Reference No: KLL-FO-ACAD-000 | Effectivity Date: August 3, 2020 | Revisions No.

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VISION MISSION
A center of human development committedto the pursuit of wisdom, truth, Establish and maintain anacademic environment promoting the pursuit of
justice, pride, dignity, and local/global competitiveness via a quality but excellence and the total development of its students as human beings,
affordable education for all qualified clients. with fear of God and love of country and fellowmen.

GOALS
Kolehiyo ng Lungsod ng Lipa aims to:
1. foster the spiritual, intellectual, social, moral, and creative life of its client via affordable but quality tertiary education;
2. provide the clients with reach and substantial, relevant, wide range of academic disciplines, expose them to varied curricular and co-curricular
experiences which nurture and enhance their personal dedications and commitments to social, moral, cultural, and economic transformations.
3. work with the government and the community and the pursuit of achieving national developmental goals; and
4. develop deserving and qualified clients with different skills of life existence and prepare them for local and global competitiveness

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Chapter 4
Frameworks and Principles Behind Moral Frameworks

THE MEANING OF ETHICAL FRAMEWORK

 An ethical framework is a set of codes that an individual uses to guide his or her behavior. It is
just another term for “moral standards”. It is what people use to distinguish right from wrong in the
way they interact with the world. It is used to determine the moral object of an action. An ethical
framework guides an individual in answering these two questions: “what do I ought to do?” and
‘Why do I ought to do so?” So ethical frameworks serve as guideposts in moral life.
 The various dominant mental frames may be classified as follows: 1) virtue or character ethics of
Aristotle, 2) natural law or commandment ethics of St. Thomas and others, 3) deontological and
duty framework of Immanuel Kant, 4) utilitarianist, teleological, and consequentialist approach and
5) Love and justice framework.

Virtue or Character Ethics of Aristotle

 Virtue ethics asks, who is the ethical person? For Aristotle, the ethical person is virtuous, one who
has developed good character or has developed virtues. One attains virtues when he/she
actualizes his/her potentials or possibilities, the highest of which is happiness. Happiness is the joy
of self-realization, self-fulfillment, the experience of having actualized one’s potentials.

Natural Law or Commandment Ethics of St. Thomas

 For St. Thomas, what is right is what follows the natural law, the rule which says, “do good and
avoid evil.” In knowing the good as distinguished from evil, one is guided by the Ten
Commandments which is summed up as loving God and one’s fellowmen.

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Deontological and Duty Framework of Immanuel Kant
 Kant’s framework is deon or duty or deontological framework. Deontology centers on the “rights of
individuals and the intentions associated with particular behavior…equal respect…given to all
persons.”
 The deontological approach is based on universal principles such as honesty, fairness, justice and
respect for persons and property. It is based on the categorical imperative, that is, one must act
that his/her maxim will be the maxim of all. This acting based on a maxim that can be the maxim of
all is a duty, an obligation of every man or woman. Acting out of duty (deon) is acting out of good
will or intentions.

Utilitarianist, Teleological and Consequentialist Framework

 The utilitarianist teleological approach focuses on consequences. The decision maker is
concerned with the utility of decision. What really counts is the net balance of good consequences
over bad.

Love and Justice Framework

 What is ethical is that which is just and that which is loving. Justice giving what is due to others
(justice) and it is also giving even more than what is due to others.

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ARISTOTLE’S VIRTUE ETHICS

Virtue or character ethics
 Virtue ethics is person-based rather than action-based. It looks at the virtue or moral character of
the person carrying out an action, rather than at ethical duties and rules or the consequences of
particular actions. It does not only deal with the rightness or wrongness of individual actions. It
provides guidance as to the sort or characteristics and behaviors a good person will seek to
achieve. It is concerned with the whole of a person’s life, rather than particular episodes or actions.
A good person is someone who lives virtuously – who possesses and lives the virtues.
 The rightness or wrongness of one’s action, or the goodness or badness of one’s personality
depends on his character, motivations, and intentions.
 Virtue ethics is an ethics whose goal is to determine what is essential to being a well-functioning or
flourishing human person. Virtue ethics stresses an ideal for humans or persons. As an ethics of
ideals or excellences, it is an optimistic and positive type of ethics.

