Ethics – deals with ethical behaviour in modern society at the level of the person, society, and

in interaction with the environment and other shared resources

- derived from the Greek word ethos which means custom, or a particular way and
manner of acting and behaving
Morality – pertains to the standards of right or wrong that an individual originally picks up
from the community
- gives ethics a particular perspective of what to study about - that is the rectitude of
whether an act is good or bad, right or wrong
- Latin equivalent for custom is mos or mores. It is from this root word that the term
moral or morality is derived
Ethics (Theory) and Morality (Praxis) Distinguished
Both ethics and morality deal with the goodness or badness, rightness or wrongness of
the human act or conduct.
While ethics (the theory) provides certain principles and guidelines as to what is good
and bad, right and wrong in human conduct, it is morality which actualizes the theory. Ethics is
the word while morality is the flesh. As ethics outlines theories of right and wrong, good and
bad actions, morality translates these theories into real action.
● Organization of the concept of Ethics

a. Agent – human person including his context – cultural, communal, and environmental

b. Act – human act - the purposes, the circumstances (aggravating, extenuating, exempting, justifying),
the modifiers (ignorance, passion, mental state, fear, violence)

c. Reason or Moral Framework – Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics, Aquina’s Natural Law, Kant’s Duty Ethics,
Bentham’s Utilitarianism

● Importance of Studying Ethics

Ethics is an area of knowledge that is indispensible in the living of life which is truly human.
The living of a good life is a man’s noblest and enduring pursuit.

Without ethics or at least a sense of morality, to one’s conduct or behavior, people and society
would naturally and expectedly deteriorate. When the moral foundation of the society is shaken,
existence is threatened.

Ethics will aid us to widen our horizon as to what is good or bad. An exposure to the wide array
of ethical paradigms will allow us to broaden our understanding and make us appreciate the richness
and diversity of ethical views held by various thinkers of different persuasions throughout the ages.

● Ethics and Laws

Ethical rules are essential even if we have laws by civil authorities since legality is not
necessarily moral. It is reflective of what is rational, that is natural but laws are usually public – a result
of human agreements – those that may at times be detrimental and usurps what is natural.

Ethics goes beyond the concerns and parameters of law; it includes motivations, feelings,
discernment on what is transcendental. What is right is right even if nobody does. What is wrong is
wrong even if everybody does. Ethics serves as the very foundation of our laws.

St. Thomas Aquinas - a rule of action or a principle of conduct which directs things towards a definite
goal. He defined law as an ordinance of reason promulgated for the common good by the one who has
the care of the society. There are five features of the law:

a. Reason - is for the preservation of the good;

b. Ordinance - laws are obligation, ought, and binding on everyone who has right reason to know the
truth. It is an order, a command; a mandate imposing the legislator’s will on the citizens and binding
them with moral need.

c. Promulgated - the precepts of the law are made-known, they are publicized. For laws to be useful
and binding, it must be made known.
d. Charged - in a democracy, authority resides in us. There is that one who has the just authority of
saying what is right in the community, who is empowered to en act and promulgate true laws.

e. Common good – good for everyone. The end of laws is for the welfare of the community as a whole,
not for the benefit of individuals

● Ethics serves as the foundation of laws

We continue to need ethics in order to refine and perfect our legal system. Laws, in a sense, are
not sensible without ethics. The only way for the law to be enacted or repealed is for more people
to make a mature, conscious, and reflective discussion and decision o right or wrong. Morality
precedes legality.

● Ethics and Religion

Ethics as a normative discipline is its intimate relation with that of religion or theology, an area
of knowledge which is also normative, just like law.

Ethics as a philosophical discipline solely relies on natural reason, logic and experience,
especially in the justification and validation of certain theories and principles concerning good and bad.

Religion, on the other hand, relies primarily and mainly on supernatural reason, that is-divine
revelation or divine authority. The practice of morality need not be motivated by religious
considerations and moral principles need not be grounded in revelation as religious teachings invariably
are. Again, ethics grounds itself on reason, and the wisdom of human experience, not on the supposed
authority of any holy book and sacred writings.

