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Mission : BISU is committed to provide quality higher education in the arts and sciences, as well as in the professional and technological fields; undertake research and
development, and extension services for the sustainable development of Bohol and the country.

Module I – Introduction: Key Concepts

Lesson 1: Ethics and Moral Standards

Learning Objectives:
At the end of this lesson, the students should be able to:
1. define ethics and its approaches;
2. distinguish rules of ethics from ordinary (basic) rules; and
3. differentiate moral and non-moral standards.

Key Reading:
Traer, R (2013). “Moral Philosophy: An Adventure in Reasoning.” In Doing Environmental
Ethics, 2nd ed. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 3–20.
In this section, Traer depicts the field of moral philosophy from which much scholarly
knowledge and understanding of ethics derives. It explains that ethics answers the question:
“How should we live?” It also considers some fundamental themes, including ideas about what
is ‘right’ and ‘good’, and it examines ways of reasoning critically about our feelings. A variety of
key concepts are introduced and defined in this section.

Introduction
In our everyday life, we, humans are often confronted by indispensable basic rules. It
could be rules from our parents, school, Church, the State (e.g. the task rendered by the law
enforcers), and the like. But sad to say, our tendency to reject rules is also leaning along within
the surface of this confrontation (between us and rules), especially when certain rules go
against our interest and benefit. In such case, the rules which precede the ‘will’ to decide are at
stake. At the same time, our ethical decision-making becomes crucial.
Though in reality these basic rules are not absolute, however, abiding them with the right
practice of freedom can lead anyone to understand the value of the rules themselves and
consequently cultivate within oneself moral (or ethical) standards.
Now, the main challenge is on how we are going to appropriately utilize our freedom in
dealing with the basic rules to enhance our ability to make moral decisions.
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What is Ethics?
The term ethics is derived originally from the Greek word ethos, which means custom or
character. In general sense, ethics or moral philosophy is construed as a branch of philosophy
that studies the rightness or wrongness of human actions or conducts. Its major interest as a
discipline is to aid individuals deliberately obtaining and exercising ethical behavior, a behavior
which is good. Specifically, ethics deals with fundamental questions like: How should man live
her life? What man should or must do? Or What I ought to do as a human being? This
‘oughtness’ to do is man’s requisite commitment to search for the definition of the right action
and the good life. Thus, ethics inevitably includes the importance of values and standards or
principles that will positively lead us to acquire a frame of reference on how right actions must
be done and good life must be lived.
It must be noted, however, that ethics has no specific definition. The main reason for
this is that ethics is continually developing, constantly helps regulating human conducts affected
by cultural and socio-political evolution. For instance, way back in the ancient Greece more than
2000 years ago, ethics was regarded as a search for good life and happiness (eudaimonia,
Greek). Happiness does not mean solely pleasure but rather a determination to consistently
obtain virtue. Few centuries later, during the medieval period, the ethical tradition altered into
human beings’ relationship to God; that man’s righteousness is demonstrated by her love to
God and to her fellow creatures. Meanwhile, in the modern period, various moral principles
emerged as paradigms for individual’s quest for goodness which might involve the others.
Contradictory to the ancient moral tradition, modern ethics became restrictive to the universal
principles such as the Deontology of Kant that obliges a person to act good because it is her
moral duty. Then, just a couple of years later in the transition between modern to postmodern
times, the ethical tradition beginning from the ancient to the modern period was challenged by
new mode of ethics which encouraged humans to be self-responsible and self-determined on
life’s decision-making. Until the human ‘will’ has become the ultimate instrument for every
individual’s moral judgment with or without paying attention to any stablished moral theories
from the past ages, self-determination raised to its peak. Since then, the rise of moral
subjectivism and relativism has laid ethics as discipline in the verge of risk.

Ethics and Morality

If we do not profoundly speculate about the nature of ethics and morality, it seems there
are no differences between these two terms. In fact, we often notice that both terms are used
interchangeably in some ways, especially when they functioned as adjective (i.e. ethical or
moral). However, ethics has indeed a slight distinguishable characteristic to morality. On the
one hand, ethics is definitely a discipline. It is the study of morality. On the other hand, morality
is the external panorama in which ethics as a discipline has examined. When we say morality is
external, this means that morality itself is the glaring particular system of values and principles
of conduct, especially one held by a specified person or society. Whereas, it is within ethics that
these moral principles are critically analyzed, examining the latter’s modifications and evolution.
That is why it is wrong to interchangeably employ ethicist and moralist since the former is the
one who is dedicated to analytically study morality, its principles and their implications, while the
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latter can be labeled to all ethicists and all common moral agents who practically apply moral
principles depending on every agent’s or group of agents’ context.

