DREAMLAND COLLEGE

MORAL AND CIVICS EDUCATION

Chapter One: Understanding Civics and Ethics

1.1. Defining Civics, Ethics, Morality

 The main purposes of Moral and Civic Education are to facilitate students to build positive
goals in different life phases, explicit aspirations of their own, a sense of responsibility, a
respectful attitude towards others, and positive values, character traits and manners.
 The term civics is derived from the Latin words civis which means citizen and civitas which
means city state. Civics is a branch of social science that studies about the rights and
responsibilities of citizens.
 Ethics can be defined as follows;
- It is a science which studies Morality, i.e. what is good or bad, what is acceptable or
unacceptable?
- Ethics is the philosophical study of morality and practical implication of systematic moral
outlook.
- It is the systematic study of human action from the point of view of their rightness/
wrongness as the means for achievement of the ultimate happiness.
 Morality refers to the social norms and values that guide both individuals and communities,
and their interaction with other h0uman beings, and with their environment.
 The objective of laws is to create a civil society with proper social order and peace. Ethics
aim to make people distinguish between right and wrong and protect the moral rights of
others.
 T h e Importance/Goal of Moral and Civic Education
 The need to instill citizens about their rights and duties:
 The Need for Participant Political Culture:
 The Need for Relevant Knowledge, Skills and Positive Attitudes:
 The issue of fostering intercultural societies:
 The issue of inclusiveness:
 The issue of peace-building:
 Moral and Civics Education is based on and seeks to promote in students core moral,
ethical, democratic, and educational values, such as:
 Respect for life
 Respect for reasoning

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 Fairness
 Concern for the welfare of others
 Respect for diversity
 Peaceful resolution of conflict
1.2. Civic virtue
 Civic virtue is the traits /character that believed to be good for private as well as common
public welfares. It is the cultivation of the habit of person that claims to be important for the
success of the community/commitment to the democratic principles. Civic virtue is divided
in to two:
A. Civic disposition: it is the awareness, development and readiness of the citizen to exercise
their right and responsibility without any sort of fear and negligence. It is also seen as
characters that are deemed for the healthy functioning of society.
B. Civic commitment: it refers to the unreserved effort of citizens are required to follow for
the maintaining of the welfare of the society.

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Chapter Two: Approaches to Ethics

2.1. Approaches to Ethics
 Three approaches to ethics include virtue ethics, consequentialist ethics, and deontological or
duty-based ethics. It's important to consider all three approaches to be a good person and do
the right thing.
 Virtue ethics is arguably the oldest ethical theory in the world, with origins in Ancient
Greece. It defines good actions as ones that displays embody virtuous character traits, like
courage, loyalty, or wisdom. A virtue itself is a disposition to act, think and feel in certain
ways.
 Consequentialism is an ethical theory that judges whether or not something is right by what
its consequences are. For instance, most people would agree that lying is wrong. But if telling
a lie would help save a person's life, consequentialism says it's the right thing to do.
 Consequentialism focuses on the consequence of an action in order to measure the rightness
or wrongness of an action. Accordingly an action is right if it promotes or brings good
results. With this view there are three strands of consequentialism. These are; utilitarianism,
egoism and altruism.
 In Utilitarianism Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as
they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. According to utilitarianism an action can be
right if the consequence of an action is more favorable than un-favorable to everyone.
 According to Ethical Egoism the morality of an action is determined in reference to the doer
of the action. It holds that an action is morally right if it maximizes the interest of the doer of
the action
 According to altruism.an action is morally right if the consequence of the action is more
favorable to the society except the doer of the action. Here moral actions are motivated by
sympathy and compassion to others especially for the disadvantaged section of society.
 Deontology is an ethical theory that says actions are good or bad according to a clear set of
rules. Its name comes from the Greek word deon, meaning duty. Actions that align with these
rules are ethical, while actions that don't aren't. Most people know what is right. The
problem comes in doing what is right. Immanuel Kant.
 The rightness of an action is not dependent on the consequence/s to which it leads but on its
own inherent nature. Sometimes actions that we take to achieve some other goals might be

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bad. Deontologists are telling us that the morality of an action should not be measured in
terms of its consequences. Instead, actions should be weighted by themselves.
 Prima Facie Duties
i. Fidelity: everybody has a duty to keep promises/ or contract, others commitment,
which they have voluntarily made.
ii. Reparation: everybody has a duty of compensation for previous wrongful acts they
have done on others.
iii. Gratitude: If others have done well to me, I owe them a debt in return.
iv. Duty of beneficence: promoting the maximum possible intrinsic good or promoting
the common good/welfare of others.
v. Non- malfeasance: the duty of refraining from doing harm.
vi. A duty of justice: everybody is expected to be fair and just in the treatment of
citizens. The duty of self-improvement- Improving oneself and one’s excellence.

