T h e Mo ra l

Agent

Lesson 1:
Culture in
Moral Behavior
By: Kiana Ren ee Bas a & Kr i s s i a Bas a
Contents:
• C ul tu re: Defi ni t i o n
• C ul tu re’s R ol e i n Mo ra l
B eh av i or
• ‘ Mo ra l St an da rd s as Soc i al
C on ve n ti o n’ an d t h e So c ia l
C on di t i o ni n g Th eo ry
CULTURE
Culture

The t e rm ‘cu ltu re ’ is so

co mple x tha t it is n ot
easy to define.
ETHICS

OTHER DEFINITION OF TERM CULTURE (“CULTURE DEFINITION”)

Culture Definition

a) Culture refers to the cumulative deposit

of knowledge, experience, beliefs,
values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies,
religion, notions of time, roles, spatial
relations, concepts of the universe, and
material objects and possessions acquired
by a group of people in the course of
generations through individual and group
striving.
Culture Definition

b) Culture consists of patterns, explicit and

implicit, of and for behavior acquired and
transmitted by symbols, constituting the
distinctive achievement of human groups,
including their embodiments in artifacts;
the essential core of culture consists of
traditional ideas and especially their
attached values; culture systems may, on
the one hand, be considered as products of
action, on the other hand, as conditioning
influences upon further action.
Culture Definition

c) Culture is the sum of total of the learned

behavior of a group of people that are
generally considered to be the tradition of
that people and are transmitted from
generation to generation.
Culture Definition

d) Culture in its broadest sense is cultivated

behavior; that is the totality of a person's
learned, accumulated experience which is
socially transmitted, or more briefly,
behavior through social learning.
Culture Definition

e) Culture is symbolic communication.

Some of its symbols include a group's
skills, knowledge, attitudes, values, and
motives. The meanings of the symbols
are learned and deliberately perpetuated
in a society through its institutions.
ETHICS

Culture’s Role in Moral

Behavior
 Moral Values

Culture is a Behaviors

‘way of life’
Along with knowledge, beliefs,
and symbols
Culture is learned as children grow up
in society and discover how their
parents and others around them
interpret the world.
Morally right or wrong

Catcalling Gossiping Helping

“Evaluate what is [morally] good and bad and to judge when an

unusual action is appropriate or inappropriate”
(Mañebog & Peña, 2016)
Respective Teachers Novels Films Television
Parents
“Individuals are product of their
culture”

Learning a culture is essential part

De Guzman &
of human development
Peña (2016)
The process by which infants and children
socially learn the culture, including morality,
of those around them is called enculturation
or socialization.
ETHICS

MORAL STANDARDS AS SOCIAL CONVENTION

AND SOCIAL CONDITIONING THEORY
SOCIAL CONVENTION

Social conventions are those arbitrary rules and norms governing the
countless behaviors all of us engage in every day without necessarily
thinking about them, from shaking hands when greeting someone to driving
on the right side of the road (Marmor, 2009).
SOCIAL NORMS Shake hands when you meet
someone.
REGARDING IN PUBLIC
BEHAVIOR Don't interrupt someone while they
are talking. Wait for them to finish
and then take your turn.

Make direct eye contact with the

person you are speaking with.
SOCIAL NORMS Dress neatly and appropriately for
the job.
REGARDING IN
WORKPLACE Be on time and follow the schedule
that you are given.

Be respectful of your coworkers.

MORAL STANDARDS
-Standard by which we compare human actions to
determine their goodness and badness.
-it refers to the norms which we have about the
types of actions which we believe to be morally
acceptable and morally unacceptable.
-morality sets standards of virtuous conduct.
MORALS IN
SOCIETY 1. Always tell the truth
2. Be forgiving
3. Have respect for yourself and others
SOCIAL CONDITIONING THEORY

Social conditioning is the process by which people of a certain society are

trained to think, believe, feel, want, and react in a way that is approved by
the society or the groups within it (Singh, 2019).
Thank you for listening!