.
Doing bodily harm to oneself may not be illegal , but it is almost certainly immoral. Driving through
a red light may be illegal, but unless there is a danger of pre-moral evil to the public, or to oneself,
it is not immoral.
APPLICATION
What makes a certain act moral? When can we say it is good?
Highlight the difference between ethics and morality by citing one concrete situation.
ASSESSMENT: Quiz
REFERENCES
https://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-believe/morality
https://philonotes.com/index.php/2018/09/08/what-is-morality/
Theology for teachers, Ian Knox