1.

Feelings and moral decision-making

Why is there a need to study ethics at all as a subject in college? Clearly, only a few, if there are any at
all, of the students in this course are philosophy majors and are interested in philosophical questions
academically. In fact, most students in an ethics course probably think that such endeavor is a waste of
time and distracts them from their major. Why then is it important to take a course in ethics? Does not
everyone already have a sense of what is good and bad behavior? Does not everyone have an instinct
about what one ought to do, and what one’s duties are? Why is there a need to spend time thinking about
what is already inherent in everyone’s mind?

          Firstly, it is true that there are traditions that guide one’s actions. It is impossible for everyone not to
have grown up with some sense of good and evil, proper and improper, and ought not. People mostly
think that they know exactly their basis of the good and that it is reasonable. However, a person’s
understanding of the good hardly ever goes unquestioned, especially in today’s world. Devoting one’s life
to one’s parents’ seems perfectly logical until one’s wife, who grew up in a different tradition, questions it.
The contractualization of labor for greater profit seems the most reasonable course of action until one
encounters the sufferings of people who have to face the end of their contracts every five months. The
subtle harassment of women, such as ogling and throwing lewd jokes, seems harmless until a woman
files a case against an offender in Quezon City where ordinances against harassment exist.

2. The Study of Ethics and Cultural Conceptions of the Good

Firstly, it is true that there are traditions that guide one’s actions. It is impossible for everyone not to have
grown up with some sense of good and evil, proper and improper, and ought not. People mostly think that
they know exactly their basis of the good and that it is reasonable. However, a person’s understanding of
the good hardly ever goes unquestioned, especially in today’s world. Devoting one’s life to one’s parents’
seems perfectly logical until one’s wife, who grew up in a different tradition, questions it. The
contractualization of labor for greater profit seems the most reasonable course of action until one
encounters the sufferings of people who have to face the end of their contracts every five months. The
subtle harassment of women, such as ogling and throwing lewd jokes, seems harmless until a woman
files a case against an offender in Quezon City where ordinances against harassment exist.

          People like to think that their traditions are already clear and unquestionable to serve as basis for
how they should act. This is because people grow up with traditions. Traditions are a part of culture.
Culture is a system of codes that gives the world meaning and shapes the behavior of people. It also
determines the proper behavior. This includes what we eat and how we proper food, how we talk and
what language we use, what we make and how we make and utilize things, how we understand the
meaning of life and death, and how we recognize the ultimate meaning of life. Culture is our code that
shapes how we understand, what life is worth living, and what it means to become human.

3. CULTURAL CONCEPTIONS

These are some ways culture shapes the way people act. In the province of Pampanga, penitents line the
streets during Holy Week to whip themselves. For them, it is a way to participate in Christ’s sacrifice and
by doing so, they cleanse themselves of their sins and are spared from punishment. Mostly, people who
engage in this practices come from the more traditional communities influenced by Spanish-style
Catholicism and the so-called animistic world view. Other Catholics who are educated in more
Westernized, modern systems, do not feel the need to engage in such practices and even judge the
flagellants as “backward”. However, the flagellation is perfectly natural and acceptable to those who
practice it because in their culture, flagellation is a way to participate in Christ’s existence and, in a way,
participate in His being and power.

         
 In some cultures, engaging in sexual activities for excitement and fun is amoral. Sexual partners may
not always have serious relationship with each other and merely “hook-up” for fun, and that is perfectly
acceptable as long as contraceptives are used and partners protect themselves against diseases. Thus,
the meaning of sexual activity in these culture is not necessarily connected to love and procreation,
lineage propagation and property transmission. In other cultures, which are more agricultural or where the
transmission of property is important, perhaps sex as a seizure activity is less acceptable. Also in cultures
where monogamy is associated with romantic love and personal flourishing, sex is often related to
committed relationships, although not always a marriage. Among these people, their system of meaning
coded by their culture shapes how they understand sex and acceptable sexual behavior. Some people
cannot even conceive of sex as a leisure activity because in their culture, the idea or set of behaviors are
related to it does not exist. The experience of sex as fun is not even a real experience for them because it
is not part of the experiences that their culture provides.