2.2. Normative ethics

 Normative ethics is the study of ethical behavior and is the branch of philosophical ethics
that investigates the questions that arise regarding how one ought to act, in a moral sense.
 The ultimate concern of the normative theory of obligation is to guide us in the making of
decisions and judgments about actions in particular situations.
 Normative ethics Offers theories or accounts of the best way to live. These theories
evaluate actions in a systematic way, i.e., they may focus on outcomes or duties or
motivation as a means of justifying human conduct.
 Normative ethics includes ethical theories or approaches such as utilitarianism,
deontology, virtue ethics, principlism, narrative ethics and feminist ethics.
 Utilitarianism is a theory of morality that advocates actions that foster happiness or
pleasure and oppose actions that cause unhappiness or harm. When directed toward making
social, economic, or political decisions, a utilitarian philosophy would aim for the
betterment of society as a whole.
 Principlism is a normative ethical framework designed for decision making in health care.
It is a common-morality approach relying on four mid-level principles: respect for
autonomy, nonmaleficence, beneficence, and justice.
 Narrative ethics is an approach that focuses on personal identity through story, and

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particular events in the life story of the individual or community. These form a basis for
ethical reflection and learning, both for individuals or groups. In many respects it
resembles or presupposes virtue ethics.
 Feminist Ethics aims “to understand, criticize, and correct” how gender operates within our
moral beliefs and practices and our methodological approaches to ethical theory.
 Feminist ethics is an approach to ethics that builds on the belief that traditionally ethical
theorizing has undervalued and/or underappreciated women's moral experience, which is
largely male-dominated, and it therefore chooses to reimagine ethics through a holistic
feminist approach to transform it.

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Chapter Three:

Ethical Decision Making and Moral Judgments

3.1. Ethical Decision Making

 Ethical decision-making involves the selection of methods which have guiding concepts,

principles and theories. Students explore concepts that underpin ethical decision-making
and influences on practical moral judgment.
 Moral principles are guidelines that people live by to make sure they are doing the right
thing. These include things like honesty, fairness, and equality. Moral principles can be
different for everyone because they depend on how a person was raised and what is
important to them in life.
 A moral institution in general, we may say of an institution as a whole that its morality is
reasonably well defined by its purpose and its likely effects. In this sense, an institution's
morality is inherently consequentialist.
 Analytical and critical reasoning is the rational process through which you “obtain, interpret,
and use knowledge, facts, and data”, while exercising logical thinking in analyzing issues and
making proper decisions, to ultimately solve problems.
 Rationalization is the action of attempting to explain or justify behavior or an attitude with
logical reasons, even if these are not appropriate.

3.2. Types of reasoning

 Reasoning is the process of using existing knowledge to draw conclusions, make predictions,
or construct explanations.
 Three forms of critical reasoning: Reasoning by analogy, Deductive reasoning and Inductive
reasoning
 When we reason analogically, we proceed from the observation that two or more things are
similar in some respects to the conclusion that they're probably similar in some other respect
as well.
 Deductive reasoning is a logical approach where you progress from general ideas to specific
conclusions. It's often contrasted with inductive reasoning, where you start with specific
observations and form general conclusions.