Basic Types of Virtue (Excellence)

 Aristotle gave two types of virtue. These are 1) intellectual virtues and 2) moral virtues.
 Intellectual virtues refer to excellence of the mind while moral virtues refer to a person’s
dispositions to act well. Intellectual virtues include ability to understand, reason and judge well
while moral virtues dispose a person to act well.
 Virtue is an attained, actualized or self-realized potential or possibility.
 The highest good or end, telos, of a person is the fullness of his/her self-development or
actualization. The concomitant result of this development or actualization of his/her potentials is
what Aristotle termed as happiness or the experience of happiness.

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Virtue as a Mean
 For Aristotle, virtue is the Golden Mean between two extremes. The virtue of courage is a mean
between two extremes of deficiency and extreme, namely, cowardice and foolhardiness,
respectively.

Virtue Ethics in Other Traditions

 Confucius emphasized two virtues, jen (or ren) and li. Jen means humaneness, human-
heartedness and compassion. Li means propriety, manners or culture.
 Hinduism emphasizes five basic moral virtues: non-violence, truthfulness, honesty, chastity,
freedom from greed. It also emphasizes mental virtues: calmness, self-control, self-settledness,
forbearance, faith, and complete concentration, hunger for spiritual liberation.
 Buddhism also has its intellectual and moral virtues. From the eightfold path are the intellectual
virtues of right understanding and right mindfulness and the moral virtues of right speech, right
action and right livelihood.
 Jesus Christ preached the virtues of love, mercy and compassion, hunger for justice, patience,
kindness, gentleness, and self-control.
 St. Thomas Aquinas taught the theological virtues – faith, hope, and love.
 Christian tradition teaches four cardinal moral virtues, namely: prudence, justice, temperance, and
fortitude.

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ST. THOMAS’ NATURAL LAW ETHICS

Meaning of Natural law and Other Laws
 What is ethical is what the natural law says.
 Natural law is the ordinance of Divine Wisdom, which is made known to us by reason and which
requires the observance of the moral order. It may also be defined to be “the eternal law as far as
it made known by human reason.” By the external law we mean all that God necessarily decrees
from eternity. Eternal law is what God wills for creation.
 A law decreed by Almighty God is a divine law; one established by man is a human law. Those
laws for human conduct which God, having once decreed creation, necessarily enacts in
accordance with that decree, constitute the natural law; those which God or man freely enacts are
positive laws. Now, between the natural law and positive laws, there are these four points of
difference: 1. The natural law, unlike positive laws, does not depend upon the free will of God; its
requirements flow from the intrinsic difference between right and wrong, which is determined by
the very essences of things. Hence, under this law, certain acts are not evil primarily because they
are forbidden, but they are forbidden because in themselves they are evil. 2. Consequently, the
natural law is the same at all times, in all places, and for all persons; but this is not true of positive
laws, which may be changed with changing circumstances, or, if the law-giver so wills it, even
without change of circumstances. 3. The natural law emanates from God alone; but positive laws
may be enacted by men. 4. The natural law is promulgated through the light of reason; positive
laws require for their promulgation a sign external to man.
 We have an eternal law, God’s law for the whole creation, which we cannot fully grasp given our
limitation. But with our gift of reason we have a grasp of that eternal law, that is natural law. Divine
law is decreed by God while human law is decreed by man.

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Natural Law as a Universal Formula

 What is natural and ethical for a human person is to “keep the moral order,” to “observe right
order,” to “do good and avoid evil,” to “preserve his/ her being.”
 St. Thomas Aquinas grounded the directedness of nature in God. All of creation is directed toward
their final end God, God Himself. To direct us to Himself, he gave the divine law. The divine law
given to us is in the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament and the new commandment of
“love God…” and “love your neighbour…” by Jesus Christ in the New Testament.