4. REASONS WHY THERE IS AN OBSTACLES MAKING THE RIGHT DECISION

Wife beating is another kind of behavior that is culturally determined. In some cultures where the status of
women is that of property or is tightly controlled because of the importance of lineage, it is customary that
women accept their husbands’ authority, submit to their will, and serve all their needs. Thus, women can
be forced to have sex with their husbands. Women accept the fact that they cannot move in public without
a male chaperone, that they cannot own real estate as individuals, they cannot travel without a a male
member’s permission, and they can be beaten for whatever reason their husbands deem right without
recourse to any relief. In other culture where women’s happiness and fulfillment are valued above those
of the clan or the community, all of the aforementioned acts are considered violence, violations of basic
rights, and crime. People from cultures whose women are more “liberated” cannot begin to understand
how women of the non-“liberated” cultures accept such abuse. But because the culture of the
non-“liberated” women shape their perceptions of the relationships between men and women, their rights
and duties, and their feelings regarding the “strictness” of their husbands, it is possible that they do not
feel abused or violated.

          It can, therefore, be noted that the conception of the good is shaped by culture as it is the very
basic system of codes that shapes human behavior. This could be dangerous in a way because not all
cultures and their conception of the good reflect the good or what ought to be. Some cultures can be
destructive to human beings. For instance, some cultures tend to encourage war and colonial plunder.
Others encourage overconsumption and exploitation of the poor for profit. Because of this people’s
cultures, they are oriented toward violent behavior and do not even realize that they do violence toward
their neighbors. Most corrupt government officials do not think that they are doing because they were
formed in a culture where self-interest allows for the violation of rules of governance and the common
good. Thus, one cannot rely solely on one’s culture to come to a genuine understanding of the good.
There is always the possibility that one’s cultural conception of the good can lead to destructiveness and
violence.

5. MAKING THE RIGHT DECISION

But whose conception of the good is “the good”? Usually, the good is defined by a dominant system or
group. The good is defined by what has worked for people to flourish. People value cooperation over
conflict because it makes human survival easier. People value arranged marriages to build alliances.
Thus, what people usually believe to be the good is usually what is useful and effective for survival and
flourishing. But people are not only concerned about the useful and effective. People also seek to realize
what they consider to be ethical acts that lead to human flourishing. How does one know what is actually
the good that genuinely leads to human flourishing? Thus, the discipline of ethics is important because it
provides people with a basis upon which discern their own accepted ethical systems and a basis for
broadening their own conceptions of the good.
Feelings and Moral Decision-Making
Moral Decision-Making
- Having the ability to decide which is the right course of action once we have spotted the ethical issues.
-Moral decision making is the ability to produce a reasonable and defensible answer to an ethical
question.
Feelings and intuitions or what we call as “moral emotions” play a major role in most of the ethical
decisions people make.
Decisions people make vary when they are happy from when they are sad or emotional.

Words that come out of our mouth sometimes are also affected by the emotions that we feel. And so
with our actions.
*Never reply when you are angry
*Never make a promise when you are happy
*Never make a decision when you are sad.
Feelings as instinctive and trained response to moral dilemmas
Some ethicists believe that ethics is also matter of emotion. feelings are seen as also necessary in ethical
judgment as they are even deemed by some as instinctive a trained response to moral dilemmas.

MORAL DILEMMA
TWO RELATED MODELS IN ETHICS
1. ETHICAL SUBJECTIVISM
-It holds that the truth or falsify of ethical propositions is dependent on the feelings, attitudes, or
standards of a person or group of persons.
2. EMOTIVISM Emotivists
-claim that statements about good or evil are just expressing a subject’s approval or disapproval of a
particular thing. Emotivism has earned the nickname the “BOO- YAY” Theory of Ethics.
Feelings cannot be solely relied upon, but reason and feelings may complement each other.
Traditionally, ethical decision-making process has been understood as an exclusively mental process;
that our feelings have nothing to do with matters of right or wrong and good or bad, precisely because
our emotions are very unstable.
Although most existing researches emphasize the mental elements of decision making, there are pieces
of evidence to support the idea that emotion is also necessary component leading to ethical decisions
and ethical behavior.
The arousal of emotion influences moral reflection and ultimately moral behavior.
Inner-directed negative emotions like guilt, embarrassment, and shame often motivate people to act
ethnically.
OUTER-DIRECTED NEGATIVE EMOTIONS, on the other hand, aim to discipline or punish.
For example, people often direct anger, disgust, or contempt at those who have acted unethically.
Positive emotions like gratitude and admiration, which people may feel when they see someone acting
with compassion or kindness, can prompt people to help others too.
Emotions evoked by suffering, such as sympathy and empathy, often lead people to act ethnically
toward others.
Feelings cannot be solely relied upon, but reason and feelings may complement each other.

