Five Ethical Framework

Ethics
Aristotle's Virtue of Ethics
Virtue or Character Ethics:

❖ An Ethical act is the action that virtuous person would

do in the same circumstance. Virtue Ethic is based
rather than action based.

❖ Virtue ethics does not only deal with the rightness or

wrongness of the individual action. It provide guidance
as to the sort of characteristics and behaviors a good
person will seek to achieve.

❖ Virtue Framework, we try to identify the character

traits (positive or negative) that might motivate us in a
given situation.
Aristotle's Virtue of Ethics
2 Basic types of Virtue:

1. Intellectual virtues – refers to excellence of the mind

including the ability to understand reason and judgement.
traits that aim at things like truth, knowledge,
understanding, and wisdom. The intellectually virtuous
person desires these things, is motivated to achieve
them, and has the qualities that enable her to do so
reliably.

2. Moral Virtue - refers to a person’s disposition to act well.

a virtue concerned with the practical life (as liberality or
gentleness) or with the vegetative and appetitive (as
temperance or self-control) contrasted with intellectual
virtue.
Aristotle's Virtue of Ethics
Virtue Ethics in other traditions.

❖ Confucius Emphasizes two virtues Jin and Li means

Humaneness, Human heartedness and compassion Li
means propriety manners or culture.

❖ Hinduism emphasizes five basic moral virtues: Non

Violence, honesty, chastity, freedom from greed.

❖ Buddhism also has its intellectual and moral virtues.

From the eight fold path are the intellectual virtues
of right understanding and right mindfulness and the
moral right speech right action and right livelihood.

❖
St. Thomas Natural Law Ethics
Law Defined

❖ St. Thomas explained that the natural law is promulgated

through the LIGHT of REASON.

❖ A Law must be a product of reason not purely emotion. When

the HEART rules the mind, we can be highly reasonable. A law
is promulgated for the common good because we are meant to
be social we belong to a community.

❖ Thomas Aquinas' account of human positive law treats the

central case of government as the self-government of a free
people by the rulers and institutions which that people has
appointed for that purpose, and the central case of law is the
co-ordination of willing subjects by law which, by its public
character.
St. Thomas Natural Law Ethics
Natural Law and Other Laws.

❑ Natural law is the ordinance of Divine Wisdom which is made known to

us by reason and which requires the observance of the moral order. a
theory in ethics and philosophy that says that human beings possess
intrinsic values that govern their reasoning and behavior. Natural law
maintains that these rules of right and wrong are inherent in people
and are not created by society or court judges.

❑ Eternal law was God's perfect plan, not fully knowable to humans. It
determined the way things such as animals and planets behaved and
how people should behave. Divine law, primarily from the Bible, guided
individuals beyond the world to "eternal happiness" in what St.
Augustine had called the "City of God

Natural Law as a Universal Formula.

❑ A Universal Formula which contains in brief an expression of the whole

natural law is this: keep the moral order or Observed right order in
your actions.
 Kant’s Deontological Ethics
The Duty Framework

❖ Kant’s Ethics is now referred to as Deontological. It came from a

green word “Deon” which means Duty it is hence on the
obligations and right thing to do.

❖ Kant’s Famous formula for discovering duty is known as the

“Categorical Imperative”

❖ A categorical imperative, instead of taking an if-then form, is an

absolute command, such as, “Do A,” or “You ought to do A.”
Examples of categorical imperatives would be “You shouldn't
kill,” “You ought to help those in need,” or “Don't steal.” It
doesn't matter what your wants or goals are; you should follow a
 Kant’s Deontological Ethics
The Duty Framework

Kant’s Theory of rights.

❖ The universal principle of right is that an action is right if it can coexist with
everyone's freedom in accordance with a universal law or if on its maxim the
freedom of choice of each can coexist with everyone’s freedom in accordance
with the law.

❖ Universal law means a maxim in such a way that you do not violet the rights of
others.

❖ Good Will Kant argues that no consequence can have fundamental moral worth;
the only thing that is good in and of itself is the Good Will. The Good Will freely
chooses to do its moral duty. That duty, in turn, is dictated solely by reason. The
Good Will thus consists of a person's free will motivated purely by reason

❖ Duty To Kant, all humans must be seen as inherently worthy of respect and
dignity. He argued that all morality must stem from such duties: a duty based on
a deontological ethic. Consequences such as pain or pleasure are irrelevant.
 Utilitarianism: The Consequentialist Ethical
Framework

► Origin and Nature of the Utilitarianist Framework Two British

philosophers, namely, Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill,
are known to be the original advocates of utilitarianism, the
former being considered the founder. Bentham, described this
moral philosophy as follows”

► Similarly, John Stuart Mill’s What Utilitarianism Is, opens with

the following paragraph: The creed which accepts as the Jeremy Bentham
foundation of morals “utility” or the “greatest happiness
principle” holds that actions are right in proportion as they
tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the
reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and the
absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain and the privation of
pleasure.

John Stuart Mill

 Utilitarianism: The Consequentialist Ethical
Framework

► There are two versions, namely, act utilitarianism and rule utilitarianism.
► “Act utilitarianism: consider the consequences of some particular act such as
keeping or breaking one’s promise.”

