GENERAL EDUCATION - 8 ETHICS

UNIT I: BASIC CONCEPTS

Overview:
This unit gives you an idea about the Differences between Moral and
Non-Moral Standards, Moral Dilemmas, the four branches of ethics, the
moral agent together with the universal values. It will also help you to
analyze the Six Stages of Moral development by Lawrence Kohlberg.
Learning Objectives:_____________ _________________________________________________
At the end of the unit, I am able to:
1. Determine what the difference between Moral and Non-moral
standards;
2. Analyze what is moral dilemma and it’s three levels;
3. Evaluate the six stages of Moral Development;
4. Differentiate the four branches of Ethics; and
5. List down the strength and weaknesses of Filipino Moral
Character.

Lesson Proper
Differences Between Moral and Non-Moral Standards
Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that deals with
the questions and standards of what is right and what is wrong. It discusses
the different systems of moral values and principles that determine what are
acceptable and unacceptable behaviors. It also involves ideals, moral
obligations and prohibitions that people have to observe, follow and respect.
Ethics came from the Latin word ethos which means character or moral
nature. When you say character or moral nature, the character or moral
nature of a person is greatly affected by his or her personal principles and
experiences by the belief and value system of his or her surroundings.
Non-Moral Standards refer to the rules that affect the choice of a
person but are not linked to moral or ethical considerations, similar with
ethics people use value judgment in dealing with these aspects.
Consequently, they can also affect the way a person develops her moral
principles and guidelines but they do not necessarily have moral
implications. These are the list of Non-Moral Standards, aesthetics, rules in
games, laws, personal experiences and principles, etiquette, recipe or
formula, religion and lastly traditions or norms,
Moral Standards refer to the rules or set of guidelines that affect the
choices of a person and his or her belief system and decision-making process
in problems and situations that beg the question of what is morally right and
wrong. The characteristics of Moral Standards are the following, concern
with the welfare of beings, reliance on reasoning and not on authority,
overriding or hegemonic, impartial, fair and just and lastly special emotions
and vocabulary.
Now let us see and discuss the Characteristics of Moral Standards,
number one is concern with the welfare of beings, in moral standards it
deals with matters that can seriously injure or benefit the welfare of beings
such as in war, child abuse, rape, fraud, murder, and theft while in Non-moral
standards it talks about what is wrong but their concerns do not necessarily
affect one’s life or well-being, number two is reliance on reasoning and not
on authority in Moral standards it is rely on reasoning and not on
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authoritative individuals to support and justify their cause while in

Non-Moral perspective it is in the context of law and religion they do not
need to be based on a valid and sound reasoning, number three is Overriding
or Hegemonic the take precedence over other standards and considerations
like non-moral standards and self-interest, number four is impartial, fair and
just it simply means that there is no exemption to the moral standards, if A is
morally right for a certain person P, then it is morally right for anybody
relevantly similar to P, and lastly number five is special emotions and
vocabulary moral standards are associated with special emotions such as
guilt, remorse, and shame and vocabulary such as right, good, wrong, evil,
moral, amoral and immoral.
Moral Dilemmas
A moral dilemma is a situation that begs an agent to choose between
two alternatives with equal weight wherein both alternatives are either good
or both are evil, but the agent cannot do both or all actions. In this situation,
no matter what the agent chooses you will be left with a moral failure but
not choosing anything impose greater harm or loss for the agent. For
example, Brian is on a crew ship when a fire broke and the ship must be
abandoned. The lifeboats are carrying more people than they were designed
to carry. The lifeboat he’s in is sitting dangerously low in the water and can
potentially sink if added with more weight.
There are still other people swimming around them begging to be
saved. They are asking him to throw the rope so that they can go up the
lifeboat; however, the boat will sink if more people will come abroad. Now,
should Brian throw the rope to the people or keep the rope so that lifeboat
will not sink. In this dilemma here are some of the conflicts that plagued
Brian throughout the decision-making process, number one is if he will help
who are swimming their boat will sink and all of them die, number two is if
he did not throw the rope then those who are in the water will die and lastly
number three is if he can sacrifice himself and help one person but he is not
willing to sacrifice himself either.
The following are the basic concepts of Moral Dilemma; personal
advocates, society, culture religion, family and friends and lastly are
education and experiences. Now let us proceed to the three levels of moral
dilemma, first you have Individual Dilemma, second you have Organizational
Dilemma and third is Structural Dilemma.