1. WHAT IS ETHICS?

What do people think about when they think ethically? What is the experience on which ethical
reflection is grounded? It is grounded on the experience of free persons who have to act in
difficult situations. It developed from the reality that when people act, they do not merely need
to know the best way to realize something but there are times when they need to act in a way
that realizes the good. And the good does not always mean the easiest or most expedient way.
Ethical norms and the question of good and evil arise when people need to act as free persons.
But not all actions are inherently ethical. Actions only require ethical reflection when they are
free acts that involve a person’s desire to realize the good.

          Questions of the good are not questions of practicality or questions of realizing one’s
desired end. They are questions that refer to a person’s freedom and ability to live according to
what he/she considers to be the good. In different ages of human civilizations, the particular
norms of the good have taken on different forms. However, at heart, these norms express the
human realization that free action is defined by an ought that is not measured by how practical
results are achieved but by how human beings at in a way that realizes their capacity to freely
and creatively respond to the order of things: whether this order is grounded on a transcendent
order or human reason. Ethical questions arise when human beings intuit that their actions must
authentically fulfill their freedom in response to a ground of authentic human existence.

2. ETHICAL OR UNETHICAL

Eating and breathing are not usually thought about as ethical or unethical. After all, these are
just functions of the body. However, when eating is thought of in relation to human freedom,
the ethical question comes in. For instance, eating could involve the eating of food produced by
people who are exploited. They are not paid a living wage so that the factory owners earn more.
On top of that, they source their raw materials by polluting the waters of a community. Whoever
eats that product participates in the exploitation and destruction because buying the food
supports the activity of the manufacturer. In this case, eating becomes an ethical question
because although eating is a bodily function, eating this exploitatively produced food is a free
choice. And it entails the human capacity to choose what makes one good. It also reveals how
human beings have a choice to act in a creative or destructive way toward others. Certainly
eating canned fish could be an easy and inexpensive way to get nutrition, but it could also be
unethical.

          Thus, ethics has something to do with realizing the fullest potential as free persons acting
in the world and dong right for others. It is not about being efficient or achieving goals. It is
about realizing what people intuit to be the good. Human beings intuit that life is not just about
existing or survival, and human actions are not just about expediency. Somehow, human beings
sense that there is this thing they call the good which they are bound to realize to genuinely be
human and to build better societies.

          This course explores how philosophers have tried to explain this mysterious intuition of
the good and what they understood were the paths to realizing a life lived according to the
good.

3. THE MORAL ACT

Human beings are complex beings. Unlike other organisms that are simply driven by the survival
instinct, human beings experience the world in a variety of ways through a variety of perceptive
capabilities. Bacteria are driven solely to replicate themselves; plants seek only nourishment and
growth, and animals seek to address their hunger and reproduce themselves. Apart from our
rational capacity which allows us to reckon reality with imaginative and calculative lenses, our
feelings also play a crucial part in determining the way we navigate through various situations
that we experience. We do not simply know the world and others; we also feel their existence
and their value.

          We are pleased when others compliment us for a job well done. We get angry when we
are accused of a wrongdoing we did not do. We become afraid when we are threatened by
someone, and we feel anguish and despair in moments of seemingly insurmountable hardship.
Most of the time, we act based on how we feel. This is something we share with animals to a
certain degree. We seek food when we are hungry and we wish for companionship when we are
lonely. However, unlike animals that are instinctively programmed to act in accordance with how
they feel, we have the capacity to reflexively examine a situation before proceeding to act with
respect to how we feel. In other words, although feelings provide us with an initial reckoning of
a situation, they should not be the sole basis for our motives and actions.

4. DEFINITION OF REASONS AND IMPARTIALITY

REASON -  is a suitable way of knowing for ethical decisions when one does not wish to
question their perception of an issue. It proves useful when consequences are considered while
understanding an issue. Reason lacks the attachment that emotion carries, it has the ability to
remain detached from a situation.

