Input 2: The role of society & individual in the emergence of mors

THE ROLE OF SOCIETY &

INDIVIDUAL IN THE EMERGENCE OF
MORES
 LESSON OBJECTIVES
• Identify various philosophical notion on moral obligations
• Create moral compass for making right decisions.
• Appreciate one’s personal orientation for moral ascendency.
WHICH IS WHICH?
Morality is
  According to William Sumner, a well-known
anthropologist, in his article entitled “Folkways” our
notion of what is ‘right’, stem from man’s basic
instinct to survive.

 Folkways- a traditional social custom.

“In order to preserve society together with its accepted norms and practices, the
individual has to defend and maintain this notion of what is right. From these
folkways, now become the basis of the mores, the individual whether
consciously or unconsciously, develops habits to preserve the notion of what
is right”.
 
 Folkways=customs/mores=habits

While the individual developed these habits, society or group, on the other
hand, develops the social rules and sanctions, which may be implicit or
explicit, in order to preserve these practices and to control the behavior of
individual and to maintain the order of the society.

“Thus, in the society, customs emerge out of these

repeated practices, while from the individual emerges
habits”.
 

Therefore:
“Mores are the compelling reasons to do what
ought to be done”
Example:

During Spanish period, because society regards

women with respect and should be protected,
women are supposed dress up fully covered from
head to toes. There was even notion back then that
if you have seen the ankles of the woman, it is
tantamount of having seen her naked.
But as years passed, you could see this tradition forgotten
and has been set aside to adopt new conditions.
Women’s dress code today is different from yesterday.
 

For Sumner;
“The ‘morals’ of an age are never anything but
consonance between what is done and what the mores of
the age requires”.
 
2 important factors in the emergence of morality

1. Point of view of the society together with its customs,

social rules and sanction.

2. The point of view of the individual or the human person

who has unconsciously developed habits in following the
social norms established by his society.
 
THE REALM OF FREEDOM

“What is freedom and how is it being exercised in the realm of morality?”

 The concept of freedom has been widely used and applied in
the analysis of the Philippine society as a whole and as well
as the application of freedom to individual rights
 
Jean Paul Sartre-existentialist philosopher

 Man- is condemned to be free

 Unconstrained free moral agent in the
sense that he always has choice in
every aspect of his life.
 “Man is nothing else but that which
makes of himself”. Thus, man is never
compelled or determined, he is totally
free and therefore totally responsible
for all the things that he does.

Moral formula:
 Freedom = Responsibility
  Author if the book entitled Ethics: Modern Conception of
the Principle of Right (1955)

2 conditions of morality
 Freedom = obligation “Future” (foreseeing
the future effect of one’s action

Freedom and obligation

 The assumption of freedom, entails another assumption
which is obligation. In its moral sense, obligation is
construed as one’s duty to himself to exercise this
freedom as a rational being.
John Mothershead
 Thus, our discussion of freedom entails this basic
presumption: the human person is free to make choices in
the realm of morality. That is, a matter of taking full
responsibility for your actions and being obliged to do so.
It is now your time to choose
Conclusion:
 Freedom in making choices entails the process of reflection and
deliberation on the consequences that our actions might entail.
It is one’s obligation to oneself to exercise one’s rationality to
the fullest without forgetting one’s humanity and his capacity for
empathy.