The first level of Moral dilemma starts with the personal and
individual interaction of people with situations in their daily lives. In this
level, conflict arrives when a person is asked to choose between two
important values for him or her for example, choosing between one’s duties
to his or her family one’s love for another person. The second level is
Organizational Dilemma unlike individual dilemma this dilemma is
encountered by institutions, business, or organizations in their
decision-making process, at this level the dilemmas that the organizations’
experiences usually affect more than one person and they can be part of the
internal group or part of an external stakeholder.
For example, Zee has been in a coma for 8 months she only lives
through support machines and she never showed any sign of improvement
and he never responded to any stimulus given to her. In four other hospitals,
there are four patients who are in need of healthy organs such as kidney,
heart, lungs and liver. They are in a critical stage and in need of transplants
immediately. Patient XTZ is a match for all the patients but removing his
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organs will cause him death. However, without his organs, the four patients
will all die. Now, is it okay to kill someone to benefit more people? How do
you choose who to save and who to sacrifice? In the given example aside
from the family members, doctors, hospital, sometimes even judges usually
help family members decide for the unconscious patients who cannot
observe their autonomy over’s one body and life. However, decision over this
kind of cases bring up more ethical questions like the following; When do
you consider someone to be dead or still alive? When do families and the
institution stop waiting for a comatose patient to wake up? Who has the
authority to decide over the life of someone who is in the comatose stage? If
the call of duty of the doctor is to save lives, will a recommendation from the
institution conflict with the principle? It is ethical to kill one person to
benefit the many? How do we choose who to save and who to sacrifice? The
last level of dilemmas deals with structural dilemmas that affect a network of
institutions and operative theoretical paradigms like universal care, juvenile
laws, and immigration. Unlike organizational dilemmas, this type of dilemma
can affect a community and even a society at large.
Hence, these are also the most complicated dilemmas that people
face. For example, the issue of undocumented immigration has been widely
discussed in different countries especially since President Donald Trump of
America, openly criticized it and created measures to stop it and even sent
back some immigration to their home countries. However, even if a lot of
American citizens have same sentiments as he does, a growing number of
oppositions claim that it is inhumane to send back immigration from their
homes especially those who moved to America out of circumstances like
extreme poverty, persecution and war, at the same time many immigrants
have families, wives, husbands, and children who will be left once they leave
the country. What do you think about this problem?
Freedom as a Foundation for Moral Acts
People face different moral dilemmas and issues in your everyday
lives. When you listen to the news, you hear about unending debates about
topics like abortion, freedom of expression, and war. Then you start asking
who is right and who is wrong. If you are experiencing this kind of dilemma
you might be one of two things; you have the freedom to engage in a
discussion about an issue, but like most people, you resort to a subjective
and oftentimes biased understanding of an issue.
There are four parts of Ethics, Descriptive Ethics, Normative Ethics,
Meta Ethics and Applied Ethics. First up you have Descriptive Ethics it is the
thing that individuals really accept to be correct or wrong and it thinks about
various moral standards utilized in over a wide span of time. Next is
Normative Ethics it is the thing that individuals should do, a prescriptive
morals and it talks about how individuals can settle on what is ethically right
you have three segments of Normative morals this are Virtue Ethics which is
centers around one's character and kindness, second parts are Deontology it
is obligation morals or all out objective and good absolutism and in
conclusion is, Consequentialism it is centers around the outcomes of an
activity. Meta Ethics it doubts the significance of goodness, morals and
profound quality including how individuals can realize what is valid or bogus
and ultimately is, Applied Ethics it is the utilization of moral hypotheses in
various open and private issues like medication, business and so on.
Thomas Beauchamp and James Childress had Four Principles in
terms of Normative Ethics; these are Respect to Autonomy, Beneficence,
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Non-maleficence and Justice. First you have Respect to Autonomy it means

the acknowledgement that every person has the right to make choices to
hold views and to act based on one’s value and beliefs as long as the person
is conscious and has proper understanding of the matter on hand. Second is
Beneficence it is the promotion of doing as much goodness as possible refers
to the acts of kindness, compassion and generosity. Third is Non-maleficence
it is the avoidance of any unjustifiable and unnecessary harm and lastly is
Justice which means the distribution of resources equally and fairly.
The Moral Agent
Culture is the shared and learned patterns of behaviors, interactions,
symbolisms, and values of a group of people that manifest in your religion,
food, clothing, language, marriage, social habits, music, arts and customs. It
reflects the identity of a particular group of people. There are many cultures
in the world and they can be different from each other.