IMPARTIALITY -  is a defining feature of the moral outlook raises obvious questions and
difficulties in relation to our ordinary beliefs and behaviors. Most of us live in ways that exhibit
considerable partiality toward relatives, friends, and other loved ones, and to others with whom
we are affiliated or associated. The existence of vast global disparities in the distribution of
wealth and access to resources may not seem to accord well with the characteristically modern
view that all people are in some fundamental sense equal from a moral point of view. Although
general and abstract moral principles requiring impartiality tend to strike many of us as fairly
plausible, our more particular views and practices often seem to place considerably less
significance on it.
5. Reasons for Morality

A person who is in a state of rage towards a perceived enemy or competitor is likely unable to
process the possible consequences of his/her actions done impulsively. Feelings seek immediate
fulfillment, and it is our reason that tempers these compulsions. Feelings without reason are
blind. Reason sets the course for making ethical and impartial decisions especially in moral
situations although it is not the sole determining factor in coming up with such decisions.
Reason and feelings must constructively complement each other whenever we are making
choices. When feelings such as anger, jealousy, and shame are out of control, hence without the
proper guidance of reason, one’s moral capacities become short-sighted and limited. Reason
puts these emotions in their proper places seeking not to discredit their validity but calibrating
them in such a way they do not become the primarily motive in making moral decisions.

          However, it must be noted that reason in and by itself is also not a sufficient instrument in
assessing moral situations. Reason can sometimes be blinded in implementing and following its
own strict rules that it becomes incapable of empathy for the others. While it is morally wrong
for someone to steal food out of hunger, to punish a person for doing it without even trying to
listen to his/her reasons for committing such an act may be considered cold and cruel. That is
not to say that the act is deemed right after one finds out why someone stole. It is then viewed
as a complex act, connected to a web of various circumstantial factors and motives. A person’s
act of stealing may, in fact, appear to be a symptom of a greater injustice in one’s society
prompting one to do good not by simply punishing an immoral act but by proactively seeking
justice for the disadvantaged people who are pushed by poverty and societal injustice to feed
themselves by stealing. In other words, reason, while a reliable ground for moral judgment,
needs the feeling of empathy to come up not just with a moral but also a just decision.

6. Moral Principles

These seven steps can help you ensure that you do not take moral decisions lightly. They shed
light on the various aspects of moral situations that you have to consider before making a
decision. An important element, though, is your will to commit to an action based on moral
principles. You must have the necessary resolve to put your choice in motion after a long
process of deliberation. Goodwill, though sufficient as a ground of morality according to some
philosophers such as Immanuel Kant, must nevertheless be enacted and applied to make a
difference in the world of practical moral affairs.

          While feelings and reason set up the theoretical basis for moral action, it is the will which
implements your decision and projects your motives into reality. It is not enough to want to do
the good, you must actually do it not only for your sake but for the benefit of those that may
bear the consequences of your decision. To a great extent, you owe it to others to do the right
thing. It shows how much you respect them that you cannot allow yourself to not do something
that may benefit them. It is only by habituating yourself to doing good that your will becomes
used to propelling your decisions into actions. The will is like a muscle that must constantly
exercise in order to develop and strengthen.
          Moral courage is the result of a morally developed will. I is the capacity to initiate and
sustain your resolve whenever you are certain of doing good. Many factors can derail you from
consistently standing by your moral principles, such as intimidation from others, but remember
that a person of moral courage is not afraid to stand his/her ground  in matters that involve
doing what is right and just. Moral courage is what some of our heroes displayed in the face of
dictators and colonizers. Moral courage is a kind of virtue that enables one to be ethical not just
in thought but, more importantly, in deed.

7. Impartiality Defines Morality

Moral situations often involve not just one but others as well. Our decisions have consequences
and these have an effect on others. Matters of moral import need to be analyzed with a
perspective that takes the welfare and feelings of other into consideration. What is good for one
may not be good for others.

