ETHICS
- Human being - what we are
- Human person - who we are
- All beings act according to their nature
(agere sequitur esse)
- Act in a rational way
- Reflection is a gift from God
- Moral and ethics are focused on values
Individual Parts of a Human Being
- Rational animal
- Body and soul
- Bodily parts
Relations
- Fellowmen
- Environment
- God
2 Faculties Remain in the Soul
- The intellect
- The will
CONDUCT
- What is human conduct?
- How is this conduct under our control?
- Can we control only our will or also our
physical acts?
- What qualities of the human act have ethical
import?
- How is responsibility entailed in the human
act?
What precisely is conduct?
- It consists of voluntary or human acts. In
contrast to act of man, which is the
absence of voluntariness (intellect and will).
- Human acts are those of which a person is
master by consciously controlling and
deliberately willing them.
- In human act the decisive point is the
consent of the will after the deliberation of
the intellect.
- It is here that the person yields to the
attractiveness of the object, the
attractiveness being first picked up by his or
her emotions,and makes a commitment to
it.
EXERCISE: Human Act or Act of Man?
● Looking
● Seeing
● Dreaming
● Day dreaming
● Hearing
● Listening
● Walking
● Sleepwalking
Emotion
- An emotion is an unarticulated,
undeliberated, unreflective judgment, an
immediate appreciation of the value and
significance of persons, things, and
situations.
Mood
- A mood is generalized emotion; it too is
evaluative and constitutive.
Desire
- A desire is a wanting or striving for
someone or something valuable; some
desires are formed on the basis of our
emotions.
Refection
- The aim of philosophical reflection is to
discover the emotions, moods, and
desires that enhance our personal dignity
and self-esteem and those that do not.
- Reflection is an activity of intellectual
reason judging our emotions, moods, and
desires to discriminate those that are
successful (rational) from those that are not
(irrational).
- Our emotions, moods, and desires are
integral to reason in the sense of
consciousness just as intelligence and
willing are.
- The emotional side of consciousness is the
source of our awareness of value, and it
provides the content for our value concepts.
- Without emotion we could make no
intellectual value judgments at all.
Commanded Acts
- Commanded acts are those mental and
physical acts that the will commands. They
share in the consent of the will that commands
them, and so we are responsible for all acts we
control through the use of our will.
Voluntariness
- Voluntariness is the most important
characteristic of a human act.
- It means that the act is really willed, that it
proceeds from the will with a knowledge of
the end or goal to which it leads.
- The agent knows what he or she is doing
and wills to do it.
- Intellect points out the end or goal and the
means to achieve it, guides deliberation,
and provides awareness and reflection,
without which there can be no consent of
the will.
- Voluntariness is the measure of the degree
of responsibility in the agent, the
attributability of the act, and
praiseworthiness or blameworthiness of
both agent and act.
- The controversy about freedom and
determinism is meta-physical in nature with
important implications for ethics, because
the side one takes in this controversy
affects the notion of voluntariness and so of
free choice and responsibility.
Determinism
- Determinism is a general term used to
describe any theory of human conduct
which holds that there is no such thing as
free choice since any choice that we ever
make is already settled prior to our act of
choosing.
Forms of determinism:
1. Fatalism and theological determinism have
little appeal today.
2. Hard determinism makes a person's every act
rigidly conform to the law of causality operative
in the physical universe and reduces free
choice to an illusion.
3. Indeterminism, the opposite extreme, explains
free choice by exempting a person's free acts
from all causal influence.
4. Soft determinism compromises by admitting
that a person is free from outer compulsion but
necessarily follows the bent of his or her
character; a person is determined not physically
but psychologically.
5. Self-determinism holds that a person's free
acts are caused,but caused by the very person
as a self-governing agent, so that he or she
could have acted otherwise and freely chose
not to do so.
- One's position on the free-will question will
obviously color his or her interpretation of
responsibility.
- Personal freedom depends on our
awareness of values that we can discover
and appreciate for ourselves. The scope of
our freedom is as wide as the values we
have available for our choices.
RESPONSIBILITY
- Responsibility is the relation between the
act and the agent as doer of the act, as
answerable or accountable for that act.
- All human acts are voluntary (you know and
you will)
- The agent willed the act knowingly, and
so the act done is the agent's act.
- The voluntariness of the agent in doing the
act is the measure of the degree of
responsibility the agent has for the act.
