Ethics 112

GROUP II PRESENTER:
LASTE,ROYGIN
MARBEBE,JENEROSE
MARCON,RAIZA MEDELIN
SILBIOL, ALLYSA MARIE
BEED IV-A
WHY BE MORAL?

 Morality is central to liking, respecting, and understanding people.

What did we find? Morality was central to evaluation. When deciding
whether we like, respect, and understand a person, we care most
about whether that person is moral, more so than whether he or she
is sociable or competent.
Which moral traits do we care
about? Second, not all moral
traits were equally important.
Across many traits, honesty,
compassion, fairness, and
generosity were most important
to liking, respecting, and
understanding. Other moral
traits, such as purity and
wholesomeness, were seen as
less important; even less than
certain competent traits (e.g.,
intelligence, articulate).
Why is a person’s morality so important to us? You may
be wondering at this point why morality is so important
when judging others. Our results show that we consider
moral traits so important in others, in part, because a
person’s morality can benefit us in some way. Moral
traits have social value. If I know a person is honest and
compassionate, then I know that I can associate with that
person safely, and can perhaps begin a fruitful
relationship with them. From an adaptive perspective,
moral traits signal to us whether we should approach or
avoid and whether we should affiliate with that person.
Affiliating with moral people can increase our fitness.
 Clearly, morality is important in the interpersonal
domain, but it would be interesting to know how
morality factors in when evaluating companies or
political candidates. Recalling the Volkswagen
emissions scandal, consumers perhaps care about
a company’s morality quite deeply, but for
different reasons than for why they care about an
acquaintance’s morality. And how does morality
factor into citizens' perceptions of the
presumptive presidential nominees in 2016? I’ll
leave that for a political scientist or sociologist to
examine.
 MORAL AND NON-MORAL
STANDARDS
 Morality may refer to the standards that a person or a group has about what is
right and wrong, or good and evil. Accordingly, moral standards are those
concerned with or relating to human behavior, especially the distinction
between good and bad (or right and wrong) behavior.
 Moral standards involve the rules people have about the kinds of actions they
believe are morally right and wrong, as well as the values they place on the
kinds of objects they believe are morally good and morally bad. Some
ethicists equate moral standards with moral
 values and moral principles.
 Technically, religious rules, some traditions, and legal statutes (i.e. laws and
ordinances) are non-moral principles, though they can be ethically relevant
depending on some factors and contexts.
 THE FOLLOWING SIX (6) CHARACTERISTICS OF MORAL STANDARDS FURTHER
DIFFERENTIATE THEM

 a. Moral standards involve serious wrongs or significant benefits.

Moral standards deal with matters which can seriously impact, that is,
injure or benefit human beings.

 b. Moral standards ought to be preferred to other values.

Moral standards have overriding character or hegemonic authority.

 c. Moral standards are not established by authority figures.

Moral standards are not invented, formed, or generated by authoritative
bodies or persons such as nations’ legislative bodies. Ideally instead, these
values ought to be considered in the process of making laws.
d. Moral standards have the trait of universalizability.
Simply put, it means that everyone should live up to moral standards. To be
more accurate, however, it entails that moral principles must apply to all who
are in the relevantly similar situation.

e. Moral standards are based on impartial considerations.

Moral standard does not evaluate standards on the basis of the interests of a
certain person or group, but one that goes beyond personal interests to a
universal standpoint in which each person’s interests are impartially counted as
equal.

f. Moral standards are associated with special emotions and vocabulary.

Prescriptively indicates the practical or action-guiding nature of moral
standards. These moral standards are generally put forth as injunction or
imperatives (such as, ‘Do not kill,’ ‘Do no unnecessary harm,’ and ‘Love your
neighbor’). These principles are proposed for use, to advise, and to influence to
action. Retroactively, this feature is used to evaluate behavior, to assign praise
 That’s all
Thank you
Have a great day