GESS 5: Ethics

Where are you going? Are you doing the

right thing?

Instructor: Ms. Zharina Marie Stephanie Lugo

 Humans are complex beings. Unlike
organisms who are driven by survival
instinct, humans experience the world in
variety of ways through variety
perspective capacities.
 Apart from our rational
capacity which allows us to
reckon reality with imaginative
and calculative lenses, our
feelings may play a crucial part
in determining the way we
navigate through various
situations we experience.
Most of the time, we act based on how we feel.
However, we have the capacity to reflexively
examine a situation before proceeding to act
with respect to how we feel.
 In other words, although feelings
provide us with an initial reckoning
of a situation, they should not be the
sole basis for our motives and
actions.
Feelings seek immediate fulfillment, and it is
our reason that tempers these compulsions.

Feelings without reason are blind.

 Reason sets the course for making ethical and
impartial decisions especially in moral situations
although it is not the sole determining factor in
coming up with such decisions.
 Reason and feelings must
constructively complement each
otherwhenever we are making
choices. When feelings such as
anger, jealousy, and shame are out
of control, hence without the
proper guidance of reason, one's
moral capacities become short-
sighted and limited.
 Reason can sometimes be
blinded in implementing
and following its own strict rules
that it becomes incapable of
empathy for the other.
Is it the right thing to do?