- Voluntariness is positive when one
knowingly and willingly does something
and negative if one knowingly and willingly
omits doing something.
Four Levels of Intentions
(1) an actual or active intention is one now
present to one's consciousness at the
moment the act is performed; one who acts
with such an intention acts with complete
voluntariness and so has complete
responsibility for the act;
(2) a virtual intention is one that was once
made and continues to influence the act
now being done, but the person is not
consciously aware of the intention at the
moment of performing the act; since the
voluntariness is lessened by the lack or
awareness of the intent, the responsibility is
likewise lessened;
 (3) an uncontrolled intention is one that was
once made and nor retracted but does not
influence the performance of the act
intended at present; since this kind of
intention does not influence the
voluntariness of the act, the agent is not
responsible for the act done by reason of an
unrevoked intention.
(4) an interpretative or presumed intention is
one that has not been made but presumably
would have been made if the person were
aware of the circumstances; since the agent
has not acted, he or she has no
voluntariness and so no responsibility.
Voluntariness
- Voluntariness is said to be complete or
perfect if the agent has full knowledge and
full consent, with such voluntariness,
responsibility is also saidto be complete.
- Voluntariness is said to be diminished
(lessened) or imperfect if something is
lacking in the agent's knowledge or
consent or both, provided he or she has
both in some significant degree; with
diminished voluntariness, responsibility is
also said to be diminished.
MODIFIERS OF RESPONSIBILITY
1. Ignorance, a lack of knowledge that the agent
ought to have, is called
(a) invincible if it cannot be overcome; such
ignorance precludes responsibility;
(b) vincible if it can be overcome; such
ignorance lessens but does not
preclude responsibility;
(c) affected or deliberately cultivated
ignorance increases responsibility
because the ignorance is deliberately
willed as a means of facilitating the act.
2. Strong emotion
(a) if prior to the act, is called antecedent
and may preclude responsibility by
making deliberation and therefore
voluntariness impossible; usually such
emotion lessens voluntariness and so
lessens responsibility;
(b) if generated after and as a result of our
own deliberate choice, is called
consequent and does not lessen
responsibility but may increase It.
3. Intellectual Fear
- Intellectual fear, consisting of an
understanding of a threatened evil and a
movement of the will to avoid this evil by
rationally devised means, affects
voluntariness only when it is the motive for
acting and does not preclude responsibility
but lessens it because of the contrary wish
mingled with our actual will.
4. Force
- Force is the actual use of physical might to
make us act against our will. The act is
involuntary if we withhold consent, and then
we have no responsibility.
5. Habit
- Habit is a constant way of acting and is
acquired by the repetition of the same act.
The acquisition of a habit may be
(a) directly voluntary, the agent has
complete responsibility not only for the
habit but for the acts that result from it;
(b) indirectly voluntary, and because the
habit is formed by deliberately doing
acts we know to be habit forming, the
agent has complete responsibility for
the habit, which was foreseen, and for
the acts resulting from the habit;
(c) involuntary, and as long as the agent
remains unaware of his or her habit,
the agent is not responsible for the
habit or for the acts resulting from the
habit.
● Once the agent is aware of having the
habit, the agent is faced with the choice of
keeping or getting rid of it. If the habit is
kept, the agent has complete responsibility
for it and the resulting acts; if the agent
chooses to get rid of the habit and
deliberately works at countering it, the acts
that inadvertently reappear would be less
voluntary and so the agent would be less
responsible or, in some cases, not
responsible at all.
PRINCIPLE OF DOUBLE EFFECT
● To try to avoid every act from which some evil
effect might follow would make life impossible.
We are never allowed to will evil directly, but we
are not always bound to prevent the existence
of evil.
● The Principle of Double Effect summarizes
the conditions under which we may perform an
act from which we foresee that an evil
consequence will follow:
1. The act must be good or indifferent in itself.
2. The good that the agent intends must not be
obtained by means of evil.
3. The evil effect must not be intended for itself
but only permitted.
4. There must be a proportionately grave
reason for permitting the evil effect to occur.
- All four conditions must be fulfilled.
Violation of any one of them makes the evil a
directly willed effect and not merely permitted
as an incidental by-product.
- The agent, even though not directly willing the
evil effect, is nevertheless responsible for it.
- Responsibility may be diminished by a contrary
wish that the good be obtainable without the
concomitant evil.