These differences in cultural patterns create a widely diverse belief
and value systems across the world which makes it harder to develop an
absolute moral guideline for anyone. A principle can be seen critical in the
survival of the people in one culture while it can also be seen negatively and
unacceptable by another culture. Hence, the rise of the concept of cultural
relativism.
Cultural Relativism is the disposition that sees a general public's way
of life inside the setting of the general public's issues and openings. It
expresses that there is nothing of the sort as general realities in light of the
fact that various perspectives and esteeming. Coming up next are the case
regarding Cultural relativism, first is various social orders have distinctive
good codes, there is no target standard that can be utilized to pass judgment
on one cultural code superior to another, the ethical code of our own general
public has no extraordinary status, it is only one among many, there is no
well-known fact in morals that is there is no ethical certainties that hold for
all individuals consistently, the ethical code of a general public, figures out
what is directly inside that society, that is if the method of a general public
says that a specific activity is correct, at that point that activity is directly in
any event inside that society, and ultimately is it is simple pomposity for you
to attempt to pass judgment on the lead of different people groups. We ought
to receive a disposition of resistance toward the acts of other cultures. For
instance, The Callatian accepted that it was the privilege to eat their dead
while the Greeks consider the thought shocking and wrong. Presently which
good code is correct and which isn't right? Which is the ethical method of
rewarding the dead? Would it be a good idea for us to acknowledge the
reason this is only a matter of sentiment?
There are Advantages and Dangers in Cultural Relativism, cultural
relativism teaches everyone to be more open-minded and respectful of other
cultures. It calls out of discrimination against race, nationality, and culture
and opens more opportunities for everyone. However, the danger with this
arises when we are called to a position to judge a practice that is repressive
and sometimes even harmful towards a group of people. People are more
reluctant to interfere in the customs of other people. For example, in Middle
East women are regarded as second class to men. Laws governing them are
stricter and they have less rights and privileges compared to men. Now, it is
part of their culture to be overly repressive with women that there are even
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apps allowing husband and father to monitor their wives and daughter’s
actions and where about.
Cultural reformation like what happened during the time of the
crusades when Western cultures destroyed native cultures under the name
of religion and politics are considered wrong because it is wrong to see one
culture as inferior to another, hence, promoting cultural preservation at the
same time. Cultural relativism always uses the context of the culture as a
premise. An action is considered right if its right under the context of the
person’s culture even if it is wrong in another’s culture.
Cultural relativism pushes people to look beyond their own cultures
and be less xenocentric and ethnocentric as they can see the similarities and
differences of the culture. As James Rachel (2004) said, this points out that it
is a mistake to overestimate the amount of differences between cultures, not
every moral rule can vary from society to society. However, it makes it harder
to define exactly a culture because cultures can overlap with each other and
have similarities. Although it is possible to find a unique practice but cultural
relativism makes identification of cultures more fluid than before.
In summary, adopting the attitude of cultural relativism teaches a
person how to be tolerant and respectful of different cultures. It teaches a
person to be more understanding and to always look for the context of the
moral code or principle being held. However, cultural relativism is not
immune to criticisms. It is difficult to use as an argument in ethics because
it’s premises root from the matter of opinion of a culture. Thus, it is purely
dependent on the cultural standards that the problem or issue belongs to.
According to the article, The Filipino Moral Character has strengths
and weaknesses just like any other culture. It also emphasized the need to
preserve some aspects of the Filipino culture but at the same time highlights
the parts that need improvement. The following are the Strengths of Filipino
Moral Character pakikipag-kapwa tao, family orientation, joy and humor,
flexibility, adaptability, and creativity, hard work and industry, faith and
religiosity, ability to survive. The following are the weaknesses of the Filipino
Moral Character extreme personalism, extreme family-centeredness, lack of
discipline, passivity and lack of initiative, colonial mentality kanya-kanya
syndrome.
In order to understand how you can develop virtue as a habit, you
need to understand these three topics; Universal Values, Moral Character,
and Moral Development.
Universal Values you often hear about character building but do you
really understand the meaning of it? How can you say that a trait is virtuous?
And most importantly, how can we really make sure that as you develop your
character you are also developing your moral compass? Character building
often talks about universal values. Universal values are values that have the
same worth or level of importance across cultures and ethical principles. In
principle, these universal values are conducts that every rational person
wants to follow. The following are the common universal values; Integrity,
Peace, Freedom, Human Dignity, Social Progress, Equal rights, Responsibility,
Compassion, Loyalty, Innovativeness, and Intuitiveness. Have you ever
wondered why you have to apply these common universal values in our
lives? Imagine a world without a concept of respect for human life. What
kind of world do you have? How do you feel about it? Would you like to live
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in this kind of world? Now imagine a world where people respect and love
each other. What can you observe in this world? Imagine being in a
relationship with a partner who always lies to you, how do you feel about
this kind of relationship? Would you prefer it if both of you are honest with
each other? Do you think you can be honest all the time?