Law Defined
 Laws that are enacted are called positive laws.
 St. Thomas defined law in general as an ordinance of reason which is for the common good, and
has been promulgated by one having charge of the community. For a law to be a law, it must have
the four requisites, namely, a) ordinance (order, command) of reason, b) for the common good, c)
promulgation, and d) by one who has charge of the community.

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KANT’S DEONTOLOGICAL ETHICS: THE DUTY FRAMEWORK

 Kant’s Ethics is now referred to as deontological. The term deontological has its root from the
Greek “deon” which means “duty.” Hence deontological ethics focuses on “duty, obligation, and
rights” instead of consequences or ends.
 The duty-based approach, sometimes called deontological ethics, argued that doing what is right is
not about the consequences of our action (something over which we ultimately have no control)
but about having the proper intention in performing the action.
 Kant’s famous formula for discovering our ethical duty is known as the “categorical imperative.”
The most basic form of the imperative is: “Act only according to that maxim by which you can at
the same time will that it should become a universal law.”

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The Duty Framework

 In the duty framework, we focus on the duties and obligations that we have in a given situation,
and consider what ethical obligations we have and what things we should never do. Ethical
conduct is defined by doing one’s duties and doing the right thing, and the goal is performing the
correct action.
 Ethical obligations are the same for all rational creatures (universal), and knowledge of what these
obligations entail is arrived at by discovering rules of behaviour that are not contradicted by
reason.
 This framework also focuses on following moral rules or duty regardless of outcome, so it allows
for the possibility that one might have acted ethically, even if there is a bad result.
 This framework also has its limitations. First, it can appear cold and impersonal, in that it might
require actions which are known to produce harms, even though they are strictly keeping with a
particular moral rule. It also does not provide a way to determine which duty we should follow if we
are presented with a situation in which two or more duties conflict. It can also be rigid in applying
the notion of duty to everyone regardless of personal situation.

Kant’s theory of right

 According to Kant, the “universal principle of right” is that “an action is right if it can coexist with
everyone’s freedom in accordance with a universal law, or if on its maxim the freedom of choice of
each can coexist with everyone’s freedom in accordance with a universal law.”
 Universal law means a maxim that can be the maxim of all.

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Legally and Morally Right

 What is legal must be at the same time moral. An action is legally right if it is at the same time in
accordance with universal law, that is, in accordance with the categorical imperative.
Good will
 An act is said to be right or wrong depending on whether it is done with or without good will. The
rightness or wrongness of an action depends on one’s good will or intentions.
 Categorical Imperative: To serve the will as a principle, Kant has two (2) versions of the
categorical imperative. The first version states that if one cannot wish or want that a certain rule
or maxim becomes the maxim of all, that it is not right to follow it. The second version is as
follows: “Always treat humanity, whether in your own person or that of another, never simply as a
means but always at the same time as an end.” Treating the another merely as a means to an end
means equating him to a mere instrument, a tool, an object which is cast aside after use, or can be
sold or exchanged when no longer needed, or has value only for as long as it is useful. Such act
makes one a “user.”
 Ought implies Can means that if and only if we can or are free to act in certain ways can we be
commanded to do so. If moral law commands that we ought to be better human beings now, it
inescapably follows that we must be capable of being better human beings. The action to which
the “ought” applies must indeed be possible under natural conditions. If I ought to do something,
then I can do it.
 Your ability to perform an obligation is determined by your degree of freedom. One can no more be
responsible than what he can knowingly, freely, and voluntarily do.

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UTILITARIANISM: THE CONSEQUENTIALIST ETHICAL FRAMEWORK

Origin and Nature of the Utilitarianist Framework
 Two British philosophers, namely, Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, are known to be the
original advocates of utilitarianism, the former being considered the founder.
 Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain, and pleasure. It
is for them alone to point out what we ought to do… By the principle of utility is meant that principle
which approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever according to the tendency it appears to
have augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question; or, in other
words to promote or to oppose that happiness. – Bentham, 1789
 The creed which accepts as the foundation of morals “utility” or the “greatest happiness principle”
holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to
produce the reverse of happiness. Happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain; On
the other hand, unhappiness means pain and the privation of pleasure.
 Utilitarianism is the principle of “the greatest good of the greatest number.” It is a form of
consequentialism focusing on the consequences of action in contrast with deontology.
 There are two versions, namely, act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism. Act utilitarianism
consider the consequences of some particular act such as keeping or breaking one’s promise.
Rule utilitarianism consider the consequences of some practice or rule behavior.
 According to the consequentialist, utilitarianist ethical framework, that which is ethical is that which
gives pleasure and happiness as a consequence. That which is unethical is that which gives pain
and unhappiness. That which is ethical is that which produces the greatest good (happiness) for
the greatest number.