► Rule utilitarianism: consider the consequences of some practice or rule

behavior – for example, the practice of promise-keeping or promise-breaking.”
Whichever, whether act or practice of rule, if they produce good
consequences, the act or the practice of the rule would be right Jeremy Bentham

► The Consequentialist Framework, we focus on the future effects of the

possible courses of action, considering the people who will be directly or
indirectly affected. We ask about what outcomes are desirable in a given
situation, and consider ethical conduct to be whatever will achieve the best
► consequences. The person using the Consequences framework desires to
produce the most good.

John Stuart Mill

 The Love and Justice Framework

► The principle of love

There are three well-known concepts of love originating from the
Greeks, namely, agape or charity, erotic or passionate sexual encounter
and philia, the affection between friends. Love as amoral framework is
the agapeic.
Agape is the love principle preached by Jesus Christ.
What Christ did as narrated in the New Testament are all acts of love.
Feeding the hungry, giving drinks to the thirsty, healing the sick,
rendering service to those in need. In general,
St. Thomas defined it, agape is “willing the good of another.” It is the
act of sharing, or giving more than what is just because justice is just the
minimum of love. In the language of contemporary thinkers, this is love
as “affirmation of the other's being,” “being-with-others”, being
conscious of the other’s presence.”
 justice and Fairness: Promoting the
Common Good as a Moral Framework
► Social justice is equal access to wealth, opportunities, and
privileges within society. Hence, promotion of social justice is
equivalent to promotion of the common good. It may also be said
that promotion of the common good is promotion of social justice.

► In ordinary political discourse, the “common good” refers to those

facilities – whether material, cultural or institutional – that the
members of a community provide to all members in order to fulfil a
relational obligation they all have to care for certain interests that
they have in common. Some canonical examples of the common good
in a modern liberal democracy include.
 justice and Fairness: Promoting the
Common Good as a Moral Framework
► For Plato, justice means giving what is due by doing one’s own
function. In Plato’s Republic, there are three classes of people,
namely, the craftsmen, soldiers and rulers or guardian. The virtues
expected to be inherent in each class are correspondingly
temperance, courage and wisdom. Each member of its class must
require and maintain the virtue in their class.
 justice and Fairness: Promoting the
Common Good as a Moral Framework
► Justice as the minimum Demand of Love
► William Luijpen, referred to justice as “the minimum demand of love.” To
do justice is ready enact of love, the minimum demand of love. Which
means that love is more, gives more than what is just. Mathematically, if
love is 100% of being for others, then justice may just be only 10%. A just
employer pays the minimum wage to employees, a loving employer, pays
more than the minimum wage, even when it hurts.
► If there are 2 people lost in the cold and one has 2 jackets and the other has
none, justice demands that one should share the other his other jacket, the
least that he can do, but that is just the minimum demand of love

William Luijpen
 justice and Fairness: Promoting the
Common Good as a Moral Framework
► Distributive justice is “justice that is concerned with the distribution or allotment
of goods, duties, and privileges in concert with the merits of individuals, and the
best interests of society.” The following have features of distributive justice:

1. Egalitarianism is the doctrine of political and social equality. “No person shall be
deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law; nor shall any person
be denied the equal protection of the law

2. Capitalist and free-market system let the law of demand and supply follow
its course. Ideally it is a self-regulation process. It lets any excess of demand be
regulated by the limits of supply, and lets any excess of supply by regulated by the
limits of demand. This means no artificial control or regulations.

3. Socialist follow the rule, “from each according to his ability, to each according to his
needs. "This requires collective ownership of the means of production, distribution
and exchange with the aim of operating for use rather than for profit.
 justice and Fairness: Promoting the
Common Good as a Moral Framework
4. Taxation is government’s getting a part of what its people earn in order have
money to spend for public services, operating and maintaining public places or
properties, for people's use. It is practically demanding from taxpayers a minimum of
justice, to make the enjoyment of the wealth at least more equitable although not
equalizer.

5. Protection and Preservation of Public Welfare – the government has constitution-

granted power to govern, to make, adopt and enforce laws for the protection and
preservation of public health, justice, morals, order, safety and security and welfare.

6. Property for Public Use – the government has a Constitution- granted power to take
private property for public use with just compensation. Citizen’s ownership
of property is not absolute. For the sake of the public, the government
exercises this power to equitably distribute opportunity for the use enjoyment of
wealth or property.
justice and Fairness: Promoting the
Common Good as a Moral Framework
The Better Moral Framework:
Garner and Rosen’s Synthesis Richard T. Garner and Bernard Rosen tried to identify the most
acceptable criterion of the rightness or wrongness of action, the goodness or badness of character
or of personal life. For those authors, the best framework is a synthesis of the teleological
and deontological framework. The rightness or wrongness of action and the goodness or badness of
character or trait is a function of(meaning it depends on) not only the end, object, or
consequences of applying a rule (rule utilitarianism) or doing an act (act utilitarianism), but also
other bases like one’s sense of duty and good will (rule or act deontology)