Most contemporary philosophers believe that ethics does not necessarily require a religious
grounding. It is commonly observed that even those people for whom morality is religiously based may
also want to examine some of their views using reason, reflection and common sense. Also, a lot of
religious believer want to be able to engage in constructive dialogue with non-believers and evaluate
their moral claims. In fact even religious believers themselves regularly make moral judgments that are
not based strictly on their religious views but rather on reflection and common sense.

Why do we need ethics?

1. Since ethics, as a practical science, is the study of the choices people make regarding right and wrong,
and since most of us make a number of moral choices in our everyday lives, it is quite obvious why the
study of ethics is important. Big and small, the choices and decisions that we make every day affect the
kind of life we live to a lesser or greater extent. We become good or bad because of our choices. Ethics
equips us with the knowledge essential to make the right choice.

2. Making moral decisions is oftentimes difficult. This is very true when we are confronted and come
face to face with moral dilemmas. In here, there is a need for us to pause and reflect as to what particular
course of action to take. The study of ethics can provide us with certain moral paradigms or perspectives
that will, in a way, guide us in determining what’s right and what’s wrong under such condition.

3. The study of ethics will also enable us to reason out our moral beliefs and of why we hold them. It is
not enough to have certain beliefs on what’s right or wrong. Our moral views should be backed by good
and sound arguments. If one doesn’t have a good and defensible reason for his moral opinions, why
should he pay attention to them. It is imperative that we have to know the reason why we have them.
Ethics as a critical discipline will enable us to examine more closely the ground and foundation of our
moral beliefs and claims.

4. Relatedly and more specifically, apart from its practical benefits, ethics can deepen our reflection on
the ultimate questions of life. Life’s ultimate questions involve questions regarding the meaning of life
and what it means to be truly human. These and other similar questions necessarily deal in one way or
the other to a significant degree with the question of what kind of life is worth living, as the great
Socrates famously said: “an unexamined life is not worth living.”

Characteristics of Moral Principles

Experts in moral philosophy have been unable to find any single element or feature that will truly
separate moral or ethical judgments and statements from other areas where value judgments are also
present, though there is a wide consensus as to what these traits are.

1. Reasonability - means that primarily, moral judgments must be backed up by good reasons or
arguments if we want to discover the truth about what’s good and bad, we must let our feelings be
guided as much as possible by reason. This is the essence of morality. The morally right thing to do is
always the thing best supported by sound arguments. In this way, moral judgments are different from
expressions of personal taste. Thus, we can be confident that something is right if it is reasonable. If it
does not appeal to reason, and common sense/experience, then it has to be viewed with suspicion and
reservation.

2. Prescriptivity - refers to the practical, or action-guiding nature of morality. Moral principles are
intended to advise people on what to do and to avoid. It tries to influence the way we act in accordance
with certain rules of conduct.

3. Impartiality - means that ethical or moral rules should be neutral when it comes to the question as to
who will be its recipient. Moral standards are supposed to apply to everyone regardless of one’s status
and situation in life. Moral rules should not advance the interest of the few or worse, of one person
alone. Self-interest does not have a place in a proper moral standard. Moral thinkers insist that ethical
rules are grounded on the reason of an ideal observer, an impartial spectator. Thus, if we want to make a
genuine ethical claim, we must not allow our own vested interest to prevail and decide on matters of
right and wrong.

4. Overridingness - moral standards must have hegemonic authority. This means that they should
tower over all the other standards or norms of evaluation, whatever they may be. They are not the only
standard where human actions can be judged or assessed but they should take precedence over others.
They have to be of prime and ultimate importance.

5. Autonomous from Arbitrary Authority - moral standards should stand on their own logic
independent of the arbitrariness of the majority. We can always challenge on logical grounds the
tyranny of numbers and the tide of public opinion on matters of right and wrong. Something is right or
wrong regardless of what the majority decides or says. Thus, moral rules are not subject to the whims
and caprices of those in power.

