Ethics

What is Ethics?

• Comes from the Greek word “ETHOS”, which means custom

or manner of acting or behaving
• Often called moral philosophy
• The word moral is from the Latin mores which means customs or
habits
• Thus, ethics means the science of customs or habits of society
Ethics is both a theory and practice.
One has to know the theories or ethical
principles of knowing what is right and wrong
and good and bad actions.

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 ● Characteristics of Moral principles
● 1. Prescriptivity: refers to the action guiding nature of
morality
● 2. Impartiality: means the moral rule should be neutral.
● 3. Overridingness : moral principles should tower overall
norms or standards of evaluation
● 4. Autonomous from Arbitrary Authority: moral
standards should be independent, hence be able to
stand on its own. 4
 ● Characteristics of Moral principles
● 5. Publicity: since moral standards guide people what to
do, they should be made public.
● 6. Practicability: rules are made for men to follow.
Hence, moral standards exist in which human beings
are capable of doing.

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● It is important to determine on what kind of act of
which man is accountable and responsible.
● There are two acts:
● Act of Man - acts where man has no control
● Human Act – acts where man HAS control

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 ● Three elements of act of man and human act:
● 1. Knowledge: where the doer is aware of what
he/she is doing
● 2. Freedom: the act is not done by force
● 3. Will: of which the doer has given its consent to
do the act
● Voluntariness is very much akin to consent.
● Latin word, voluntas: refer to the act of the will
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 ● Four kinds of voluntariness:
● 1. Perfect voluntariness: where all elements of human
act are present
● 2. Imperfect voluntariness: where knowledge is absent
● 3. Simple voluntariness: It is simply doing or not doing
the act since one cannot do anything about it.
● 4. Conditional voluntariness: this is when the person is
forced to do an act in which in normal condition it
should not be done. 8
 ● Morality of an act can either be moral, immoral or
amoral.
● Moral: if it is a GOOD act
● Immoral: if it is BAD
● Amoral: if it is indifferent or neither good nor bad
● An indifferent act may either become moral or
immoral depending on the motive or intention of the
person.
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 ● Determinants of morality:
● 1. The object or the act: refers to the deed done by the
doer of the action, either good or bad
● 2. Motive or intent: the purpose or reason of doing the
act.
● 3. Circumstances: this involves the situations that
surround the commission of the act: who, why, by what
means, where, when and how
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 ● Modifiers in the Accountability of an Act:
● 1. Ignorance: the absence of knowledge
● * vincible: the lack of knowledge can easily be
rectified
● * invincible: ignorance is difficult to rectify
● 2. Concupiscence or passion: refers to emotions
whether negative or positive desire

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 ● Modifiers in the Accountability of an Act:
● 3. Fear: the disturbance of the mind when a person is
confronted by danger or harm to oneself or loved
ones
● 4. Violence: this happens when physical force is
exerted to a person by another for the purpose of
compelling or forcing the person to act against his will
● 5. Habits: frequently repeated acts
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Norm: used to measure whether an act done is good
or bad, right or wrong, moral or immoral.
- The rule or standard in gauging the goodness or
badness of an act.
1. Eternal Divine Law: is made known to man through
his reason and conscience known as the natural
law(lex naturalis)
2. Human Reason: related to the person’s conscience
which is proximate norm of morality telling a person
internally what to do and should not do. 13
 Conscience can either be correct or true,
erroneous or false.
Erroneous conscience can be:
1. Invincibly erroneous conscience; kind of judgment
where mistake cannot be avoided regardless of the
effort or attempt exerted to correct such
2. Vincibly erroneous: person is accountable since error
could have been avoided
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● 3. perplexed conscience: this kind of judgment
happens when a person has 2 alternative options but
fears that sin is present in both choices that either
way he feels doomed, the person must postpone any
action in making a choice
● 4. pharisaical conscience; here the person signifies
small offenses as grave and serious sins as little
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● As to the firmness in its judgment of the morality of
the act, conscience is either:
● 1. certain conscience: the judgment is sure that the
action is morally good or bad
● 2. doubtful conscience: the person hesitates in
making particular judgment since he is not certain
or unsure whether something is good or bad, moral
or immoral
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● 3. scrupulous conscience: this type of judgment is
described as very cautious or extremely fearful that
the person involved does not want to make any
action in a given situation
● 4. lax conscience: very different from the
scrupulous conscience since the person takes sinful
act very lightly and considers it as good and okey.
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 ● Norms: can be formal or material
● Formal norms: “what we ought to be”
● Material norms: “what ought to be done”

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