ETHICS

ETHICS MODULE 1

WHAT IS
ETHICS?
1.0 WHAT IS ETHICS?
• Ethics or moral philosophy can be provisionally described as the
empirical study of moral decisions. (how do human persons ought to act?)
• The concept is derived from the Greek word “ethos” which may mean
tradition, habit, character, or attitude. (what is right conduct and what is a good life?)
• There is no single absolute definition of ethics

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 ETHICS • Moreover, ethics is a systematic analysis
of the nature of human actions.

• Ethics is not only about on how we act on something, it also about the
goodness of the people
• Ethics is divided into NORMATIVE AND META-ETHICS.

• NORMATIVE ETHICS, which concerns human behavior in general, is

to address our questions about the essence of human behavior.

“DO GOOD AT ALL TIMES!”

(Ex. security guard)

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 ETHICS There are two fields of normative ethics:
MORAL PHILOSOPHY AND APPLIED
ETHICS
MORAL PHILOSOPHY (moral ethics)
What human being must do or how human being should be
APPLIED ETHICS
It is the actual application of ethical or moral theories

• META-ETHICS is a discipline that relies on meaning. (Ex. taking someone's life.)

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 ETHICS NORMATIVE ETHICS “DO GOOD
AT ALL TIMES!” META-ETHICS “WHAT IS GOOD?”
1.1 IMPORTANCE OF ETHICS
• ETHICS is a set of rules that allows us to say right
from wrong, good from the bad.
• ETHICS is all about decisions.
• The virtues of intelligence, bravery, patience, and
justice guide ethical decision-making as they

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provide the basis for rational
decisions when faced with an ethical dilemma.
IMPORTANCE OF ETHICS
1. Through ethics people can determine the difference
between right from wrong, good and bad
2. people can eliminate actions that do not conform to
what is right

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3. people will be very careful to
the actions and decisions to make
4. people will not be disturbed of the internal and
external factors of not doing the right thing
5. Establish good habits of characters of a person
6. Come up to rational decisions in facing an
ethical dilemma

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7. It makes a person
responsible in the family, school and society
8. A person becomes sensitive to the needs of
others more than himself or herself

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 ETHICS
1.2 THE DIFFERENCES OF MORAL
AND NON-MORAL STANDARDS AND CHARACTERISTICS
OF MORAL STANDARDS
• MORAL STANDARDS refer to the guidelines we have on the
types of acts that we find to be morally permissible and morally
unacceptable.
• Promote the common good, that is, the welfare and well-being of
human beings, animals, and the environment.

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Several characteristics of moral
standards as mentioned by Velasquez (2012)
1. Moral standards entail serious harm or benefit
2. Moral standards are not determined by authority figures 3.
Moral standards should be adopted over other values,
including self-interest.
4. Moral standards are focused on objective considerations.
5. Moral standards are perceived to be universal.
• NON-MORAL STANDARDS, on the contrary,

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ETHICS
apply to laws which are not
related to social or legal
considerations.
- Examples of non-moral standards are the
following: etiquette and code of professional
ethics, etc.

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 ETHICS

A Train Chain of the Development of Moral

Standards
MODULE 2

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 ETHICS
WHAT ARE
MORAL
DILEMMAS
WHAT IS DILEMMA?

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 ETHICS
A dilemma is a
situation where a person is forced to
choose between two or more conflicting
options, neither of which is acceptable.
2.0 DEFINITION OF MORAL DILEMMAS
• A moral dilemma is a situation in which a decision-maker must
give preference to one moral principle over another (Kvalnes,
2019)
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• A moral dilemma is a situation in
which people assume that they should morally do one thing and
that they should morally do another thing, and occasionally a
third thing or even a fourth thing, but they're not doing any of
these mutually contradictory choices together. (Kurie & Albin
2007)
The above definitions characterized moral
dilemma or ethical dilemma as:
• Making an option to one moral value over the other;

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• A situation where moral values are
equally significant;
• A scenario where a person has a strong moral reason in action,
but not equally strong moral reason in acting in another way;
• A state where a person should morally do one, two, or more
and have difficulty in deciding any of those conflicting choices.
2.1 THREE LEVELS OF MORAL DILEMMAS
1. ORGANIZATIONAL ETHICAL OR MORAL DILEMMA
There are common ethical issues in the organization such as;
4. Unrealistic and

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1. Unethical leadership/bad
conflicting goals leadership behavior.
2. Toxic workplace culture. 5. Use of the
’s
organization technology, social media
3. Discrimination and use, technology, and
harassment/ Peril of privacy concerns. employee
favoritism.
6. Business travel ethics.

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INDIVIDUAL
2.

MORAL DILEMMA
As mentioned by Smith (2018), individual ethical
or moral dilemma pertains to a
situation where individuals confront with a number
of factors such as peer pressure,
personal financial position, an economic

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and social status
3. STRUCTURAL MORAL DILEMMA
There are three concepts in the structural moral dilemma
to consider namely:
(1)Differentiation vs. Integration
• The conflict between the distribution of jobs and
the organization of numerous activities generates a
classic dilemma.
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(3) Excessive
(2) Lack of Clarity vs. Lack of Autonomy vs.

Creativity Excessive
When employees are not clear Interdependence
about what they are expected to When individuals or do,
they often adapt their tasks groups are too to personal
interests instead of independent, they are system-
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wide goals that often always
isolated.
lead to problems.

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