SCHOOL OF TEACHER EDUCATION AND LIBERAL ARTS

General Luna Road, Baguio City Philippines 2600

Telefax No.: (074) 442-3071 loc 274 Website: www.ubaguio.edu E-mail Address: [email protected]
GETHCS1
Name: Clarence C. Vibora Course: BSN
Class Section: NAB Schedule: M/T/W

Worksheet: Position Paper

Activity:
Having learned the ethical standard and frameworks, come up with a position paper about the best
ethical standard or framework to be used in the current Philippine Setting on your Country of Origin. A
position paper contains your ideas and opinions about a certain topic.
i.Introduction
Kant’s Deontological Natural Ethics
From an ethical perspective, personhood creates a range of rights and obligations because every person
has inherent dignity – something that is fundamental to and is held in equal measure by each and every
person.
Deontological ethics, in philosophy, ethical theories that place special emphasis on the relationship
between duty and the morality of human actions. The term deontology is derived from the
Greek deon, “duty,” and logos, “science.”
In deontological ethics an action is considered morally good because of some characteristic of the action
itself, not because the product of the action is good. Deontological ethics holds that at least some acts
are morally obligatory regardless of their consequences for human welfare. Descriptive of such ethics
are such expressions as “Duty for duty’s sake,” “Virtue is its own reward,” and “Let justice be done
though the heavens fall.”
This dignity creates an ethical ‘line in the sand’ that prevents us from acting in certain ways either
toward other people or toward ourselves (because we have dignity as well). Most importantly, Kant
argues that we may never treat a person merely as a means to an end (never just as a
‘resource’).Deontology is an ethical theory that uses rules to distinguish right from wrong. Deontology is
often associated with philosopher Immanuel Kant. Kant believed that ethical actions follow universal
moral laws, such as “Don’t lie.  Don’t steal.  Don’t cheat.” Deontology is simple to apply. It just requires
that people follow the rules and do their duty. This approach tends to fit well with our natural intuition
about what is or isn’t ethical. Unlike consequentialism, which judges actions by their results, deontology
doesn’t require weighing the costs and benefits of a situation. This avoids subjectivity and uncertainty
because you only have to follow set rules.

ii. Ethical Problems

I think one of the major problems of the Philippines is facing now is the “extra judicial killing”
he term extra j udicial k illing refers to the murder done w ithout prior j udgement of a court in
a legal system. Extra judicial killings are manifested through killings done by privately organi z ed
groups or homicides carried out by the state w ithout the consent of the legal syste m,
ke e p i n g t h a t i n m i n d , t h e n i t c o m e s t o t h i s t e r m , a c t s o f d i f f e r e n t p u r p o s e s a n d
c a s u a l t i e s  become attached to it,or instance, in terms of politics, the Philippine government associated
judicial killing to “political killing” wherein the state has to be in volved in or
a t l e a s t silently authori z e the k illings besides the fact that political k illings may or may
not signifyin g inv ol v ement of the go v ernment w hereas e x tra j udicial k illings imply
in v ol v ement at all times. Commonly, politically driven extrajudicial killings are executed so that the
victim can have little or no defense and the perpetrator remains unidentified by means of mass
 SCHOOL OF TEACHER EDUCATION AND LIBERAL ARTS
General Luna Road, Baguio City Philippines 2600
Telefax No.: (074) 442-3071 loc 274 Website: www.ubaguio.edu E-mail Address: [email protected]
GETHCS1
or doing it hastily at an isolated surrounding and time. S ome e v en try to ma k e it loo k li k e
a suicide act. With this e x tra j udicial k illings often lead to an illegal freedom of k illing
since most of them do not get caught and punished by law.
As early as the 2016 electoral campaign period, the erstwhile presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte,
had been very vocal about his dogged obsession to curb the problem of criminality in the country and
had, in fact, dared the public to get himself killed, 1 should he win but fail to wipe out criminals across
the archipelago six months after taking office.2 Close to a year later, the Philippine National Police
reported that crime rate has significantly dropped indeed by 31% under the Duterte administration. This
means that 81,064 crime incidents recorded from July to November 2015 substantially dipped to 55,391
within the same period for the year 2016.3 This is, no doubt, a remarkable feat and one that should give
all citizens a good reason to feel relieved. But remarkable as it may seem, there is yet another side to
the fight against crime—a side that one needs to take into account if these reported gains must be
appreciated for what they are worth. It should be remembered that in the same duration, from July to
November 2016, a record of more than 4,000 deaths was reported in the name of the so-called “war on
drugs.”
Duterte is wont to consider illegal drugs as the root of all crimes, and hence, the relentless,
vociferous campaign to bring its menace to an end regardless of the means employed and the
consequences involved. To underscore his resolve, he even made a remark as to how willing he was to
exterminate everyone who was hooked on illegal Rather than acting to curb the increasing number of
drug-related killings, the Duterte administration decides instead to introduce a bill seeking to legalize
death as a means to penalize drug-related crimes. What makes the whole suggestion scandalous is the
very thought of an official endorsement of death as a state policy. There is indeed something thoroughly
disquieting when the state becomes the prime agent to legitimize the extant barbarism still in force in
the legal infrastructure of capital punishment.
Such vehicle envisioned to restore capital punishment in the Philippine penal system. It specifically
targets drug-related crimes but excludes such graver offenses like kidnap-for-ransom, plunder, and
rape. As it is, the instrumentalization of death invites serious objection especially when more and more
of its victims turn out to be the very citizens who look up to the state for protection and defense. A
necessary distinction, therefore, has to be made between legitimizing death as a form of penalty and
justifying penalty which may at times require capital punishment. One of the major problems as well is
that, they tend to kill or torture a person on their drug list without enough evidence.

I think the best solution to the extra judicial killing is by applying present rule utilitarianism's reply to
this argument. I describe how rule utilitarians analyze morality. Ruleutilitarians conclude that
torture must be banned unconditionally for two reasons. First, the benefits of allowing some
torture are marginal and uncertain, while the costs are substantial, given the distinct likelihood of
unnecessary torture. Second, allowing some torture might drive a slippery slope to torture in less
justifiable circumstances. Numerous inherent epistemic barriers and conceptual obstacles
distinguish torture and killing. First, to interpret the preconditions for torture correctly, officials
must overcome the modal problem of distinguishing possible dangers and actual threats, and then
overcome—conceptual vagueness in the terms "imminence" and "catastrophe." Second, our
inability to distinguish false and truthful disclosures of subjects causes the infliction of
unnecessary pain. Third, conceptual vagueness in the term "suspect," only exacerbated by the
frustration of war, makes torture more susceptible to the slippery slope. Finally, because
 SCHOOL OF TEACHER EDUCATION AND LIBERAL ARTS
General Luna Road, Baguio City Philippines 2600
Telefax No.: (074) 442-3071 loc 274 Website: www.ubaguio.edu E-mail Address: [email protected]
GETHCS1
prohibition of torture epitomizes the legal archetype of non-brutality, legalizing torture has a
unique ability to affect other laws.
Rule utilitarians thus offer two explanations for why a blackletter legal rule forbidding torture is
superior to a flexible standard that allows torture in designated circumstances. First, the benefits
of a flexible standard are marginal and uncertain, while the costs are substantial, given the
likelihood of unnecessary torture. Second, a standard allowing some torture might drive a
slippery slope to more torture. But why do these same concerns not also persuade rule utilitarians
to ban legal killing?" A flexible legal standard allows killing in designated circumstances.
Unnecessary killing and a slippery slope to more killing are certainly possible. Torture is more
likely to result in unnecessary pain and two reasons for why torture is more vulnerable to
slippery slope problems.