The thought experiments showed us how an application of a
particular value system can affect the sense of security of the people
involved. A world without respect for human life can result in a chaotic
environment where people are always afraid of their own lives or
possessions. On the other hand, a relationship that is not based on honesty
does not really differentiate it from a relationship with a stranger where we
cannot fully trust the person. So why do you need to have universal values?
In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle wrote that virtue is both intellectual and
moral for it requires time and experience to be developed and can only come
as a result of habit. The excellence of character is defining by the
combination of qualities that make an individual the sort of ethically
admirable person (Howiak. 2005). In the article “A Short List of Universal
Values”, Richard Kinnier, Jerry Kernes and Therese Dautheribes (2000) said
that the call for a list of universal values is becoming more urgent because of
the future of human survival may depend on it.
According to Kinnier, 2000, a standard of agreed-upon rules might
serve to recover worldwide communication and cooperation. “Ringer
contended that without some all-inclusive principles you are left with no real
way to denounce savagery, physical torment, mutilation, spouse beating, kid
misuse, subjection, murder or annihilation, on the off chance that they are a
piece of ongoing practice and social customs of a gathering.” (Kinnier et
al,2000). In a lecture by UN secretary- General Kofi-Annan (2003) in
Germany he said why do you need to have universal values? Now you can
conclude that universal values are important for the survival of human
species because it pushes people to protect themselves by protecting and not
inflicting harm to other people. Respect, care, and compassion for other
people to create a more peaceful and cooperative environment. On the other
hand, greed, gluttony, anger, and selfishness push people to create
disagreement and conflict among people.
Moral Character, look back at your childhood which parts and
elements of your lives do you think to have the most impact on your current
belief system and moral character? The relationship of a person’s individual
acts and moral character is circular which means that one affects the other.
Your individual acts become your habits which molds your moral character.
Meanwhile, your moral character is manifested in your decisions, attitudes
and acts.
Lawrence Kohlberg developed the Six Stages of Moral Development
that hopes to understand how moral reasoning changes as a person grows
old and matures. The following are the Six Stages of Moral Development by
Lawrence Kohlberg;
Level 1 Pre-Conventional Morality age 9 years old and below, in this
level the primary focus of an individual is the self, people don’t have a
personal code of Morality yet, they follow the standards and rules that adults
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teach to them, the Moral codes are mostly dependent on the avoidance of
punishment, under this level is the Stage 1 and Stage 2 of Moral
Development. Stage 1 is Obedience and Punishment Orientation in this stage
right and wrong is determined by punishment and authority, the physical
and mental consequences of action indicate the goodness or badness of
behavior, and Moral rightness is equivalent to obedience. Stage 2 is
Individualism and Exchange start to learn about individuality and
satisfaction of one’s desire, moral rightness is equivalent to the idea of giving
and take, the principle of equality and resolution of conflicts.
Level 2 Conventional Morality under adolescence to middle age,
people start to internalize the moral standards of the groups they belong to
and reasoning is usually based on the norms of their groups, under this level
is the Stage 3 and Stage 4 of Moral Development. Stage 3 is Good
Interpersonal Relationship the right and wrong is determined by the
approval of others and conformity to norms, good behavior is determined by
praise, peer pressure is also prominent at this stage and deviance and
indifference are treated as sins and Moral rightness is equivalent to
“conformity and acceptance”. Stage 4 Maintaining the Social Order a person
becomes more aware of laws and societal norms and wants to be a good
citizen.
Level 3 Post-Conventional Morality under adults, and not everyone
reaches this level, individual judgment is based on self-chosen principles and
moral reasoning is based on individual rights and justice, under this level is
the Stage 5 and Stage 6 of Moral Development. Stage 5 Social Contract and
Individual Rights you understand that even if norms and laws exist they
might not be always morally right, you learn how to use logic, abstract
thinking, and moral principles to determine what is right and wrong. Stage 6
the Universal Principles you develop your own ethical guidelines and the
willingness to defend it even if it means going against the majority of the
people, you believe that a person is not mean but an end and a very few
numbers of people have reached this level.