- The principle of the double effect does not
do away with responsibility, but it does
make it possible for a person to act in some
conflict situations without incurring moral
guilt or blame for the evil effect that is
permitted.
RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANOTHER'S MISDEED
● We can be responsible for another's misdeed
by inciting that person to do wrong or by
helping the person to do wrong.
1. We are an occasion of evil for another
- When we use our words or actions to lead
that person to do wrong.
- To intend the other's evil act as means or as
end is always to incur responsibility along
with the other for the other's act.
- To permit another's evil act only as an
indirect consequence is allowed when the
principle of the double effect is satisfied, for
then we incur no guilt even though we must
accept responsibility for the evil we foresee.
2. Cooperation in evil is helping another to do
wrong by joining in the other's act or by
supplying the other person with the means to
do wrong. Cooperation is:
(a) formal if we intend the evil directly; this kind
of cooperation, being completely voluntary,
brings with it complete responsibility for the
evil the other does;
(b) material if without intending the evil we
actually assist in its performance by an act
of our own that is not itself evil. We are
responsible to some extent for the evil,
because while we do not intend it, we do
permit it.
● We incur no guilt when we limit our
material cooperation according to the
principle of the double effect.
Formal Cooperation:
- Formal cooperation occurs when someone
directly intends or actively participates in the
immoral action itself, sharing the same
intent as the primary actor.
● Example: A doctor performing an abortion
because they believe it is morally
acceptable and actively support the
practice.
Material Cooperation:
- Material cooperation involves providing
some form of assistance or support to an
immoral action, but without sharing the
same intent as the primary actor.
- Material cooperation can be either
proximate (close) or remote (distant),
depending on factors such as the degree of
involvement and the intention behind the
cooperation.
● Example of proximate material cooperation:
A nurse assisting in an abortion procedure
because they are required to do so as
part of their job, even though they
personally disagree with abortion.
● Example of remote material cooperation: A
taxi driver unknowingly transporting
someone to a location where they plan to
commit a crime.
● In both cases, formal cooperation is
considered more morally culpable because
the person involved directly intends the
immoral action, while material cooperation
 involves some level of indirect involvement
or assistance without necessarily sharing
the same intent.
CONSCIENCE
WHAT IS CONSCIENCE
● The norm of subjective morality is evaluative
judgment of conscience.
● Conscience is not a special faculty but a
practical function of the intellect, under the
impulse of the desire to do the right and good,
that judges the concrete act of an individual
person as morally good or evil.
● Conscience functions both as a guide to
future acts and as a judge of past actions
Kinds of Conscience
1. A correct conscience judges good as good
and evil as evil
2. An erroneous conscience judges good as evil
or evil as good.
3. A certain conscience judges without doubt or
fear that the opposite is true.
4. A doubtful conscience either makes no
judgment or judges with fear that the opposite is
true.
5. Conscience is said to be strict or lax according
as it tends to perceive or overlook various moral
values.
● Perplexed Conscience: one who cannot
make up his mind or her mind and remains in a
state of indecisive anguish, especially when he
or she thinks that whatever alternative that he
or she chooses will be wrong.
● Scrupulous conscience: torments himself or
herself by rehearsing over and over again
doubts that were once settled , finding new
sources of guilt in old deeds that were best
forgotten, striving for a kind of certainty about
one's moral state that one cannot simply have
in this life.
Following the Judgment of Conscience
1. Always obey a certain conscience even when
it is unknowingly or unavoidably mistaken.
a. A certain and correct conscience is the
clear and proper judgment about one's
moral duty or obligations.
b. Prudential certainty, the exclusion of any
prudent fear of the opposite, is all that can
be expected in moral matters.
c. A certain but erroneous conscience must
also be followed because the agent cannot
distinguish it from a correct conscience and
has no other guide; the act is subjectively
right even if objectively wrong.
1.
2. Never act with a doubtful conscience. A
person who acts with a doubtful conscience is
willing to do an act whether it is wrong or not,
refusing to take the means to avoid doing moral
evil
Forming one's conscience
1. A person in doubt must first use the direct
method of inquiry and investigation to dispel
the doubt, that is, the person must reason over
the matter more carefully, inquire and seek
advice of experts possible, and investigate the
facts of the problem to make certain of them If
possible-in short, use all the means a
normally prudent person would use in
proportion to the importance of the problem.
