SYNTHESIS:

MAKING
INFORMED
DECISIONS

RODEL D. BRIONES
OBJECTIVES
Identify the different factors that
shape an individual in her moral
decision-making.

Internalize the necessary steps

toward making informed moral
decisions.

Apply the ethical theories or frameworks

on moral issues involving the self, society,
and the non-human environment.
 Review

1 2 3 4 5
What are the four Utilitarianism Natural Law Deontology Virtue ethics
major ethical
theories or
frameworks?
Let’s focus
What ought I to What ought I to
do? do so?

Human condition of The story of humanity

appears to be the
finitude will demand
never-ending search
that we continue to for what it means in
grapple with these the face of moral
questions. choices.
 These questions of what the right thing to do is why are
questions that all human beings-regardless of race, age, socio-
economic class, gender, culture, educational attainment,
religious affiliation or political association- will have to ask at
one point or another in their lives.

Neither the laws nor rules of one’s immediate community or of

wider culture or of religious affiliation can sufficiently answer
these questions, especially when different duties, cultures, or
religions intersect and conflict.

Notions to
be clarified Reason has a role to play in addressing these questions, if not in
resolving them.
 It is the power that identifies the
situations in which rules and
principles sometimes conflict with

Rea
one another.

son
It will allow one to finally make the
best decision possible in each
situation of moral choice.
What is ethics?

It teaches us that moral

valuation can happen in the
level of the personal, the
societal (both local and
global), and in relation to the
physical environment.
It is clearly concerned with
the right way of acting in
relation to other human
beings and towards self.
 It refers to one’s immediate community
(neighborhood, barangay, or town) the larger
sphere (province, region, or country), or the
whole global village defined as the
interconnection of the different nations of the
world.

One must be aware that there are many

What is aspects to social life, all of which may come
into play when one needs to decide in a moral
society? situation.
What is culture?
It includes the beliefs and practices a certain group of people considered
valuable and can extend to such realms as art ( eg, music, literature,
performance, etc.) laws (injunctions against taboo practices) fields of
knowledge (scientific, technological and medical beliefs and practices) and
customs of community.

With these complexities ethics serves as guide through the potentially

confusing thicket of an individual’s interaction with her wider world of social
roles, which can come into conflicts with one another or even with her own
values.
Know oneself…who is human
individual?

Who is this individual Who one is, in the most

who must engage fundamental sense, is
himself/herself in ethical another major topic in
thought and decision- the act of
making? philosophizing.
Famous Greek saying..

Epimeleia he auto- “Know

thyself”
Let’s study “Man and
Historical Action” by
Ramon C. Reyes.

He said “who one is” is a cross-

point.

He means that one’s identity,

who one is or who am I, is a
product of many forces and
events that happened outside
one’s choosing.
Four Cross-points of individual

PHYSICAL INTERPERSONAL SOCIETAL HISTORICAL

 Being a product of all these cross-points is just
one side of “who one is”.

According to Reyes, “who one is” is also a

project for oneself.

Details on 4
This happens because one has freedom.
cross-points of
individuals
This freedom is not absolute: one does not
become something because one chooses to be.
Major Issues on Ethical Thought
1. Culture and Ethics
• One’s culture dictates what is right or wrong for an individual.

• One culture is inescapable- one must investigate the standards of her society to
resolve all her ethical questions with finality.
• American Philosopher James Rachels (1941-2003) defines cultural relativism as
the position that claims that there is no such thing as objective truth in the realm
of morality.
Major Issues on Ethical Thought
A. Culture and Ethics
• Different cultures have different moral codes.

• There cannot be objective truth in morality

Major Issues on Ethical Thought

• Cultural differences between one society and another in terms of norms,

practices, and beliefs are not trivial matters that one can disregard.
• They are part of “who one is” and cannot be set aside.
Major Issues on Ethical Thought
2. Religion and ethics
• Many people who consider themselves “religious” assume that it is the teachings
of their own religion that define what is truly “right” or “wrong,” “good” or
“bad.”
• Relationship between ethics and religion demands philosophical exploration.
Major Issues on Ethical Thought
2. Religion and ethics
• Religion in essence represents a group’s ultimate most fundamental concerns
regarding their existence.
• For followers of a particular religion, the ultimate meaning of their existence, as
well as the existence of the whole reality, is found in the beliefs of that religion.