ETHICS

The word ethics comes from the Greek word “Ethos” which means custom. The Latin word for
ethics is “Mos” from which moral has sprung.
Ethics is a branch of philosophy that deals with the study of principles relating to right and wrong
conduct.
Philosophy is a branch of sciences that deals with academic discipline that seeks truth through
reasoning.
Major Branches of Philosophy
1. Logic – the study of principles
2. Ethics – the study that deals with principles relating to right and wrong conduct
3. Metaphysics – the study of existence
4. Epistemology – the study of knowledge

A well-known figure in the history of Ethics

1. Socrates – Father of Ethics
2. Aristotle
3. Plato
4. Emmanuel Kant
5. Jeremy Bentham
6. John Stuart Mill
7. D. W. Ross
8. C. L. Stevenson
9. John Rawls

Examples of Ethics
1. Honesty
2. Integrity
3. Promise keeping
4. Loyalty
5. Fairness
6. Concern for others
7. Respect for others
8. Law-abiding

Historial outline in Ethics

Periods Philosophers Principal works
I. The Classical Period 1. Plato The Republic
2. Epicurus Principal Doctrines

II. The Middle Ages 1. Augustine The Happy life

The City of Man
 The City of God
2. St. Aquinas Summa Theologica

III. The Early Modern Pd. 1. Benedict Spinoza Ethics

2. Joseph Butler Sermons
3. David Hume Picture of Human Nature
4. Emmanuel Kant Lecture on Ethics

IV. The Nineteenth Century 1. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich The Philosophy of History
Hegel
2. Francis Bradley Ethical Studies

V. Contemporary Period 1. Sigmund Freud Civilization and Its

Discontents
2. John Dewey Reconstruction in Philosophy
3. G.E. Moore Principia Ethica
4. Paul Tillich Systematic Theology

I. The Classical Period

Everything was directed to the pursuit of truth and to be happy. The highest good is to
contemplate.

II. The Middle Ages

Said to be the longest and said to be a study of continuity and discontinuity. Continuity
because many of the writers were in classical doctrines, discontinuity in the sense that
religion has come into the picture and philosophy was intervene with theology.

III. The Early Modern Period

A shift from the supernatural, temporal and secural. It was also the rise of modern
science especially physics.

IV. The Nineteenth Century

Advocacies were:
a. The greatest good to be the greatest number
b. The scientific theory
c. The individual versus the state

V. Contemporary Period
Exhibit a diversity of trends in moral beliefs; for and against the scientific theory

Main Principles of Ethics

1. Truthfulness
2. Confidentiality
3. Informed Consent
4. Beneficence
5. Autonomy
 Main Types of Ethical Theory
1. Hedonism
Affirms pleasure as the chief good in life. Kinds:
a. Egoistic Hedonism – static that man seeks pleasure for his personal good.
Examples:
1. A teen: aged boy thinking more of his barkada, getting “high” from their adventures
together, completely forgetting his parent’s concern for his safety
2. A young indulges herself on clothes and accessories in parties and outings,
completely neglecting her studies, her family concern for her safety considering the
late hours she keeps
3. A husband and father spends his money on drinking and gambling, doesn’t mind
the deprivation of his wife and children of his support and companionship
4. A wife and mother whose preferences may be frequently outings, shopping at
malls, playing cards with her friends, partying on weeks especially on weekends,
being blind to her family’s needs.

b. Altruistic Hedonism – states that man desires pleasure not for his own interest but for
the common good or for the well-being and welfare of the greatest number of people.
This is also known as the greatest happiness principle.

2. The Cynical Ideal – tells that the highest good is in the simple enjoyment of happiness.

3. Stoicism – teaches that happiness comes from morality, the highest good.

4. Theistic – considered as the Christian ideal which declares that God is man’s ultimate
end and the highest good.

5. Idealism – states that the supreme created good is the most perfect world where men
are happy and desire to be happy.

6. The Libido – the cornerstone of the problem of happiness thus, there is no golden rule
”Every man must find out for himself how he can be happiest in the world”

7. Genuine Existence – states that it is the only way to happiness; that man is being
caught in the ecstasric time – past, present, and future.

Fundamentals of Moral Experiences

A human act may be good, bad, or indifferent:

a. An act is good when it is for – found by a man in conformity to the dictates of right
reason and laws of morality
b. It is bad when it is done by man against the dictates of right reason and laws of morality
c. It is indifferent when it is neither good nor bad.
 The Three Fundamentals of Moral Experience Are:

1. Knowledge
2. Freedom of the will
3. Voluntariness or love

1. Knowledge
Knowing is awareness of something. The act of knowing is always
consciousness of something which is linked to the subject, who is the known. Every act
of knowing is a synthesis of object and subject.
The object is important but without the knowing subject, it is nothing. In ethics,
knowledge of a moral act means the consciousness of the subject of what he is doing.
The object of knowledge is the truth.

2. Freedom of the Will

It meant the power which men have of determining their actions according to the
judgment of their reason. We act freely when we make comparisons of the different
possible actions in order to pinpoint which of them is preferable
Notions of the freedom of the will
a. Free will – every man possesses by this very nature
b. Freedom of choice - which is the right to choose one or the other of alternative
c. External freedom – as when man moves free from chance
d. Internal freedom – which can only be impaired on lost by the use of drugs and
other forms of inhuman torture
e. Fundamental option – the basic, feeling accepted and intended involvement of a
person such as an option of a free decision
f. Freedom of achievement or full freedom – for freedom is a task and must be
developed to achieve authority. Being a task, it also implies risk

3. Voluntariness
The condition or account of which an act proceeds with previous knowledge of
the end.
Kind of Voluntariness:
a. Direct – present when the person performs it for himself or for somebody else
b. Indirect – exists when the agent wills an act, knowing another act might result
from it.