Three Approaches of Ethics

In this present, ethics is categorized into three approaches, namely: meta-ethics, descriptive
ethics, and normative ethics.
1) Metaethics is a new discipline in moral philosophy. The word meta comes from Greek,
meaning after or beyond. Metaethics deals with the most basic questions of ethics: the meaning
and justification of ethical terms, how people know which principles or virtues are the correct
ones, and the ultimate grounding of ethics. Its specific objective, moreover, is to better
understand the logical, semantic and pragmatic structures of moral and ethical argumentation
as such, the origin and meaning of ethics. And it answer the question: What is the source of
ethics? How do we know what is ethical?
2) Descriptive ethics aims to empirically map existing morality within societies or at least
smaller communities. That is why it is closely linked to the social sciences. In a broader range, it
also aims to explain the development of morality based from a chronologically historical
perspective. However, there are no normative ethical principles proposed in this approach.
Morality in this approach depends on the culture of a particular society or group of people that
includes their moral history.
3) Normative ethics is a methodological reflection on norms and standards for acting and
conduct. In this approach, norms and standards are being criticized and argued; either in favor
of or against with the norms. General (normative) ethics deals sincerely ‘common sense’ as a
major factor of man’s moral choices. However, when enquiry is directed towards the criteria for
the ethical analysis of morality or the principles of moral judgement, then it is now the sphere of
fundamental ethics. Normative ethics when applied in concrete context becomes an applied
ethics. In such case, normative theories are applied to specific, provocative moral issues such
as murder, abortion, euthanasia, etc. Applied ethics goes through other fields of ethics like bio-
ethics, medical ethics, business-ethics, nanoethics, and the like.
There are three man theories of normative ethics. They are as follows: first, deontology; second,
consequentialism; and thirdly, virtue ethics. This will be further explained in detailed in Part IV of
this module.
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Fig 1: Basic Diagram of the Approaches of Ethics

Ethics

Metaethics Descriptive Ethics Normative Ethics

General Ethics Applied Ethics Fundamental Ethics

Society

Individual

Other Fields of Ethics

(e.g. Bioethics)

Kindly refer to this supplementary reading for a thorough understanding on the approaches of
ethics:https://www.philosophie.tudarmstadt.de/media/philosophie_nanobuero/pdf_2/
ethicsportfolio/ethics_moralitybwnewfont.pdf

Rules and Ethics

Rule is always associated as regulation, directive, mandate, and act or law (in legal
matters). For example, a certain regulation in the family (typically by parents) that orders you as
young adult to go home not late at night is a rule. It is a rule which contains a significant purpose
just like every rule behind the law of the State because it controls the tendency to behave badly.
And so with other types of rules are similarly important. Say, the rules in school are obliging the
students to do their tasks for a very basic reason, in order to develop discipline and sense of
responsibility.
Ethics also comprises rules but far different from the rules cited in the aforementioned.
Basically, ethics is not a law, or vice versa. The former has several diverse elements compared
to latter. Ethics has also regulations or directives but, unlike State law, not rigidly mandated. If
ethics necessitates a person to do the good and avoid evil (bad), law compels her to do the
good avoid doing bad. Moreover, ethics is composed of theories (particularly normative) that set
as rules to guide each of us to do good actions while law comprises concrete implementing
rules that aim for social order and prosperity. In other words, ethics calls for a deliberate self-
reformation while law directs the collective people to act in consonance with the rule of law
itself. Since the individual self is required a deliberate reformation in ethics, human freedom is
indeed an essential element. However, with the law, freedom becomes relatively restricted. It
may be only an auxiliary to the law (e.g. the right to freedom) but, in any statutory mandate of
the State, the rule of law is always superior to human freedom.
In terms of practical application of ethics, being ethical is not the same as being obedient
with the law. A person can violate a law but remains to be moral. This is to say that while we try
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to be law-abiding citizens, there are instances that your moral sense dictates you it is best not to
follow the law. For instance, a certain law prohibits us to give alms to beggars but because of
compassion you opt to share a penny to a beggar. On the contrary, a certain immoral action can
be securely sheltered by some lawful means in an actual situation. This is common to some
corrupt State officials who are wise enough to use the law to conceal their evil actions. Their
immoral act of stealing the general people’s fund could become justifiable in domain of the
judiciary. However, the worst scenario if the law itself pushes someone to do evil, like in the
case of other countries that legalized abortion, euthanasia, and so on. This is because law has
always unforeseen loopholes and it is in itself not absolute. The apparent distinct nature of
ethics from law is that, however, though constituted with a collection of diversifying theoretical
principles, it remains to aim for the absolute. In fact, law in general has been demarcated based
from the principles of ethics.

Let us try to ponder these questions to lead us in understanding the differences of the rules of
ethics and the rules of the law, and somehow establish aptly moral and legal responses toward
the rules of ethics and of the law:
- What does the law demand of me?
- What do ethical standards of behavior oblige of me?
- How should I act to conform both?