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 Deductive reasoning, if the premises are true, then the conclusion must be true. Logically
Sound Deductive Reasoning Examples: All dogs have ears; golden retrievers are dogs,
therefore they have ears. All racing cars must go over 80MPH; the Dodge Charger is a racing
car, therefore it can go over 80MPH
 Inductive reasoning is a logical process in which multiple premises, all believed true or found
true most of the time, are combined to obtain a specific conclusion. Inductive reasoning is
often used in applications that involve prediction, forecasting, or behavior.
 For example of inductive reasoning, if you review the population information of a city for the
past 15 years, you may observe a consistent rate of population increase. If you want to
predict what the population might be in five years, you can use the evidence or information
you have to make an estimate.
3.3. Moral judgments
 Moral judgment is the evaluation of a certain behavior as good or bad, or as right or
wrong. The goal of moral psychology is to clarify why individuals make the judgments they
do about moral issues.
 There are three main ways of testing a moral argument. These are Factual
accuracy, Consistency and Good will.
 Factual accuracy refers to the accuracy of information or measurements are their quality of
being true or correct.
 Consistency refers to the state or condition of always happening or behaving in the same
way: The team's success will depend on the consistency of its pitching.
 Good will means to act out of a sense of moral obligation or “duty.” In other words, the
moral agent does a particular action not because of what it produces (its consequences) in
terms of human experience, but because the agent recognizes by reasoning that it is the
morally right thing to do and, 

3.3. The Rights Approach

 The Rights Approach focuses on respect for human dignity. This approach holds that our
dignity is based on our ability to choose freely how we live our lives, and that we have a
moral right to respect for our choices as free, equal, and rational people, and a moral duty to
respect others in the same way.

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These other rights can be thought of as different aspects of the basic right to be treated as we
choose. Among these rights are:
 The Right to the Truth: We have a right to be told the truth and to be informed
about matters that significantly affect choices.
 The Right of Privacy: We have the right to do, believe, and say whatever we choose
in our personal lives so long as we do not violate the rights of others.
 The Right not to be injured: We have the right not to be harmed or injured unless we
freely and knowingly do something to deserve punishment or we freely and knowingly
choose to risk such injuries.
 The Right to what is agreed: We have the right to what has been promised those with
whom we have freely entered into a contract or agreement.
3.4. Morality

 Religious morality refers to a human being in relationship to a supernatural being or beings.

In the Jewish and Christian traditions, for example, the first three of the Ten Commandments
(See the figure below) pertain to this kind of morality. These commandments deal with a
person‘s relationship with God, not with any other human beings.
 Morality and nature refers to a human being in relationship to nature. Natural morality has
been prevalent in all primitive cultures, such as that of the Native American, and in cultures
of the Far East.
 Individual morality refers to individuals in relation to themselves and to an individual code
of morality that may or may not be sanctioned by any society or religion.
 Social morality concerns a human being in relation to other human beings. It is probably the
most important aspect of morality, in that it cuts across all of the other aspects and is
found in more ethical systems than any of the others.
 Moral judgments refer to deciding what is right and what is wrong in human relations.
Individuals are continually judging their own conduct and that of their fellows

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Chapter Four:
State, Government and Citizenship
4.1. Basic concept of State

 The term state ‘has been used to refer to a bewildering range of things: a collection of
institutions, a territorial unit, and philosophical idea, an instrument of coercion or oppression,
and so on.
 A state is a centralized political organization that imposes and enforces rules over a
population within a territory.
 Functionalist approaches to the state focus on the role or purpose of state institutions.
 The weakness of the functionalist view of the state, however, is that it tends to associate any
institution that maintains order (such as the family, mass media, trade unions and the
church) with the state itself.
 The organizational view defines the state as the apparatus of government in its broadest
sense; that is, as that set of institutions that are recognizably public ‘in that they are
responsible for the collective organization of social existence and are funded at the public‘s
expense.
 The international approach to the state views it primarily as an actor on the world stage;
indeed, as the basic unit ‘of international politics.
4.2. Theories on the origin of state
 There is no common consensus among scholars concerning the foundation of state. Hence, it
is important to note the various theories on the origin of state.
i. Divine theory: according to this theory, state is a divine creation, and an institution
created by God. It assumes “rulers” as the descendants of God.
ii. Social contract theory: State is an artificial creation based on the voluntary contract
among people.
iii. Force theory: it holds the idea that state emerged through process of conquest and
coercion of the weak by the strong, i.e. war + expansion=state.
iv. Natural theory: basically, this theory believes that state is natural and gradually
evolved from family, clan, tribe, society.
v. Marxist theory: State is originated from the split of society in to social classes with a
sharp and a polarized social interest.