6. Publicity - means that moral rules and principles must be made public if they are to serve as
guidelines to our actions. The obvious reason for this is that principles are made and promulgated to
render advice as well as assign praise or blame to certain behaviours. It would be self-defeating
therefore to just keep them from public knowledge. If moral principles are indeed impartial and of
primordial value, then by all means, they have to be made public. Keeping them in secret defeats the
very purpose why they are created. You do not hide something that you really think is genuinely good
and noble.

7. Practicability - moral rules should not be impossible to achieve or else they are not for men but for
angels. This further means that ethical standards must not be over what any ordinary human is capable
of doing. It should not lay a too heavy burden on people. For what practical use is a norm if it is simply
impossible for anyone to follow. Any moral norm must be workable or practical to a reasonable extent.

8. Universalizability - moral rule or principle must be applicable to everyone without exception,

provided of course that all people are in a relevantly similar situation or context.

● Three Elements of Moral Experience

a. The Agent – morality and human existence

- man is a being of action, man has intellect, man has will or volition

b. Human Acts and the Good – act per se

- the end of human acts – action and motivation, the good, the greatest
good, pursuit of happiness, erroneous notions of good, the ultimate end of life

Human acts - are actions that proceed from deliberate free will of man. They are actions that proper
only to human beings: Agere Sequitor Esse, a thing acts according to its nature of action follows being.

Acts of Man are not the concern of ethics. e.g. acts of perception(sensation), somnambulism, spitting
which can become human act.

Elements of Human Act

Knowledge - doing an act with knowledge makes the act deliberate. In performing the act with
knowledge, the agent has awareness of the means to employ as he performs the an act and the agent has
also the awareness of the end to achieve in his action.

Freedom - an act done with freedom means that the agent does an act under the control of his will. He
is not affected, influenced by any constraint either within himself or outside himself.

Voluntariness - this requires the presence of the two other elements. This is synonymous with human
act. This requires knowledge and freedom in the agent because for the agent to will, he must have
knowledge of what the act is and must have freedom to perform or not perform the act. Thus a
voluntary act is a wilful act.
 Classification of human acts

1. In relation to the will

a. Wish - primordial desire, good, willed

b. Intention - purposive tendency of will on a thing regarded as realizable

c. Counsel - series of thoughts and judgements concerning the most suitable means for attainment of
desired goals

d. Choice - right pick of the intellect

e. Command - pushes the will to act after series of deliberation

f. Consent - process of picking the right choice

g. Fruition - actual attainment of desired goal

2. In relation to Reason

a. Good acts - those in harmony with the dictates of right reason

b. Evil acts - those in contradiction with right reason

c. Indifferent acts - neither good nor bad

● Voluntariness of Human Act

1. Perfect voluntariness - the act is performed with perfect knowledge and consent of the agent.

2. Imperfect voluntariness - there is defect in the agents knowledge and/or intention.

3. Simple voluntariness - is present in the human act whether he likes it or not.

4. Conditional voluntariness - present when the agent is doing with repugnance or dislike.

5. Virtual voluntariness - was made at some former time and still influences the act.

● Indirect Voluntariness

PAUL GLENN points out accountability:

- the doer is able to foresee the evil result or effect

- the doer is free to refrain from doing that which would produce the foreseen evil

- the doer has moral obligation not to do that which produces an evil effect

● For results not directly intended

Alfredo Panizo cites:

1. An agent is held morally responsible for any evil effect which flows from the action though it is not
directly willed.

2. A human act from which two effects may result, is morally permissible:

- the action which produces double effects must be good

- the good effect must not come from evil effect. To do evil in order to achieve good is not justifiable.

- the motive of the doer must be towards the attainment of good.

- the good effect must overweight the evil results in its importance.

