Axiel M.
Egracial Ethics
Claretian September 13, 2017
Greek Perspective of Morality
The greek morality has well founded the perspective of ‘agathos’. The idea of goodness
from greek perspective is very much related to oneself or even to the society. Everyone of us has
different approach to goodness, meaning we live in the world were indifference occur with
regards to ‘agathos’ and the greek morality had been applied from ancient to medieval up to our
present period. The moral norms from the greek perspective still living in this world, society and
to oneself. It’s still relevant to the modern period hence, ‘agathos’ at the moment should be seen
from the greek perspective rather than other sources of goodness.
Mechanical (Functional)
When it comes to our society the trending issue today is about extrajudicial killings or in
other words the ‘war on drugs’ by President Duterte. The president has declared that there should
be no doubt to kill the people who are involved in drugs, everyone who will be caught using
drugs or who has drugs will be excommunicated or vanish from this world.. Many issues arises
from the social media, radio and newspapers. Most of the Filipino people blamed President
Duterte about his promise on ‘war on drugs’, they would want to stop it, they do not even
consider him as a human being and the president of this republic.
The ‘Agathos’ here is very much mechanical in as much as even Duterte continued the
‘war on drugs’ which some of the Filipinos does not like, he made it out of the goodness for the
country, that’s his function as the president to promote peace out of drugs. So the ‘Agathos’
functioned based on your reputation as part of this world that even a person took many lives,
his/her goodness will always remain because being looked up by others.
Strategical (Dispositional)
The drug pushers who makes money supplying illegal drugs involving those unsettlers.
Some of them are innocent but because of the fact that they have no money for their needs
considering the difficulty in life which they experienced, they are brainwashed, they let
themselves fooled by the drugs hence, they violated the law which cause their death.
The ‘Agathos’ here is not anymore functional rather it became dispositional. Their
families has no good shelter and no food to eat so, as part of the family you should function and
look for jobs to help your family but what happened here was that, the drug pushers put their
lives into risk because of the drugs that even if it is against the law as long as it is good for
themselves and for their families they did it. The goodness became strategical that what is good
for me I will do it even if it cause my death.
Rhetorical (Pedagogical)
The well educated man I can say is Ferdinand Marcos because he was able to rule the
country, control the military, the people and almost everything because he has the power,
conviction in himself and confidence it is all because he was very educated well. Many people
remembered him even up to the present period because of his popularity in the country.
In the society today, it is necessary for a man to study or to be educated because
education gives light to the people and give the capacity to talk with conviction, defend himself
from other discriminations and protect himself from through education. A man would gain power
and attention from the people if he is well educated. The ‘Agathos’ is based on the intellectual
capacity of the man to persuade something that others do not know or thematize things very well.
Dialectical (Relational)
In the Filipino tradition ‘papamanhikan’ wherein the man formally ask the hand of the
woman whom he wanted to marry, talking face to face with the family of the woman. Sometimes
they would prepare especial food, talk about when will be the wedding and some other details.
The man should also serve the family of the woman he wanted to marry.
This tradition suddenly vanished because aside from it is the old way many couples
nowadays has their own way of approaching their families regarding their wedding, the can just
talk in the phone, decide in the social media contacting their families or even some will be
shocked because their daughters or sons are engaged already. The couple has their own
understanding of arranging weddings not in the traditional ways, they have their own ways to fix
their marriage unlike before which their parents get used to. The ‘Agathos’ is not anymore
pedagogical instead it became complex. They learned that it is not only the way to have a good
marriage but in some other ways it could be possible.
Eidetical (Formal)
The ‘Agathos’ is much different from other norms of morality because goodness is now
universal. Everyone of us has the eidetic soul, we have the capacity to see the perfect hidden
pattern. A cab driver from Baguio Reggie Cabututan returned a luggage containing important
documents, gadgets, and cash to an Australian businessman.
In the situation of the cab driver he knows that luggage left by the Australian has
important things inside, if the man is a regular taxi driver who has no idea of goodness and in
that situation no one knows that it was left, only him perhaps he will get it with no regrets but
because we as humans Plato believed that we have our universal goodness in us, the inner
goodness that even if no one is watching us we will prefer to do good because we have in our
mind the perfect pattern of goodness.