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4.3. Elements of State

A. Population-is a group of people who live on a defined territory of a state.

B. Territory- an area of earth surface which is internationally demarcated and people are
expected to reside permanently.
C. Sovereignty- supreme authority of a state in the internal and external affairs.
D. Government- an administrative organ of a state that exercises both the internal and
external affairs on behalf of a state.
4.3. Forms of state structure
i. Unitary States
 In Unitary states, authority and power are focused exclusively on the central government. It
has the
 The basic features of unitary states
 indivisible Sovereignty
 existence of monopolistic government
 sole/single sources for all political power
 centralization of all political power
 Exclusive authority of the central government
ii. Federal States
 A federal state is different from a unitary state in that it shares some of its powers to local
levels of governments. This is called devolution of power.
 The basic features of Federal state
 Power decentralization
 Inclusive of the local units in different decisions
 Has divisible sovereignty
4.4. Definition of Government
 Government is an element of state that controls and undertakes all the political and
administrative issues of a state. It is the highest political authority leading a state and people.
It is an institution that enacts, enforces and interprets the laws of the state.

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4.5. The functions of government

 The first and primary purpose and function, governments are responsible to prevail order,
predictability, internal security, and external defense. Therefore, the functions of the
government include the following.
 maintaining social order
 Providing public services and infrastructures
 Protection of citizens from any threat
 Making economic decisions
4.6. Organs of Government
i. LEGISLATIVE: an organ of government that makes laws, policies and strategies of
a state.
ii. EXECUTIVE: it is an organ of government that implements laws, policies, strategies
and plans proposed by law makers.
iii. JUDICIARY: an organ that interprets laws.
4.7. Defining Citizen and Citizenship
 A ‘citizen’ is a member of a political community, who is defined by a set of rights and
obligations.
Citizenship, therefore, represents a relationship between the individual and the state, in which
the two are bind together by reciprocal rights and obligations.
 Citizenship is an allegiance of person to a state.
 The means by which we determine whether a person is legal member of a particular
State or otherwise is called citizenship.
4.8. Modes of Acquiring Citizenship
 Modes of acquisition of citizenship are not uniform. They differ from state to state. The
following are the general modes of acquiring citizenship
1. By Place of Birth. Citizenship is acquired as a result of birth place. This principle is
called jus soli (the law of the soil). Children are citizens of the nation in which they are
born, irrespective of their parents’ nationality.
2. By Descent. Citizenship is acquired as a result of blood tie. This principle is known as
just sanguine (law of blood). Under jus sanguine children take their parents’ nationality
regardless of where they are born.

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3. By Naturalization. A person may acquire nationality through naturalization in different

ways: through marriage, legitimate application, adoption. It should be noted that
naturalization is not a right, but a privilege (it is upon the sole authority of the state to
grant or refuse).
4.9. Modes of Loosing Nationality
 A Person may lose the nationality of a state in different ways.
1. By release: Release occurs only when an application is made to that effect and if it
has been accepted by the country concerned.
2. By deprivation: a national of a country may be deprived of nationality as a result of
certain criminal offenses.
3. By renunciation: a person may renounce his/her nationality of a state.
4. By substitution; a person may lose the nationality of a state when he or she acquires
nationality in some other state by naturalization.
5. By expiration/Lapse: when a person’s nationality expires as a result of staying abroad
for a length of time.

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Chapter Five: Constitution, Democracy and Human Rights

5.1. Definition of Constitution
 Constitution is a fundamental document containing laws and principles according to which a
political. It is a system of a state is governed. As a supreme law of a country, constitution set
out general principles, values, aspirations and policies which serve as the founding base for
detail operations of various activities.
5.2. Meaning of Constitutionalism
 Constitutionalism is apolitical governance based on principles of a constitution. It is the
practical implementation of principles of a constitution. In all its successive phases,
constitutionalism has one essential quality: it is a legal limitation on government; it is the
anti-thesis of arbitrary rule.
5.3. Purposes of a democratic Constitution
 It serves as a framework for Government
 It limits the powers of government
 It protects individual and collective rights of citizens
 It serves as the supreme (highest) law of a country
 It provides government legitimacy/stability
5.4. The Transitional Government charter (1991 to 1995)
 The transitional government of Ethiopia was founded by a document called charter of the
transitional government of Ethiopia. The charter was formulated in the peace &
democratic conference which was held from July 1 to 5, 1991.
 The transitional government charter was a spring board for the 1995 FDRE constitution.
This is mainly because the charter contained the fundamental principles and ideas that are
contained in the 1995 constitution. Federalism, equality of nations and nationalities, the
right to self-determination up to secession and parliamentary democracy are notable
fundamental principles and ideas that are embodied in the 1995 constitution.
5.5. Peculiar features of the 1995 constitution
1. Ethnicity as a major component
2. Parliamentary democracy- Supreme power resides on the parliament.
3. The right to self-determination up to secession
4. Public Ownership of land – the 1995 constitution has made land under public ownership.