● The Circumstances of the Good

Aggravating, Mitigating, Exempting, and Justifying

● The Law

Moral and Legal

● Properties of Human Laws

Reason, Obligation/Ordinance, Charged, Common good, and Promulgated

● Modifiers of the Good

Violence, Ignorance, Fear, Habit, Concupiscence, and Mental Disorder

1. Ignorance – is the lack of knowledge in a person

Capable of knowing - A doctor is expected to know his medicine, a lawyer his law, the
manager his business operations. In the realm of morals, an indl of right age and reason has to know at
least the general norms of good behavior.

Vincible Ignorance - easily be reminded through diligence and reasonable efforts.

Invincible Ignorance - one possesses without being aware of, or have no means to rectify if he
is aware of it.

2. Passion/Concupiscence - either tendencies towards desirable objects or tendency away from

undesirable or harmful things. They are psychic responses - amoral, but they have to be regulated and
submit them to the control of reason.

Antecedent - those that precede an act .It may happen if one is emotionally aroused to perform
an act.

Consequent - they are emotionally aroused and kept. There is that result of the will playing the
strings of emotions.

3. Fear - the disturbance of the mind of a person who is confronted by an impending danger or harm to
himself or loved ones. Acts can be out of fear or with fear. Fear is an instinct for self preservation. Acts
can be done with fear, out of fear or out of intense /grave fear.

4. Violence - any physical force exerted on a person by another free agent for the purpose of compelling
the said person to act against his will. Bodily torture, maltreatment, isolation are violence against
persons. Active resistance should be offered to an unjust aggressor, however if resistance is impossible,
if there is serious threat, a person confronted by violence can offer intrinsic resistance by w/holding
consent that is enough to save his moral integrity.

5. Habits – lasting readiness and facility, born of frequently repeated acts, for acting i certain manners.
They are acquired inclinations towards something to be done. They are the second nature of man,
moving one who has them with relative ease.

Habit-forming - that form that is not that easy to overcome. E.g. smoking. They become acts
of man if they continue to manifest despite of efforts to overcome them.

● Ethical thinking should be rational and emotional

- The ancient philosophical debate about whether ethics is primarily a matter of reason or
emotion has spilled over into psychology, where there is much current discussion about the nature of
ethical thinking. But sufficiently rich theories of inference and emotion can clarify how judgments at
their best both should be both rational and emotional.

- How can you do the right thinking? People sometimes told: Be rational, not emotional. Such
advice adopts the widespread assumption that reason and emotion are opposites. This opposition is
particularly acute in ethical thinking processes, where philosophers and psychologists have long debated
the relative roles in ethical thinking of abstract inference and emotional institutions.

● Ethical thinking and emotions

- This debate concerns both the descriptive question about how people actually do think when
they are making ethical judgments and the normative question of how they should think.

- Adjudicating this debate requires an evidence-based theory of emotions that mediates between
two traditional theories: (a) the cognitive appraisal view that takes emotions to be judgments about
the accomplishment of one’s goals, and (b) physiological perception view that takes emotions to be
reactions to changes in one’s body.
Cognitive Appraisal View - is compatible with the potential rationality of emotion, because the truth
or falsity of judgments can be evaluated.

Physiological Perception View - puts emotions on the non-rational side, since bodily reactions are not
susceptible to reason.

Researches show that the brain is capable of simultaneously performing both cognitive appraisal and
bodily perception, and emotional consciousness results from this combination. If the integrated view is
correct, we can see how emotions can be both rational, in being based at least sometimes on good
judgments about how well a situation accomplishes appropriate goals, and visceral, providing
motivations act.

Some emotions are beautifully rational, such as love for people who add great value to our lives, whereas
other emotions can be irrational, such as attachment to abusive partners.

Ethical Judgments - are often highly emotional, when people express their strong approval or
disapproval of various acts. Whether they are also rational depends on whether the cognitive appraisal
that is part of emotion is done well or badly.

Emotional judgments - can be flawed due to ignorance about the actual consequences of actions and
neglect of relevant goals, such as taking into account the needs and interests of all people affected.

