DEFECTIVE NORMS OF MORALITY

1. Hedonism
2. Utilitarianism
3. Moral Rationalism
4. Moral Positivism
5. Moral Evolutionism
6. Moral Sensism
7. Communism

Hedonism – the supreme end of man consists in the acquisition of pleasure, and that action are
good or bad according to whether they give or do not give worldly pleasure of temporal happiness
to man.
Aristippus of Cyrene. Epicureanism is a form of ancient hedonism.
Utilitarianism – it makes utility the norm of morality. The goodness or badness of an action would
depend on the effects or consequences of that action.
Two types:
1. Individual or egoistic utilitarianism or simply egoism (happiness of the individual)
2. Social or altruistic utilitarianism or simply altruism (conducive to the social wellbeing)
Merit of both: It explicitly explains well the reasons behind doing the action by most people.
No man is a hypocrite in his pleasures. – Albert Camus
Defects:
1. The good aspired is material and thus cannot prove total satisfaction.
2. They make morality relative (it may lead to chaos and destruction).
3. They make morality extrinsic (depending on the effect).

The Theory of Herbert Spencer

Reconcile egoism and altruism – life as a continuous adjustment of internal to external relations.
Good is that which furthers life, which makes man well adjusted; Bad is that which makes him
miserable, unhappy due to maladjustment.
Moral Rationalism
- All knowledge and all truths are derived from human reason.
- Advocated by Immanuel Kant, in which he coins as “Categorical Imperative” – obey
without questioning, absolute obedience.
- It is our a priori (universal) duty – the mainspring of all morally good acts.
 - True morality must be autonomous (“Autonomy of Reason”): Reason makes the law and at
the same time is governed by its own laws
- Opposite is “Heteronomy of Reason” morality comes from a higher source than reason,
which Kant calls as Christian Ethics where God is the supreme Law, a false ethics.
- Test of morality: breaking one’s promise is not a universal act since it can be negated when
no more promises will be broken.
Criticism of the Kantian Theory
Re: Autonomy of Reason
- Reason is a declarative faculty; it sees things, it does not make things. The moral law is not in
our own making but is imposed from a higher source, dictated by the individual conscience
of each one.
- Nothing can be superior and inferior at the same respect at the same time, so reason as
supreme reason does not merit itself its own supremacy.
- Kant does not provide a deeper explanation why reason commands.
Re: Duty as a Norm of Morality
- There are other motives that are more worthy and more noble than duty such as love, pity,
mercy, etc.
- For Kant then, Rizal’s love for country is not good because it is not done out of pure sense
of duty.
Re: Kant’s universalization without Contradiction
- There are many acts which cannot be universalized such as the one mentioned, that is, dying
a hero’s death by martyrdom.
- Because martyrdom cannot be universalized when nobody would die a martyr, it cannot be
considered a morally good act.
- Kant does not give a proper reason why certain actions can be universalized and why certain
actions cannot.
Moral Evolutionism
- Morality is never fixed but is continually changing into a perfect morality. It is the
application of the theory of biological evolution to morals.
- Nietzsche in the Genealogy of Morals believed that morality – the distinction between right
and wrong – did not exist in the beginning. It existed when the oppressed invented bad
conscience to invert the power status of the nobles.
- The law of Nature is the survival of the fittest. The end of morality is to produce the strong.

Moral Positivism
- The basis or source of all moral laws is the laws of the State.
 - Thomas Hobbes: Man is a wolf unto his fellowmen (Homo homini lupus).
- The state of nature of man is Bellum Omnium Contra Omnes ‘war of all against all’
- The Leviathan argues for a social contract and rule by an absolute sovereign.
- Comments:
o Moral Positivism makes morality relative and reverses the natural order of things.
Nature’s law is before the Sovereign’s law, e.g. the malice of murder does not follow
from its being forbidden. It was wrong even before there was any State to legislate it.
Moral Sensism
- Man is endowed with a special moral sense in the same way that our sense of taste can
distinguish between sour and sweet.
- No positive proof for such sense via ‘entia non sunt multiplicanda sine necessitate’ (entities must not
be multiplied beyond necessity) or Occam’s Razor.
- It is absurd to think of a sense capable of seeing such thing as the abstract relation between a
given act and the norm of morality. For our senses perceive only tangible and individual
objects, and cannot by themselves perceive such an abstract notion as morality.

The Moral Philosophy of Communism

- Communism is primarily an economic theory but its basic teachings intertwine with moral
principles.
- The moral philosophy of Communism is the logical consequence of dialectical materialism.
o Matter is the only reality.
 The denial of the existence of God; since God is a spirit and nothing exists
but the material.
 The denial of the freedom of the will in man; since matter, the sole existent
reality, is determined in all its movements by the law of the dialectic; and
 The denial of immortality; the goal of man is his earthly happiness in a
classless society.
- Theory of change, evolution, and revolution. Ultimate objective: the perfect state here on
earth, the classless society.
- Good is that which brings about and hastens to bring about the realization of a classless
society; bad is that which hinders or delays its coming.
o The means does not matter. Revolution, conflict, bloodshed, wars, espionage, etc.
are good if they bring about the desired end. The end justifies the means.
The Primacy of Economics
- Economics is the sole basis of all civilization, all progress, history, and society.
- It is the structure that conditions and determines one’s religion and even one’s mode of
thinking and living.
- Morality is likewise determined by economics: we have the bourgeois morality and
proletariat morality.
Critical Evaluation
- Fallacy of ‘exclusiveness’ and misproportion: while he is an economic being, he is not an
economic being exclusively, nor principally. It may be the basis or a conditio sine qua non of
earthy life but it is not the end of all human living, though it is a necessary means to it.
- Communism vs Christian Ethics
o Communism is based on the primacy of matter; Christian Ethics is based on the
primacy of the spirit.
o Communism proposes an earthly goal for man. Christianity is primarily for the other
world.
o Christian ethics opposes the Communist premises: the existence of God, freedom of
the will, and immortality.
o Christian ethics: the end does not justify the means.
o Christianity maintains that morality is absolute, immutable, and eternal whereas
Communism subscribes to the evolutionistic view of morality.
o Christianity teaches love, right living, prayer; Communism uses force, conflict,
revolution, for the attainment of its goal.
Common elements in the theories of Hobbes, Spencer, Marx, and Nietzsche.
1. All are evolutionistic: morality is evolving.
2. All are materialistic and hedonistic; concerns only man’s earthly life and welfare.
3. Unduly Optimistic or perfectionistic.
4. All are absolutistic – leading to state deification. On Nietzsche’s end, absolute individualism
(superman).
5. Extremely individualistic: Hobbes’ wolf as selfish, Spencer’s society starting with pure
egoism, Marx’s existence of individual separate classes.
6. Based on the principle of force and violence: to Marx, Hobbes, Nietzsche, struggle and
conflict are the very essence of reality.
7. All are utilitarian since they ground on the ultimately result of an action. The end justifies the
means.
8. Fallacy of extremism, false emphasis, exclusiveness, oversight: Nietzsche’s power, Marx’s
economics, Hobbes’ conflict, struggle and selfishness, Spencer’s adjustment and
maladjustment; they neglect the life of the spirit.