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5. Language policy- The constitution gave recognition to the equality of all languages and
nations, nationalities and peoples of Ethiopia
6. Separation of state and Religion
7. Guarantees Fundamental Rights and Freedoms
5.6. Defining Democracy
 The word democracy is coined from two Greek words, i.e., demos (meaning people) and
kratia (meaning to govern, to rule). “Democracy” can literally be translated as Government
of the People or Government of the Majority.
5.7. Fundamental Principles and Values of Democracy
 Political Participation
 Liberty
 Political Equality
 Tolerance
 Majority rule with minority rights
 Free, Fair, Periodic and competitive elections
 Rule of Law
 Popular sovereignty
5.8. Democratic Elections
 Election is a formal procedure /process by which individuals decide on “what to choose”.
The act that individuals perform while choosing among different alternatives in an
election is called voting.
 The following are the Fundamental principles of democratic election:

 Fair
 Periodic
 Free
 Competitive
 All inclusive
 Secret ballot

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5.9. Electoral Institutions in Ethiopia

 Elections are under taken by the coordination and supervision of an independent electoral
board. This body is entrusted with the task of undertaking all the necessary activities that
are stipulated by the electoral law and is responsible for the supervision and follow up of
the whole electoral process. Electoral board is expected to be honest, competent,
impartial and non-partisan.
5.10. Electoral procedures
 According to the Ethiopian electoral law, i.e. Proclamation number 64/1994; there are
procedural requirements and facilities that should be fulfilled both by voters and by
candidates. In advance to the day of election, polling stations should be established;
observers of these polling stations should be elected.
 Ethiopian election law states that election should be;
 Carried out by the secret ballot
 Not compulsory for voting
 Assigned equal weight for equal vote.
 Carried out at the presence of observers. These observers should be free
from any membership to political organizations.
 Voters in the Ethiopian electoral law should fulfil the following requirements.
 Ethiopian citizenship
 He/she should be eighteen/more than eighteen years old on the date of
registration.
 The voter should have resided in the constituency, at least, for 6 months.
 According to the Ethiopian election law, one should fulfill the following basic requirements
to run as a candidate.
1. He/she has to be an Ethiopian citizen.
2. He/she should know and understand the language of the area he/she is
intending to run as a candidate.
3. He/she should be 21 and above years old.
4. He/she should have resided, at least for 5 years, regularly in the
constituency he/she is intending to run as a candidate before the day of the
election.

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5. He/she should have the endorsement of, at least, 500 eligible voters if
he/she is nominated by the party and 1000 signatures if he/she is running
privately.
5.11. The meaning of human rights
 Human rights are rights that belong to everyone as a consequence of being human.
 Basic characteristics of human rights
i. Equality rights- possessed equally by all human beings.
ii. Inherent rights-derived from the innate nature of mankind.
iii. Eternal rights- As far as human society exists on earth human rights continue
to exist.
iv. . Inalienable rights-they cannot be lost.
v. Indivisible and inter related rights.
vi. Human rights are not given by government-governments role is only to
protect and safeguard human rights.
5.12. Classification of Human Rights
 Referring the scope and classification of human rights it is important to note the notion
of “three generation rights” advanced by Karl Vasak.
1. First Generation Rights
 First generation rights are essentially individual rights. They are commonly called civil
and political rights. They only require the state to abstain from interfering in the life of
the individual.
2. Second Generation Rights
 It includes social, economic and cultural rights and finds their origin mainly in the
socialist traditions. It is the issue of socialist countries quest for an equal distribution of
resources. Second generation rights requires governments intervention to promote equal
opportunity and ensure socioeconomic and cultural rights.
3. Third Generation Rights
 Third generation rights are solidarity rights based on notion of international solidarity
and relating to global structural problems rather than individual cases. The emergence of
third world nationalism and its demand for a global redistribution of power, wealth, and
other important values resulted for the development of these rights.

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