Lecture 1: General Introduction

THE STUDY OF ETHICS AND CULTURAL CONCEPTIONS OF THE GOOD

Why is there a need to study ethics at all as a subject in college? Clearly, only a few, if there are any at all, of the
students in this course are philosophy majors and are interested in philosophical questions academically. In fact, most
students in an ethics course probably think that such endeavor is a waste of time and distracts them from their major.

Why then is it important to take a course in ethics? Does not everyone already have a sense of what is good and bad
behavior? Does not everyone have an instinct about what one ought to do, and what one's duties are?

Why is there a need to spend time thinking about what is already inherent in everyone's mind? Firstly, it is true that
there are traditions that guide one's actions. It is impossible for anyone not to have grown up with some sense of good and
evil, proper and improper, they ought and ought not. People mostly think that they know exactly their basis of the good
and that it is reasonable. However, a person's understanding of the good hardly ever goes unquestioned, especially in
today's world. Devoting one's life to one's parents' needs seems perfectly logical until one's wife, who grew up in a
different tradition, questions it.

The contractualization of labor for greater profit seems the most reasonable course of action until one
encounters the sufferings of people who have to face the end of their contracts every five months. The subtle harassment
of women, such as ogling and throwing lewd jokes, seems harmless until a woman files a case against an offender in
Quezon City where ordinances against harassment exist. People like to think that their traditions are already clear and
unquestionable to serve as basis for how they should act. This is because people grow up with traditions. Traditions are a
part of culture. Culture is a system of codes that gives the world meaning and shapes the behavior of people. It also
determines proper behavior. This includes what we eat and how we prepare food, how we talk and what language we use,
what we make and how we make and utilize things, how we understand the meaning of life and death, and how we
recognize the ultimate meaning of life. Culture is our code that shapes how we understand, what life is worth living, and
what it means to be human.

These are some of the ways culture shapes the way people act. In the province of Pampanga, penitents line the
streets during Holy Week to whip themselves. For them, it is a way to participate in Christ's sacrifice and by doing so, they
cleanse themselves of their sins and are spared from punishment. Mostly, people who engage in these practices come from
the more traditional communities influenced by Spanish-style Catholicism and the so-called animistic world view. Other
Catholics who are educated in more Westernized, modern systems, do not feel the need to engage in such practices and
even judge the flagellants as "backward" However, the flagellation is perfectly natural and acceptable to those who
practice it because in their culture, flagellation is a way to participate in Christ's existence and, in a way participate in His
being and power.

In some cultures, engaging in sexual activities for excitement and fun is amoral. Sexual partners may not always
have serious relationship with each other and merely "hook-up" for fun, and that is perfectly acceptable as long as
contraceptives are used and partners protect themselves against diseases. Thus, the meaning of sexual activity in these
cultures is not necessarily connected to love and procreation, lineage propagation, and property transmission. In other
cultures, which are more agricultural or where the transmission of property is important, perhaps sex as a leisure activity
is less acceptable. Also, in cultures where monogamy is associated with romantic love and personal flourishing, sex is
often related to committed relationships, although not always to marriage. Among these people, their system of meanings
coded by their culture shapes how they understand sex and acceptable sexual behavior. Some people cannot even
conceive of sex as a leisure activity because in their culture, the idea or set of behaviors related to it does not exist. The
experience of sex as fun is not even a real experience for them because it is not part of the experiences that their culture
provides.

Wife beating is another kind of behavior that is culturally determined. In some cultures where the status of
women is that of property or is tightly controlled because of the importance of lineage, it is customary that women accept
their husbands' authority, submit to their will, and serve all their needs. Thus, women can be forced to have sex with their
husbands. Women accept the fact that they cannot move in public without a male chaperone that they cannot own real
estate as individuals, they cannot travel without a male family member's permission, and they can be beaten for whatever
reason their husbands deem right without recourse to any relief. In other cultures where women's happiness and
fulfilment are valued above those of the clan or the community, all of the aforementioned acts are considered violence,
violations of basic rights, and crime. People from cultures whose women are more "liberated" cannot begin to understand
how women of the non-"liberated" cultures accept such abuse. But because the culture of the non-"liberated" women
shape their perceptions of the relationships between men and women, their rights and duties, and their feelings regarding
the "strictness" of their husbands, it is possible that they do not feel abused or violated.