          For example, if a jeepney driver thinks it is only right for him to get as many passengers as
he can in order to address the needs of his family of by breaking a few traffic rules that to his
mind harms nobody (he does not run anyone over or he does not bump other vehicle on the
road), his reasoning may be construed as narrow and selfish. The inconvenience and stress he
causes other drivers by picking up and dropping off passengers anywhere and anytime he
pleases actually harms other more than he thinks. Some people may come late for work and get
fired because of this habit. Some drivers may feel too much stress which endangers their lives
and this has an effect on the people that depend on them. in other words, if one’s reasoning
does not consider the interests of people that are affected by his/her actions, then he/she is
actually being prejudicial to his/her own interests. Saying that the actions do not harm anybody
is not a sufficient moral justification until one actually takes into rational account the effects of
the actions on others. Simply put, morality involves impartiality because it ensures that all
interests are accounted for, weighted rationally, and assessed without prejudice. Prejudices
make decisions impartial. Reason recognizes not only the good of oneself but also the good of
others.

8. The 7 – step moral reasoning model

One way of ensuring the rationality and impartiality of moral decisions is to follow the seven-
step moral reasoning model. These steps can serve as a guide in making choices of moral
import.

1. STOP AND THINK. Before making any decision, it is best to take a moment to think about the
situation itself, your place in it, and other surrounding factors which merit consideration, such as
the people involved and the potential effects of your decisions on them. This involves a step-
back from the situation to make sure that you do not act out of impulse.
2. CLARIFY GOALS. It is also necessary to clarify your short-term and long-term aims. One often
decides on the basis of what he/she wants to accomplish. Sometimes, in the heat of the
moment, short-term wants eclipse long-term goals. Thus, you must determine if you are willing
to sacrifice more important life goals to achieve your short-term goals. If you, for example, are
seeking retribution for harm caused by another person, you have to think about the long-term
consequence of revenge on your character in the long run.

3. DETERMINE FACTS. Make sure you gather enough information before you make a choice. An
intelligent choice is one that is supposed by verified facts. You must make sure that what you
know is enough to merit action. Without verifying facts, you may regret your choice in the future
once various aspects of the situation come to light. Never make a choice on the basis of hearsay.
Make sure your sources are credible and have integrity.

4. DEVELOP OPTION. Once you are clear in terms of your goals and facts, try to come up with
alternative options to exhaust all possible courses of action. Most of the time, the pressure of a
situation may make you feel you have less options than you think. Clear your mind and try to
think of other creative ways of clarifying your motives and implementing your actions with the
least ethical compromise.

5. CONSIDER CONSEQUENCES. Filter your choices and separate the ethical from the unethical
choices bearing in mind both your motives and the potential consequences of your action. Think
of long-term consequences and act in accordance with the principles of justice and fairness.
Consequences are historical realities that bear upon the lives of others. A decision turns
something in your mind into reality. Make sure you do not regret the decision you have
conferred reality upon.

6. CHOOSE. Make a decision. If the choice is hard to make, try consulting others who may have
knowledge or experience of your situation. Find people with a virtuous character and compare
your reasoning with your moral analysis. Once you make up your mind, summon the will to do
the right thing even if it is hard and seemingly counter-intuitive.

7. MONITOR AND MODIFY. Monitor what happens after your decision and have enough
humility to modify your action or behavior as necessary. Pride may get in the way of admitting
that you might have not thought out a decision well enough. As you become more aware of the
consequences of your actions, especially on the lives of others, summon the strength and
determination to make changes to rectify any shortcomings. Do not hesitate to revise your
decisions in light of the new developments in the situation.
FROM THE ACT TO THE PERSON

Focusing exclusively on human acts is limited. Contemporary ethicist point to the importance of
“personhood”. It is the human being himself/herself who gives meaning and receives
significance from the acts that he/she executes. While human acts and personhood are always
bound together and even inseparable, the primacy of the person cannot be contested. Human
acts are only human insofar as there is this center of identity and integrity that grounds them.
Human acts are particular actions that flow from the personhood of the human being.

      Human acts, in turn, determine the reality of the person. Though personhood rather than
particular acts is the deeper reality, the significance of the latter cannot be overlooked. Human
beings as doers of moral acts are responsible not only for what they do but for the persons they
grow into through their moral acts. Human acts are relevant to the kind of person one becomes.
It is personhood that gives actions significance. Particular moral actions shape the “person” that
one desires. It is, therefore, not only “good moral actions” that are important for ethics. Asking
students about “the kind of person” they want to become is more meaningful and significant in
such a study.

