RULES AND MORAL

STANDARDS
LECTURE 2
MEANING AND
IMPORTANCE OF
RULES
LECTURE 2
DEFINITION OF RULES
Rules are instructions that tell you what you are allowed to
do and what you are not allowed to do.
A rule is a statement telling people what they should do in
order to achieve success or a benefit of some kind.
Rules are statements that describe the way things usually
happen in a particular situation.
Rules tells you the normal state of affairs.
DEFINITION OF RULES
Rules influence or restrict actions in a way the is not good
for a person.
Rules tells us something that is true or should happen and
then the authority has officially decided that is true.
Rules are principles or regulations governing conduct,
actions, procedure, arrangement, etc.
 IMPORTANCE OF RULES
1. Prudent laws are the foundation of a nation because they
define the parameters of civil society. If laws become
elastic, the boundaries become dysfunctional.
2. Laws organize our lives.
3. Rules help us get along together and show respect to each
other.
4. Most things we do are governed by rules.
 IMPORTANCE OF RULES
5. Rules organize the relations between individuals and
between societies to make it clear to them what is right
and wrong.
6. Rules make the world a peaceful place to live.
7. Rules are needed in our community because they serve as
balances between laws and rights.
 MORAL STANDARDS
Moral standards are those moral actions which are within
the moral sphere and are thus objects of moral judgments.
The word moral means that moral quality (rightness or
wrongness, goodness or badness} is present, that is, what
is either right or wrong.
Moral means what is right or morally good and this is
opposed to immoral, that is – wrong is morally bad.
 NON -MORAL STANDARDS

Non – moral actions or standards are those

actions devoid of moral quality and thus
excluded from the scope of moral judgment.
 INSTINCTIVE ACTION
Instinctive action is one in which an individual feels himself
impelled without knowing the end to be accomplished yet
with the ability to select, the methods for the attainment of
an object.
Instinctive tendencies are found most explicitly on lower
animals and are expressed in the activities displayed by
them in seeking food.
 EXAMPLES INSTINCTIVE
TENDENCIES
Actions of animals and insects
Grazing of a cow
Mourning of a dog or cat
Action of young children and insanes and idiots
Actions done under compulsion
Actions under the spell of hypnotic forces

These actions are morally wrong because they are not moral actions. They are
incapable of discriminating right and wrong.