It can, therefore, be noted that the conception of the good is shaped by culture as it is the very basic system of
codes that shapes human behavior. This could be dangerous in a way because not all cultures and their conception of the
good reflect the good or what ought to be. Some cultures can be destructive to human beings. For instance, some cultures
tend to encourage war and colonial plunder. Others encourage overconsumption and exploitation of the poor for profit
Because of these people's cultures, they are oriented toward violent behavior and do not even realize that they do violence
toward their neighbors. Most corrupt government officials do not think that they are doing harm because they were
formed in a culture where self-interest allows for the violation of rules of governance and the common good. Thus, one
cannot rely solely on one's culture to come to a genuine understanding of the good. There is always the possibility that
one's cultural conception of the good can lead to destructiveness and violence.
 But whose conception of the good is "the good"? Usually, the good is defined by a dominant system or group. The
good is defined by what has worked for people to flourish People value cooperation over conflict because it makes human
survival easier. People value arranged marriages to build alliances. Thus, what people usually believe to be the good is
usually what is useful and effective for survival and flourishing. But people are not only concerned about the useful and
effective. People also seek to realize what they consider to be ethical acts that lead to human flourishing How does one
know what is actually the good that genuinely leads to human flourishing? Thus, the discipline of ethics is important
because it provides people with a basis upon which to discern their own accepted ethical systems and a basis for
broadening their own conceptions of the good.

WHAT IS ETHICS?

What do people think about when they think ethically? What is the experience on which ethical reflection is
grounded? It is grounded on the experience of free persons who have to act in difficult situations. It developed from the
reality that when people act, they do not merely need to know the best way to realize something but there are times when
they need to act in a way that realizes the good. And the good does not always mean the easiest or most expedient way.
Ethical norms and the question of good and evil arise when people need to act as free persons. But not all actions are
inherently ethical. Actions only require ethical reflection when they are free acts that involve a person's desire to realize
the good.

Questions of the good are not questions of practicality or questions of realizing one's desired end. They are
questions that refer to a person's freedom and ability to live according to what he/she considers to be the good. In
different ages of human civilizations, the particular norms of the good have taken on different forms. However, at heart,
these norms express the human realization that free action is defined by an ought that is not measured by how practical
results are achieved but by how human beings act in a way that realizes their capacity to freely and creatively respond to
the order of things: whether this order is grounded on a transcendent order or human reason. Ethical questions arise
when human beings intuit that their actions must authentically fulfill their freedom in response to a ground of authentic
human existence. Eating and breathing are not usually thought about as ethical or unethical. After all, these are just
functions of the body. However, when eating is thought of in relation to human freedom, the ethical question comes in. For
instance, eating could involve the eating of food produced by people who are exploited. They are not paid a living wage so
that the factory owners earn more. On top of that, they source their raw materials by polluting the waters of a community.
Whoever eats that product participates in the exploitation and destruction because buying the food supports the activity
of the manufacturer. In this case, eating becomes an ethical question because although eating is a bodily function, eating
this exploitatively produced food is a free choice. And it entails the human capacity to choose what makes one good. It also
reveals how human beings have a choice to act in a creative or destructive way toward others. Certainly, eating canned fish
could be an easy and inexpensive way to get nutrition, but it could also be unethical.

Thus, ethics has something to do with realizing the fullest potential as free persons acting in the world and doing
right for others. It is not about being efficient or achieving goals. It is about realizing what people intuit to be the good.
Human beings intuit that life is not just about existing or survival, and human actions are not just about expediency.
Somehow, human beings sense that there is this thing they call the good which they are bound to realize to genuinely be
human and to build better societies.

This course explores how philosophers have tried to explain this mysterious intuition of the good and what they
understood were the paths to realizing a life lived according to the good.