Relationship between personhood and Moral actions

Students of ethics tend to think of other people as victims of a wrong decision or bad actions of
a particular moral agent. It should be noted, however, that in the relationship between
personhood and moral actions, as previously mentioned, the moral agent himself/herself is the
first victim of a bad decision or a wrong action.

         However, the depth of personhood cannot be fully objectified and always escapes
conceptualization. Kant insists on this mysterious center that is in the human person that he
refuses to say that the person is inherently evil.  For Kant, the human person’s inexhaustible
ability to always change for the better is a source of surprise even for the moral agent. No
matter how much a human person is conditioned by culture and environment, there is within
that person a source for change and a turning towards the good. This is confirmed by the
conversations and even cultural revolutions that happen in human history.

GAWI AND GAWA and HABITUATION

In Filipino, the words gawi and gawa can give a sense of what philosophers mean by ethical
action. Filipinos distinguish between thoughtless, instinctive, mannerisms and reflexes from
gawa (action) and gawi (inclination). In reflecting on how Filipinos use these words, one can
understand that human actions are different from mere bodily movements.

          Freedom figures closely into action and inclination. Freedom here means not only the
ability to act free from outside influences or the independence from the impediments to one’s
wishes. It is the willful act and decision that give form and shape to the actions and inclinations
of people. This freedom is oriented toward the wherefore, the what for, and the whom for of the
doings of people.

          These are the common aspects of human action that Filipinos understand as action and
inclination: that free human acts are governed by reflection and are freely decided such as that
they are not determined by internal or external forces.

Definition of Gawi, Gawa and Habituation

However, gawi and gawa are not identical. Gawa refers to the free actions that is oriented
toward a particular end. For example, a worker uses his/her free imagination and will to bring
about services and products that contribute to the well-being of society.

          As one governed by free decision making, the creative worker embraces all the
information he/she can gather to effectively realize his/her purpose. A process of discernment
accompanies the creative work. The carpenter, for instance, must learn many details about
wood: its feel, its hardness and pliability, as well as its strength. He/she should know about the
qualities that will help him/her accomplish the task at hand very well. Part of this knowledge is
the knowledge about the body’s movement in accomplishing this work. The carpenter should
study how heavy or light the hand should move over certain kinds of wood, what tools to apply
so that the wood yields the best piece: a stool, a table, or the wheel of a cart.

          The word gawi also refers to a free kind of work. However, instead of focusing on a
particular end like a product or fulfillment, gawi refers to the kind of acts that people are used to
accomplishing. Gawi does not only refer to particular acts of a person. A parson’s kagawian or
habitual action reveals truth about himself/herself. While the beautiful table and the intricately
designed chair are products of a carpenter that has gotten used to being one, in his kagawian,
he reveals himself/herself as a good or bad person. A worker who produces for the society is
judged skilled or unskilled. But a person is judged good or evil, right or wrong based on
kagawian or habituation. Kagawian is the Filipino equivalent of ethos in Greek and mos or moris
in Latin.

ETHICS AND ETHOS

The term ethics comes from the Greek word ethos, which means custom, a characteristic, or
habitual way of doing things, or action that is properly derived from one’s character. The Latin
word mos or moris (and its plural mores) from which the adjective moral is derived is equivalent
to ethos.

          From a purely etymological point of view, ethical and moral are, therefore, synonymous.
Also, restricted to such rootword considerations, ethics and morality may only be a “simple
description of the mores or ways of behaving, whether of the human person in general or of a
particular population). It seems then that as a field of study, ethics need not be fall under the
umbrella of philosophy, can also trace its roots back to Plato as the systematic thinker who
grappled with the question of that which is good.

Plato's Insight into the Good

The context of the life of Plato is not totally unfamiliar with students of today. Athens and
Greece went through an expansion of trade around 600 BCE. This “global” awakening on the
part of Greeks like Plato plunged him to an experience of social, political, and intellectual
challenge. Given the exchange of different experiences between Greece and its neighboring
countries around the Mediterranean Sea, Plato was interrogated by different points of view.
Plato and the students of today share this “global” challenge; it leads to question the truth and
inquiry into what is good. Given this pluralism of perspectives, is it valid to ask “what is truly
good?”