2. If the direct method yields no results, the
indirect method of forming one's conscience
may be used. This consists in solving not the
theoretical doubt (what is the actual truth?),
for that is what cannot be solved if the direct
method fails, but in solving the practical
doubt alone (how should a doubting person act
in this case?).
Reflex Principles
● The morally safer course is preferable. This
course is always allowable but sometimes is
very burdensome. It must be used if the case
concerns not the existence or application of
an obligation but the effectiveness of the
means (red light) used to fulfill a certain moral
obligation or attain an end that must certainly
be attained.
● A doubtful obligation does not bind. This
principle may be used only when there is
question of the obligation itself, when either
the existence application of an obligation is
genuinely in doubt.

GOOD
1. Is the good definable?
2. Is the good an end to be sought?
3. Are we obliged to seek the good?
4. Is the good a value simply in itself?
5. What distinguishes moral values from other
values?
Good
● The good can best be taken as a primary
notion, irreducible and indefinable. It can
be considered as end, as ought, and as
value.
Good as an end,
- the good is that at which all things aim. An
end is that for the sake of which a thing is
done. Every good is an end, and every end
is a good.
● A means is good insofar as it leads to the
end.
● All human conduct is for an end and a good,
according to the principle of finality "Even
agent acts for an end" Since no agent can
produce an undetermined effect, something
must determine the agent to act rather than
not. To produce this effect rather than that,
what removes this indetermination is the
end. A free agent determines his or her
own end.
The Good may be:
● ontological, the good of mere being, or
● physical, the good of completeness, or
● moral, the good of right living, of rightly
directing free conduct to its due end.
● The genuine good really is good;
● The apparent good only seems so.
● The useful good leads to something else
that is good,
● The pleasant good satisfies a particular
appetite,
● The befitting good perfects the whole
person as such. Though every being is
ontologically good and has some physical
goodness, not every being is always
morally good.
● The moral good is always a genuine and
befitting good.
Good as an ought,
● the moral good is seen not as optional but
as necessary.
● This necessity is of a unique kind called
moral necessity, not a must, but an ought,
not physically compelling but morally
dêmanding, leaving us able but not allowed
to refuse.
● It is a human being's absolute obligation to
succeed as a person because humans are
personal beings. Hence it is derived from
the human being's value as a being and as
a person.
Good as a Value
● At least subjective values exist, (or we do
make value Judgments and have
preferences).
● Values are: bipolar, heterogeneous.
Idealized yet calling for realization
● Some values may be purely subjective, but
others are objective.
● We cannot be wholly arbitrary about them.
As ideals they exist ily) the mind but are
formed by the mind's abstractive power from
the data of experience.
● As value the good displays its deepest
meaning.
● Value or worth is a term used for anything
that appeals to us in any way.
- Moral values are those that make a human
being good simply as a personal being.
● They can exist only in a free being and in
voluntary acts,
● are universal since they pertain to human
beings as personal beings,
● Are self-justifying and independent of
other values,
● are preeminent over every other value, and
imply obligation.
Good
● It is impossible not to form a scale of values
in which there is some top value or highest
good. In such a scale, moral value claims
the highest place. The Ideal human life
Ideally lived Is the moral ideal.

HEDONISM
1. What are the reasons for and against
egoistic hedonism?
2. What are the reasons for and against
altruistic hedonism or utilitarianism?
3. What is the proper place of pleasure in the
good life?
EGOISTIC HEDONISM
- Hedonism picks egoistic pleasure as our
highest good. It need not be the pleasure
of the moment or sensuous pleasure only,
but can be a wise blend of enjoyments
spread out over one's probable lifetime.
Arguments for
● We do in fact seek pleasure and shun pain;
● Even duty affords a kind of intellectual
satisfaction,
● Altruistic behavior has a self-regarding
aspect,
● And those who seek a reward in the next
world expect to enjoy it.
Arguments against
● We often refuse pleasure for higher
motives,
● Satisfaction in doing one's duty is not the
same as pleasure,
● Enlightened self-interest is not our only
motive,
● And those who would not do good unless it
were rewarded are unworthy of the reward.
UTILITARIANISM
● prefers the altruistic pleasure of seeking
the greatest happiness of the greatest
number, and measures the morality of an
act by its utility in promoting the common
welfare.
Arguments for
● It seeks others' happiness as well as one's
own
● Recognizes our social needs,
● Curbs our selfish greed,
● Accepts qualitative differences in pleasures,
● And is open both to virtue and to religion.
