Ethics

Some reminders before we proceed……

Activities in ethics
• The philosophical nature of the discipline requires that
answers are to be explained systematically and
comprehensively

• 3-4 sentences are not enough explanations…..

• For instance, your values and how you imbibed them…..

Submission of activities
• To my email…. jcabullo@spup.edu.ph

• Filename contains your course, full name, subject, Activity number

• For example: BSN 1 John E, Cabullo ethics Activity 1
• (nb: a number of students are using another’s email, not indicating
one’s name in the attached file, copying a posted reflection)
• You don’t need to always follow up if I have received your output…
On the messenger gc
• Post appropriate messages…

• There are some queries whose answers can be

found in the instructions in our presentations if
only you read them….
• Many queries are better ignored
Hello co-learners,
• This presentation is lifted from the Ethics Powerpoint presentation in
Frontlearners .
• I added some concepts and explanations to help you better
understand the lesson.
• I also incorporated the different TASKS for ACTIVITY #3 throughout the
presentation.
• So please go over the entire lesson and do the tasks of Activity 3.
What is freedom? What are indications that
man is free?
• There are many perspectives of freedom; the most common
may be: freedom is the capacity to do whatever you want;
freedom is one’s power or capacity to decide.

• Freedom is exercised when I decide what to do. At the

moment, I have decided to study first our lesson in Ethics
instead of my subject in Public Personnel Administration. So I
am free.
Freedom and reason are related
• I manifest my freedom when I decide what to do.
• I manifest my reason by knowing, studying.
• Whenever I decide, I decide based on what I know.
• For instance, what to do with our patient in coma? Shall we continue
sustaining him, or shall we decide to remove all the life-saving devices
connected to him to let nature take its course? Whatever course of
action we will take depends on our knowledge of the patient’s
condition.
• The more I know, the better I can exercise my freedom….
Activity 3 ,task 1, task 2:

• Task# 1: All human beings are gifted with reason, but some are
incapacitated or mentally challenged. What does ethics or the law
teach about the actions of the insane? Research.

• Task #2: what would you do if you are asked to decide on something
you barely know about? Explain and give example.
In other words
• Descriptive ethics is what people are actually doing.
• ---- for instance, during calamities, we observe people helping each
other or fighting each other for the relief goods being distributed, etc

• Normative ethics is what people ought to be doing.

• ---- for instance, Plato teaches us to be virtuous all the time.
In other words,
• Metaethics asks questions like: when is something “good”? Where do ethical
doctrines come from?

• Special or applied ethics tackle special question in various fields:

• ---- is it ethical to make animals suffer as we use them for food, for
entertainment, etc?
• ---- is it ethical to abort a baby because the mother was raped?
• ---- is it ethical to retrench employees just to save the company from
bankruptcy?
• ---- should we allow same-sex marriage?
In other words: all normative ethical doctrines
can fall under these 3 classifications:
• Virtue ethics emphasizes that for man to lead a moral life, he must
cultivate a number of virtues that will guide him in dealing with
various issues and situations in life.

• Deontology tells us that we do good because it is our duty; an action

is judged by our intention…

• Consequentialism teaches us that the morality of an action is known

by its effects.
Activity # 3, task 3:
• Pedro was going home one evening when he saw an elderly lady
being robbed by a masked man with a gun. Pedro intervened and
fought the masked robber. Pedro tried to disarm the robber, and in
the process the gun went off, the bullet hit the lady and killed her
instantly.
• If you are a deontologist, what can you say about Pedro’s action?
What if you are a consequentialist? Of the two perspectives, which
would you prefer, or what is your personal view ? Explain.
• The next slides present to us Beauchamp and
Childress’s four principles that can guide us
when making moral decisions:
In other words….
• Respect for autonomy: let the person decide for himself/herself , to
help him/her decide tell him/her the truth; if the patient is
unconscious consult the family members/relatives/guardian etc

• Beneficence: do good always; promote the welfare of the other

In other words,
• Non-maleficence: do no harm!

• Justice: be fair; give what is due to another

Activity 3, task 4
• Dr. Pedro is in a tight situation. His patient needs to be operated upon
and in need of blood transfusion, but the patient belongs to a religion
that forbids the medical procedure. He knows that without the
operation and transfusion the patient will surely die, but he also has
to respect the patient’s religious belief.
• What would he do? Why?