          A serious claim faced by Plato was given voice by a thinker named Protagoras who said
that “man is the measure of all things”. The implications of such a claim sit well with those who
easily let go of the validity of traditional mores and ethos to arrive at a conclusion that is
relativistic. This easy relativism holds that man, being the measure of all things, can hold on to
beliefs and truths that are for himself/herself or his/her society only. It denies the possibility of
ever arriving at truth that can be shared by all. Man, as the measure of all things, came to be
understood simplistically based on the concept that “to each his own”.

Socrates' Insight into the Good

Socrates, on the other hand, taught Plato about the difficulty of coming to a knowledge of the
truth. This difficulty, however, did not mean impossibility for Socrates. He instilled this rigorous
questioning to his students and did not shy away from interrogating even the traditional leaders
of Athens. This resulted in his death in 399 BCE on charges of impiety and of misleading the
youth with his ideas. Socrates, however, is immortalized in the writing of Plato as the intelligent
and courageous teacher who leads his hearers nearer to the truth in the same way that midwives
help in the birthing process of a child.

          This confrontation between Socratic inquiry and easy lack of thoughts is portrayed in the
allegory of the cave that is found in Plato’s “The Republic”.

Glaucon's Insight into the Good

Glaucon’s story in the dialogue best introduces the allegory that is told by Socrates. These two
stories are occasioned by the question about the good and the task of the human person to
inquire about it. Glaucon proposes the story of Gyges’ ring (The Republic, Book II, 359-360).
According to Glaucon, a terrible earthquake later resulted in a break in the land and the finding
of a metallic horse that contained a skeleton. A ring was said to be worn by that skeleton. The
man who found the skeleton then took the ring and found out that it had the power to render
him invisible. A simple inward turn would make the wearer imperceptible to other and another
turn outwards would allow others to see him again. Free from the fear of shame and capture,
Glaucon concludes his story by saying that the man who found the ring would eventually
become evil.

Glaucon’s point about the good may not be as crude as the simple claim that each one is left to
determine the good for himself/herself. It is nonetheless sinister in its simplistic presentation of
the relationship between the human person and that which is claimed as good. Glaucon
dismisses the topic of the good altogether and proposes to explain the human persons’ ethical
actions as the result of fear. It simply is the evasion of shame, incarceration, or retaliation that
spells itself out in “good behavior” of man in society.

Acting out the Will through Illustration

Responding to Glaucon’s story, Plato, through the character of Socrates, later proposed the
“Allegory of the Cave” (The Republic, Book VII, 514a-520a). A group of people are said to have
lived chained facing the wall where shadows are projected from the objects passing before a fire
behind them. The shadows are thought of by these people as the most real things. Once, a man
is dragged out of the cave and made to see reality as it is enlightened by the sun. The freed man
has to accustom his eyes first to things as illuminated at night, then sees what is illuminated
during the day as reflected on small pockets of water. He later on sees the sun itself as the
source of light that gives definition to reality. Having perceived true reality itself as enlightened
by the sun, the man then ventures to go back to the cave to free the other prisoners. They,
however, resist him, choosing to recognize the reality they are accustomed to. The man who
knows the truth ends up crucified with burnt eyes.

Plato then has Socrates explained to Glaucon that the sun represents the good. Once it is seen
and recognized by any man who has gone beyond the shadows that good is followed and lived
even at the cost of one’s life. This, of course, is a direct negation Glaucon’s aforementioned
claims that the actions of humans are only directed by the avoidance of shame or retribution.
Plato directs humanity to the nobility that is reachable through the knowledge of the good. His
confidence in knowing the good as acting upon it reaches out to every age that grapples with
the question of what is proper human action.

Moral Actions
This confidence in the human person’s ability to know the good and act in accordance with it
started the academic history of ethics. Plato’s claim is, however, not only made in the past s they
are recorded in dated documents that survived history. Plato continues to address us today and
his voice builds confidence in our own ability to know the good and act ethically.

Each age, however, has a particular way of interrogating Plato’s assertions and further give
nuance to what is known and how to act. Thinkers who come after him, for example, will
challenge a necessity that seems to have been so confidently lodged between knowledge and
action. Does knowing the good automatically lead to acting on it? The wonderful thing about a
course in ethics is that the voices of thinkers who spent time reaching such questions are still
heard and understood up to our present time and to challenge what we know about the good
and how we act pursuant to it.