Arguments against
● It gives no reason why one should consider
others,
● Cannot determine what makes for the
general happiness,
● Should logically eliminate sufferers,
● Has no place for real love,
● And makes the noblest acts not good in
themselves but only useful means.
Conclusion
● Pleasure cannot be the highest good, yet it
is a very important good.
● It is a natural stimulus that allures us to the
proper use of our abilities.
● It is also a subjective experience sought for
its own sake. There is nothing wrong in
seeking pleasure for itself, so long as it is
kept within proper bounds and not too much
is expected of it.
● A puritanical attitude toward pleasure is not
praiseworthy. Pleasure is a good, but not
the good.
CONVENTIONAL MORALITY
- Is all morality conventional, or is some
morality natural?
● Many hold the theory that all morality is
con-ventional, resulting from the command
or prohibition of the state and its laws or
from the approval or disapproval of
society and its customs, but that there are
no acts good or bad of their very nature.
The theory takes two forms:
Social Contract Theories
● Hobbes and Rousseau say that there was
no morality before the formation of the state,
and that morality now consists of obedience
or disobedience to the civil laws.
- The argument against this theory is that the
state can give conventional morality to
indifferent acts, drive on the right side of
the road, but no state can be completely
arbitrary in its laws;
- there are acts every state must command
(truthfulness, loyalty, etc.) and other acts
every state must forbid (theft, murder, etc.),
because human life itself demands
- these acts were moral or immoral before
there was any state.
Social Pressure Theories
● These theories are held by philosophers as
widely separated as Spencer and
Nietzsche, Comte and Marx.
● Custom can attain the force of law and give
conventional morality to indifferent acts,
● but not all morality can be based on custom,
● for some customs cannot be abolished,
● and some kinds of acts can never be made
customary.
● The only reason is that these acts are good
or bad independently of any custom, and
custom is not the source of all morality.
Conclusion
● Such theories fail to distinguish the must
from the ought, compulsion from without
and obligation from within.
● Why obey the law or custom? Force and
fear are physical, not moral necessity.
- Some acts have only a conventional
morality;
- of themselves indifferent they become good
or bad only because someone in authority
has commanded or forbidden them.
ETHICAL RELATIVISM
1. Is it possible to have no aim in life?
2. Are we limited to short-range, relative ends?
3. Are there reasons for an absolutely last
end?
4. Can the relative and the absolute be
reconciled?
Definition: Ethical relativism holds that there is
nothing good or bad absolutely, but all morality
is relative to the individual or to society.
● Opportunism refuses to have a goal in life
so as to remain open and uncommitted. But
this aimlessness is itself an aim.
● Pragmatism is a relativism that judges the
moral value of acts by their
consequences, not limiting itself, as
utilitarianism does, to pleasurable ones.
● Dewey's instrumentalism is a form of
pragmatism that admits proximate goals
but no ultimate goal for human life,
according to his theory of the continuity of
means-ends.
Reasons for
● We have been disillusioned too often,
● Acute sensitivity to our limitations and to the
folly of being ambitious beyond our known
possibilities should cause us to reject all
absolutes.
● Must be ready for continual readjustments,
● Shorter range goals are enough to guide us
● Work by trial-and-error,
● Experimenting with the data at hand.
● Find an absolute goal too rigid and stifling,
● Without novelty the adventure of existence
would lose all its zest.
● And must be open for future progress.
● Continuity of means-ends, ultimate end
curtails flexibility and freedom of human
progress.
Reasons against
● We are not wholly deceived,
● Genuine humility accepts evident truths
● Use trial-and-error and make readjustments
only to a known end,
● Life admits continual adjustments, not of
ends, but of means. How do we know we
are getting better if there is no fixed
standard of goodness?
● The fact that there are false absolutes does
not prove that there are none.
● See no reason why an ultimate end must be
static,
● Death is the most static last end which
relativists accept relatively and ends up with
no quarry to bag
● And fail to see how progress is progress if it
goes nowhere.
● There is no proof of Dewey's theory of
continuity of means-ends.
Essay Writing Objectives:
- What? Why? Add reasons (limited to 3)
- How did the issue come about?
- Add pros and cons about the issue
- Conclude with your position, stand, and
opinion.
EXAM COVERAGE:
- True or False
- Fill in the blanks
- Enumeration
- Essay