Adam Smith - the preaching gospel of self-interest, but his work on moral sentiments emphasized the
need for ethics to be based on sympathy for people. Hence the emotions involved in ethical thinking can
be rational when they are based on careful considerations of a full range of appropriate goals,
including altruistic ones. Ideally, this consideration should mesh with a visceral reaction that provides
a motivation to act well and correct injustices. Being good requires both thinking and feeling.

● Ethical relativism

Cultural diversity, Psychological, Conformity, Probability, Respect

● Classifications of Law

a. Legislation

Divine - authored by God

Human - civil and ecclesiastical

b. Duration

Eternal - extends to all acts and movements in the universe. Promulgated by God in the whole of his
creation

Temporal - promulgated by man, all human laws, temporal and subject to time

c. Mode of promulgation

Natural Law - eternal law is apprehended by reason.

Positive Law (Ponere) - to put on or place an object down somewhere. They are put down in writing
for promulgation.

1. Divine Positive Law - promulgated by God. e.g. The Decalogue of Moses. This is to supplement
the observance of natural law.

2. Human Positive Law - ordinance of reason derived from natural law, the determinate application
of the natural law. e.g. ecclesiastical and civil laws.

d. Prescription

1. Affirmative - permissive or suppletory. They bind but not at every moment

2. Negative - mandatory or prohibitive laws. They always bind and at every moment.
● Norms of Morality

1. Law (St. Thomas Aquinas) - an ordinance of reason, promulgated for the common good, by one who
has the care of the society. It is a rule of action or a principle of conduct which directs things towards a
definite goal.

2. Conscience: super-ego

Latin: Cum Alia Scientia – the individual man’s application of knowledge or acting with knowledge. It
is the link between law and act.

Types of Conscience

a. Antecedent - judgment before act is done. Commands, advices, forbids, permits to acts.

b. Consequent - judgment after act is done. It brings inner peace or remorse.

c. True - judges things truly as they are. Knowledge and responsibility for one’s actions are of help in
forming correct conscience.

d. Erroneous - false conscience. Judges things in a distorted manner; vincible or invincible in type

e. Certain - subjective certainty of the legality of actions to be done or omitted. This is what moralists
recommend to follow.

f. Doubtful - should not be followed unless one becomes certain or have addressed blunders

g. Scrupulous - sees wrong when there is none, one becomes extremely austere, scared evil.

h. Lax - fails to see wrong even if there is. This categorically needs right education

3. Moral Framework: Reason for goodness

- Virtue ethics of Aristotle

- Natural Law ethics of St. Thomas Aquinas

~ double effect ~ totality

~ inviolability of life ~ stewardship

~ forfeiture ~ dermatological procedures

~ just war ~ cohabitation

~ rebellion/revolution ~ divorce/legal separation/annulment

~ AI ~ cloning

-Utilitarian ethics of Bentham Mill

~DDS/vigilante killing, ejk ~ medical marijuana

~ fgm ~ death penalty

~ euthanasia ~ surrogacy/ivf

~ egg freezing ~ artificial birth control

~ hedonic calculus

- Duty ethics of Kant

~ abortion

~ same sex partnership

~ sexual deviance

- Confucian ethics and Situation ethics

● Culture and Moral Behaviour

Edward Taylor, an English anthropologist, defined culture as that complex whole which includes
knowledge, beliefs, art, law, custom, habits acquired by man as a member of the society. They are man’s
social and material inventions including the learned ways of doing things.

Individual personality, moral judgments are fashioned and influenced by the culture of his society.

● Characteristics of culture

1. Learned - culture is acquired through education, training and experience.

2. Socially transmitted through language

3. Social product - a product of social interaction through the mutual interstimulation and response of
people with one another

4. Source of gratification

5. Adaptive - inventions and discoveries helped man overcome his limitations and outdo other animals.

6. A distinctive way of life of a group of people – men have developed unique way of life that suits
their needs and particular situations.

