CAVITE STATE UNIVERSITY Online Module 3.

3 : GNED06
Silang Campus SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY

The Good Life

Department of Arts and Sciences

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Key Learning Objectives

• Identify intellectual virtues
• Define public good
• Compare and contrast the politico-ethical and
politico-economic concept of public good
• Explain the green economy
• Determine ways on how to promote green
economy
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Virtue
• A beneficial quality or power of a thing
(Merriam Websters’ Dictionary)
• A good moral quality in a person, or the general quality of
being morally good
(Cambridge Dictionary)
• Behavior showing high moral standards.
(Oxford’s dictionaries)
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Values
• Principles or standards of behavior
• Inform our thoughts, words, and actions
• One’s judgement of what is important in life
• The decisions we make are a reflection of
our values and beliefs, and they are always
directed towards a specific purpose.
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4 Types of Values:
• INDIVIDUAL VALUES – reflect how you show up in
your life and your specific needs ; principles to live by
• RELATIONSHIP VALUES – reflect how you relate to
other people
• ORGANIZATIONAL VALUES – reflect how your
organization shows up and operates in the world.
• SOCIETAL VALUES – reflect how you or your
organization relates to society.
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Intellectual virtues
• Excellent personal traits or character strengths
which deemed to be good for thinking and learning
associated with knowledge and cognitive ability.
• Educational goal
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Good thinking and learning require…

• intellectually careful
• honesty
• humility INTELLECTUAL VIRTUES
• attentiveness
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KEY FEATURES OF INTELLECTUAL VIRTUE

They are acquired.

- Obtained through practice guided by instructions

They are excellent character traits.

- Possessed by a person w/ excellent disposition in life
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KEY FEATURES OF INTELLECTUAL VIRTUE

They involve human emotions, intentions,

motivations, and values.
- An intellectual virtuous person does not rejoice with falsehood but
loves truth.
- Reflects the principle that people value in life.
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KEY FEATURES OF INTELLECTUAL VIRTUE

They are aimed at cognitive goods.

- truth, knowledge, and understanding unified

Cognition – mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and

understanding through thought, experience, and the senses.
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KEY FEATURES OF INTELLECTUAL VIRTUE

They are means between two extremes.

- Excess and deficiency

Example:
Courage : rashness (excess)
cowardice (deficiency)
Humility : belittling oneself (excess)
arrogant (deficiency)
PLEASURE VS HAPPINESS
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Pleasure
• a positive, enjoyable, or worth seeking mental state that
gives a feeling of satisfaction and enjoyment.
• this feeling subsides
• subjective (depends on the need)
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Happiness
• state of well-being and contentment that encompasses
living a good life with a sense of meaning and deep
satisfaction.
• life is at best
• product of pleasure and life well-lived
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Pleasure Happiness
Low satisfaction High satisfaction
Things Experiences
Unstable and motivated by external Constant and generate within
factors

both of them are temporary.

PUBLIC GOODS
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Public good
• An item or service consumed without reducing the amount
available for others and cannot be withheld to those who do not pay
for it.
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Public good
• Two concepts:
1. Politico-ethical sense
2. Politico-economic sense
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The public good from the politico-ethical sense

National People and the Public Good

- Benefits the communal or national public
- Morally good action is the one that helps the greatest number of
people.

Examples: National defense, education, public health, public ports and

highways, social services.
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The public good from the politico-ethical sense

Communal People and the Public Good

-Community good
-Only inside their community
-Communal public good does not jibe to other communities’ public
good.

Examples: Establishment of dam helpful to a certain land, but can harm or has no
use to the other.
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The public good from the politico-ethical sense

MICROECONOMY
- The benefit that may accrue an individual or a firm in pursuing a
project that will offset possible losses or adverse effects and that will
benefit the general public.

Example: Microeconomics would look at how a specific company could maximize its
production and capacity, so that it could lower prices and better compete
in its industry.
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The public good from the politico-ethical sense

MACROECONOMY
- distinction between service and profit orientations.
- economy as a whole

Example: Macroeconomics would look at how an increase/decrease in net

exports would affect a nation's capital account or how GDP would be
affected by the unemployment rate.
TYPES OF PUBLIC GOODS
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Types of public goods

1. “Public” Public Goods

- non-rival and non-excludable
- in the interest of the entire nation
Example : air, national security, education, health services, trade and industry,
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Types of public goods

2. “Private” Public Goods

- set up by the private sector
- the general public benefits from them as customers or as free
riders
Example: Sell products not consumable for all, only those who have the money
can avail
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Types of public goods

3. “Mixed” Public Goods

- undertaken by some private organization for the common good.
- service-oriented not profit

Examples: Wifi, cable, cinemas, toll roads

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Types of public goods

4.Public “Bads”
- negative goods which the general public scorns and avoided and
not tolerated.
- needs to be eradicated

Examples: Corruption, pollution, crimes, etc.

THE GREEN ECONOMY
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The Green Economy

• The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP, 2010), defines
The Green Economy as a result of improved well-being and social
equity while reducing environmental risks and ecological
scarcities.
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The Green Economy

- Growth in income and employment driven by public and private
investments

reduce carbon emissions and population

 enhance energy and resource efficiency
 prevent loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services
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Philippines: Pushing for Green Economy

Republic Act No. 8749

- An act providing for a comprehensive air pollution control
policy and for other purposes.

Philippine Clean Air Act of 1999

- Article 3 - Pollution from stationary sources
- Article 4 - Pollution from motor vehicles
- Article 5 - Pollution from other sources
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Philippines: Pushing for Green Economy

Rivers Revival Program

- “Ilog ko, Irog ko”
 Navotas-Malabon-Tenejeros-Tullahan river system
- Manila bay Clean up Project

Ban of Plastics (Solid waste management)

-Started in Quezon City (2012)
- diffused into different regions in the country
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Activity 1
• THINK ABOUT THIS QUESTIONS
• Directions: Answer the questions and Activities based on the topic discussed and
understanding.
1 . What is the good life?
2 . What is the relationship between the good life and science?
3 . Does technology always lead us to the good life? How and why?
4 . Do people really need technology in their lives? Is it really a necessity?
5 . How do you reconcile the 'need' for technology and the dilemma/s it faces?
6 . Should there be an ethics of technology?