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The Consequentialist Framework
 In the consequentialist framework, we focus on the future effects of the possible courses of action,
considering the people who will be directly or indirectly affected. The person using the
consequences framework desires to produce the most good.
 For Bentham and Mill, to avoid pain and to pursue pleasure – intellectual pleasure.

THE LOVE AND JUSTICE FRAMEWORK

The principle of love
 There are three well-known concepts of love originating from the Greeks, namely, agape or
charity, erotic or passionate sexual encounter, and philia, the affection between friends.
 Agape is the love principle preached by Jesus Christ. For St. Thomas, agape is willing the good of
another. It is the act of sharing, or giving more than what is just because justice is just the
minimum of love. In the language of contemporary thinkers, this is love as “affirmation of the
other’s being,” “being-with-others,” “being conscious of the other’s presence.”
 In Joseph Fletcher’s situation ethics, agapeic love is absolute norm, the absolute framework for the
determination of the right thing to do or wrong to avoid.

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Justice and Fairness: Promoting the Common Good as a Moral Framework

a. Social Justice
 Social justice is equal access to wealth, opportunities, and privileges within society. Hence,
promotion of social justice is equivalent to promotion of the common good. It may also be
said that promotion of the common good is promotion of social justice.
 Common good refers either to the interests that members have in common or to the
facilities that serve common interests.
 For Plato, justice means giving what is due by doing one’s own function.
b. Justice as the Minimum Demand of Love
 William Lujipen, referred to justice as “the minimum demand of love.” To do justice is
already an act of love, the minimum demand of love. Which means that love is more, gives
more than what is just.

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c. Distributive Justice
 Distributive justice is “justice that is concerned with the distribution or allotment of goods,
duties, and privileges in concert with the merits of individuals, and the best interests of
society.”
 The following are anchored on distributive justice:
 Egalitarianism – Everyone is entitled to due process of law and equal protection of
the law.
 Capitalist and free-market systems – Let the law of demand and supply follow its
course. Excess of demand is regulated by the limits of supply, and excess of supply
is regulated by the limits of demand. This means no artificial control of regulations.
It is supposed to arrive naturally at its own equilibrium.

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 Socialism – This requires collective ownership of the means of production,
distribution and exchange with the aim of operating for use rather than for profit.
Socialism can be explained with this statement: “from each according to his ability,
to each according to his needs.
 Taxation – It is government’s getting a part of what its people earn in order to have
money to spend for public services. It is practically demanding from taxpayers a
minimum of justice, to make the enjoyment of the wealth at least more equitable.
Progressive is a system where the average tax rate increases as the taxable
amount increases.
 Protection and Preservation of Public Welfare – The government has power
granted by the constitution to govern, to make, adopt, and enforce laws for the
protection and preservation of public health, justice, morals, order, safety and
security, and welfare.

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 Property for Public Use – The government has a constitution-granted power to
take private property for public use with just compensation.
 Justice as moral framework, be it social or distributive justice, states that whatever
promotes justice is the morally right thing to do.

The Better Moral Framework: Garner and Rosen’s Synthesis

 For Richard T. Garner and Bernard Rose (1967), the best framework is a synthesis of the
teleological and deontological framework. The rightness or wrongness of action and the goodness
or badness of character or trait is a function of (meaning it depends on) not only the end, object, or
consequences of applying a rule (rule utilitarianism) or doing an act (act utilitarianism), but also
other bases like one’s sense of duty and good will (rule or act deontology).

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