7. Material and Non-material

8. Has sanctions and controls - they can be formal or informal. Rewards and punishments,
prescriptions and proscriptions.

9. Stable yet dynamic - it grows and accumulates with the passing of times. It is highly stable and
continuous.

10. An established pattern of behavior - there’s a mutual belief, custom and way of doing things.
Behavior of the members can be easily predicted.

● Components of Culture

1. Norms - shared rules that specified what is right or wrong. They are the standard of propriety,
morality, legality and ethics of the society.

a. Folkways - habits, customs, traditions, conventions.

b. Mores - codes of ethics, moral commandments, standard of morality.

1. Duties - ought, ethically and morally good

2. Taboo - societal prohibitions

c. Laws

2. Ideas, Beliefs, Values

Ideas - man’s conception of his physical,social and cultural world.

Beliefs - person’s perception of certain ideas, reality.

Values - abstract concept of what is important and worthwhile.

3. Material Culture

4. Symbol - gestures, sound, color or design that represent something other than the self.

● ETHICAL RELATIVISM: an aspect of cultural relativism

It is a view or doctrine that ethical values and beliefs are relative to the time, place, persons,
situations and societies that hold them.

There are no universally valid moral principles – that all moral values are valid relative to
culture or individual choice.
 Whether an action is right or wrong depends on the moral norms of society or the moral
commitments of the individual and no absolute standard exists by which differing rules or commitments
can be judged.

● Ethical Relativism

There are no values that cut across cultural boundaries and peoples who are not relative to the
specific place or context in which they are held.

Morality depends on the specific societies or cultural circumstances. What is then morally
right or wrong may vary fundamentally from one person to person or culture to culture.

● Arguments for Ethical Relativism

1. Cultural differences argument

The actual existence of moral diversity among cultures. It is uncontroversially true that people
have different customs and ideas about right and wrong. There is no transcultural or universal
consensus on which actions are right and wrong.

Patterns of Culture claims that careful study of cultural practices of different peoples supports
the idea that what is and is not behaviourally normal is culturally determined.

Acquaintance with the wide diversity of moral beliefs across societies may lead us to deny that
there really is only one correct moral code.

2. Argument from respect

If moral codes differ from one culture and there is no objective or culturally dependent basis by
which to judge the moral code of any culture ,then the moral code of one’s particular culture has no
special status compared with the rest.

No culture has no right to impose its own ethical views on anyone else, least of all on people in
different cultures and traditions.

The appropriate attitude to take is therefore one of respect and tolerance for moral standpoints
different from what one upholds.

Tolerance has always been considered as a virtue while taking a superior stance is usually
viewed as the height of arrogance if not plain narrow-mindedness especially so in this post-modern
world which have seen the fall of many absoluteness in the course of humanity’s long history.

Ethical relativism views that people would be more accepting of moralities of others, no matter
how these may be radically different from their own. They have to see and realize that the other side of
the fence is not necessarily wrong.

3. Psychological argument

Our values are simply the result of our having been conditioned to behave in a certain way. All
of us have acquired our moral beliefs by a process of psychological conditioning.

Moral beliefs are neither true nor false, for there is no objective truth in ethics. Moral truth is
relative to one’s own psychological upbringing, nothing more, nothing less. e.g. all of us have been
subjected to some sort of a psychic manipulation by our significant others.

4. Conformity argument

As a social being by nature, it is but natural for people to easily affiliate and conform to the
accepted ethical standards of a particular group that they belong. It is thought that people would come
to be more accepting of their own societal norms.

Their beliefs give a good basis for a common morality within a culture, a kind of a democratic
basis where diverse ideas and principles are pooled in, thus ensuring that the norms that a certain
societies would eventually accept have a wide a solid support.
5. Provability argument

If there is such thing as objective or universal truth in ethics, we should be able to prove
that some moral opinions are true and others are false. But in fact we cannot prove which moral
opinions are true and false. Therefore there is no such thing as objective truth in ethics.