Moral Standards and Non-moral Standards

An ethical society is one that values a commitment to do the right thing regardless of personal
costs. It’s not an easy standard to live by but one worth pursuing.

Ethics can be relatively impractical without any relation to the accepted standards or
norms of behavior in a certain society. In fact, no civilized or culturally developed societies
would consider stealing something from someone else a morally right action. Taking a closer
glimpse in every society, we notice that moral standards or norms have evolved gradually from
some remarkable influences such as religion, philosophical theories, and basically, community
(shared) values. These standards are fairly shaped by culture in general; it could be local,
national or global culture.
Ethics, values, and culture are inseparable from each other when dealing with moral
standards. In ethics, culture is also important topic to be contained within. As values cannot be
eluded in the arguments of ethics, it is also good to know the significance of dealing with culture
in ethics. This is because culture greatly affects the formation of moral standards and values
into an individual or society. And it is in the unconscious adoption of culture that values are
embedded within the individual that unavoidably stimulate her moral choice or the choice what
right and good action to be taken. But the question is: Does ethics as a discipline concede
cultural values as fundamental basis for moral standards? Or does it allow diverse and relative
moral standards?
Before answering the posted question, we must first know what are culture, values, and
moral standards to gain some initial understanding on their interconnectedness. Culture is “the
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set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution or
organization” (Webster-Meriam). It is also defined as “the integrated pattern of human
knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for learning and transmitting
knowledge to succeeding generations” (Ibid). Whereas, values mean as the fundamental
element of culture that direct and motive actions of the individual person, group of persons (i.e.
institution), or society. Though values are just an element of culture, the complementing sense
of these two terms is quite obvious; that values cannot exist without culture and similarly culture
is undefinable without conceiving the meaning of values. In fact, a value system in a certain
society is naturally an integral part of the people’s culture.
What do we mean by moral standards? Moral standards literally mean as the standards
(ideal norms) of right and wrong or the standards of morality. But it does not follow that moral
standards are all ideally universal. Rather, aside from the universal moral standards, we can
also presuppose restricted standards. These two strands of moral standards can be
differentiated via the two senses of morality. As the practical manifestation or the doing of
ethics, morality itself comprises two senses: the descriptive and the normative senses. On the
one hand, if morality is conceived in the descriptive sense, it has no universal moral standards.
Meaning, a society or an organization (e.g. religion) adheres to specific rules of conduct set as
their standards which differ from other societies’ or organizations’ standards. From the word
restricted, in this sense of morality, moral standards are kept only within a certain group or
groups of people but not to all social groups. Here, it is the role of descriptive approach of ethics
to evaluate and analyze the nuance of morality including an institution’s or a society’s moral
standards. On the other hand, normative sense of morality considers universal standards
anchored from universal moral principles. It presupposes an obligatory calling of an individual
agent to be morally upright guided with universal moral standards. Since this is an obligation for
every person, freedom and authentic reason are certainly required. In this sense, therefore,
moral standards are justified by reason and not by certain value-judgments rooted from a group
of people.
Then, what are non-moral standards? Non-moral standards refer to rules which do not
concern moral actions. For instance, a rule which regulates one’s action on stage in a pageant
or beauty contest is evidently a non-moral standard. When one prefers high living standard or to
be rich does not mean it is the standard required to all, or at least to the majority. Though wealth
is virtually dreamt by countless moral agents this standard is intrinsically non-moral. To dream
for fortune is indeed not in the scope of ethical analysis unless a voluntary action in
accumulating wealth calls the concerned moral agent to do good and avoid evil. In simple terms,
non-moral standards are those rules that do not include moral concerns, while moral standards
are those intervening rules in person’s deliberate actions entangled in moral experiences.

For an easy reading and substantially effective review, please open this link:
https://ourhappyschool.com/node/824
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QUIZ 1

(To be submitted at Google Classroom)

INSTRUCTION: Discuss your answer in a minimum of 20 or in a maximum of 30

sentences. Please answer every question sensibly and, most of all, genuinely (meaning,
in your own originality). Therefore, avoid rewriting words/texts from the modules and
copying from your classmate(s) or from the internet.

1. Recall a specific event in your life that you were required to follow a rule or law
implemented by a person with authority (e.g. parents, police, teacher, or
someone else). Do you consider the rule as reasonable? If YES or NO, why?
How does that particular rule differ from ethics? Does this rule imply
relatedness to ethics? If YES or NO, why?

ASSIGNMENT

(Just prepare this for a random question next meeting)

1. List ten (10) standards in the community you are in. Which of these standards are moral and non-
moral standards?
Lesson 2: Understanding Moral Experience
2. In your list of moral standards, which of those do you like and do not like? Why?