ETHICS

PHILO 101
• In what ways are the ethical standards being
violated?
• As a professional what is your ethical
responsibility?
• What factors other than a diagnosis of down
syndrome are important in this situation?
TRANSPARENCY, SCRUTINY AND A PUBLIC DEMAND FOR
TRUTH ARE THE DRIVERS FOR REAL ETHICAL
ACCOUNTABILITY
• WE ALL TEND TO MAKE ETHICAL JUDGEMENTS BASED ON
CONDITIONED AND SUBJECTIVE VIEWS OF WHAT IS RIGHT AND
PROPER.
• AND WE ALL TEND TO MAKE A SNAP DECISIONS IN ASSESSING
WHETHER SOMETHING IS RIGHT OR WRONG,BEFORE SEEKING THE
FULL HISTORY.
• THE NEED TO EXAMINE WHAT REALLY LIES BENEATH THE SURFACE
WHEN JUDGING GOOD AND BAD WILL BECOME INCREASINGLY
IMPORTANT AS ETHICS AND ETHICAL ISSUES BECOME GENIUNELY
POPULAR MAINSTREAM CONCERNS.
• ETHOS/ ETHUS – “customs or behaviors”.
• BEHAVIOR- more attributed to human behavior and is therefore
inherent to human beings.
• MORIS- which means “morals”.
• MORALS- the rightness or wrongness of your action.

NOTE: ETHICS IS NOT TO BE UNDERSTOOD AS SPECIFIC TO THE NATION

BUT RATHER AS INHERENT HUMAN.
• Ethics
• A mental-set, disposition or values.
• It deals with the morality of the human act.
• It meant for the exercise of a human conduct, both ethical and
unethical.
• It guides the intellect in discerning concrete human conduct.
Importance of Ethics
• It plays a role in shaping the individuals behaviors within a society.
• Acts as a self-governing system to keep human self-interest and the
good of society at equilibrium because the eyes of the law is not
always available.
• Society might fall into chaos if we accept that each of us could pick
and choose what the right thing to do is.
 FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS IN
ETHICS
The Human Act
Human act is a conscious and free exercise of one’s faculties, therefore,
conscious and free.
Act of man is an act beyond the control of one’s will.
Morality or ethics is more concerned with human acts rather than the
acts of man.
• Constituents of Human Act
-Knowledge- is the mindfulness of what the moral agent is doing.
-Freedom- quality of the freewill by which one is able to choose
between one or more alternatives.
-Voluntariness- quality of the human act whereby any commission or
omission of an act is a result of the knowledge which an agent has of
the end.
Determinant of Morality
• The objective of the act
- The very substance of the act.
“ What was performed by the agent”?

• Motive of the Agent

-Purpose for which a human agent does the act.
“What specifically does the agent want”?
• The circumstances
-What- the intended object of the act.
-Why- personal intention of the agent.
-By what means- tools or procedures used
-How- modes of doing the act
-When- the time the act was performed
-Where- the spatial setting where the act is done.
-Who- the person who does/receive
Standards/Norm of Morality
• Natural Law of Conscience

- “An ordinance of reason promulgated by a duly constituted authority

for the common good of the society”.
- Law is necessary to regulate the acts of the freewill.
Kinds of Law
Natural Law/Divine Law/Human Positive Law-