Modifiers of Voluntary Acts

1. Ignorance – lacks of knowledge. It may be:
a. Invincible – lack of knowledge in a person who is not duty-bound to possess it.
For example a form–year–old not knowing Modern Math
b. Vincible – the absence of knowledge in someone who should know it such
person is fully responsible for his ignorance.
c. Affected – not only the lack of knowledge but the willingness of the person to
dispel his ignorance.
 2. Violence – the application of external force on an individual by another to compel him
to do something against his will.
3. Fear – the apprehension of the mind of present or future darkness. For instance: a
man wills another or himself because he is afraid of disgrace. Such fear or
considered to be a modifier because it becomes a motive for the agent of action.
4. Habit – the easy way of performing an act because of its constant repetition. The
principles of habit are:
a. Habit acquired during childhood with the subject unconsciousness of it now,
destroys the voluntariness of the act
b. Habit acquired during childhood or maturity with the subject fully conscious of it
now, renders the act voluntary
5. Passions of Man – passion literally means to suffer to be acted upon; in this sense,
man is acted upon so that he goes through a bodily change. Love, anger, etc. can so
affect a man that he either looks flushed or pale; his heart may ship a beat or race
fast. He may feel physical warmth, he may tremble, he may feel like soaring to the
sky.

Norms of Morality
Kinds:
1. The National law
2. Conscience

1. The National Law has two parts:

a. The Physical Law – governs the universe, the birth, growth, and death of plants,
animals, and the body of man
b. The Moral Law – disposition of the human mind to discover the moral meaning of our
action in relation to the final end.

2. Conscience – derived from the Latin word Cum Alia Scientia. This means the application
of knowledge to a specific individual.
Conscience is usually defined as the practical judgment of man’s practical
reason.
It tells an individual that an act is good and is to be performed or will and is to be
awarded
Conscience may be:
1. True – it presents what is good as good and what is evil as evil
2. False – it presents what is good is evil and what is evil is good
3. Certain – we are sure an act is good and should be done or an act is evil and should
be avoided
4. Doubtful – we are not sure if an act is good or an act is evil
5. Antecedent – it makes its presence known to us before its performance of an act
6. Consequent – it makes its presence known to us all after the performance of an act

Moral Values
Definition of values
 Values are ideas and norms man considers relevant and good.

The term value comes from the Latin word valere which means to be strong, to be worth
The axiology of values:
1. Sensible values – those pertaining to the senses and range from the agreeable to
disagreeable, from the pleasurable to unpleasurable.
2. Vital values – those pertaining to life or health or general well-being and range from
good to bad
3. Spiritual values – those pertaining to aesthetics and range from beautiful to ugly; to law
and range from right to wrong and to truth, as in philosophy
4. Values of Holiness – those pertaining to God and range from the sacred to the
blasphemous

In the Philippine setting, form values are in great demand:

a. Justice
b. Love
c. Courage
d. Hope

Values among the Filipino Youth

1. Need to work
2. Politeness to one’s parents
3. Praying at all times
4. Closeness to parents
5. Love for reading and sports
6. Palabra de Honor
7. Sportmanship
8. Girl on a pedestal

Four Branches of Ethics

1. Descriptive Ethics – deals with what people actually believe (or made to believe) to be
right or wrong and accordingly holds up the human actions acceptable or not or
punishable under a custom or law. It is also called Comparative Ethics because it
compares the ethics of past and present. It also takes inputs from the disciplines such as
anthropology, psychology, sociology, and history to explain moral right or wrong.
2. Normative Ethics – deals with norms or set of considerations on how one should act. It
is a study of ethical actions and sets out the rightness and wrongness of the actions.
It is also called Prescriptive Ethics because it rests on the principles which determine
whether an action is right or wrong. The golden rule of normative ethics is “Doing to
others as we want them to do to us.” Normative ethics also provides justification for
punishing a person who disturbs social and moral order.
3. Meta-Ethics or Analytical Ethics – deals with the origin of the ethical concepts
themselves. It does not consider within action is good or bad. Rather, it questions – what
goodness or rightness or morality itself is? it is basically a highly abstract way of thinking
about ethics. The key theories in meta ethics include naturalism and non-naturalism,
emotivism and prescriptivism.
  Naturalists and non-naturalists believe that moral language is cognitive and can be
known to be true or false.
 Emotivists deny that moral utterances cognitive, holding that they consist of
emotional expressions of approval or disapproval and that the nature of moral
reasoning and justifications must be reinterpreted to take this essential characteristic
of moral utterances into account.
 Prescriptivism takes a somewhat similar approach, arguing that moral judgments are
prescriptions or prohibitions of action rather than statements of fact about the world.

3. Applied Ethics deals with philosophical examination from a moral standpoint of particular
issues in private or public life which are matters of moral judgment. This branch of ethics
is not important for professionals is different values of life including doctors, teachers,
lawyers, soldiers, rulers, and so on.
There are six key domains of applied ethics:
 Division ethics – ethical divisions making process
 Professional ethics – for good professionalism
 Clinical ethics – for good clinical process
 Business ethics – for good business process
 Organizational ethics – within and among organizations
 Social ethics – deals with the rightness or wrongness of social, economical, cultural,
religious issues. For example euthanasia, child labor, abortion, drug addiction, etc.

Three Schools of Ethics

1. Virtue Ethics – how to line your life
Some main principles:
 Aspiring to a set of virtues
 a set of virtues
 Integrity is a primary value
 Finding the right balance within and between values

2. Consequentialist Ethics – is it good?

Some main principles:
 Actions aim at bringing about the greatest good for the greatest number of people
 Benevolence is a primary value

3. Deontological Ethics – is it right?

Some main principles:
 Aiming at ethical principles through reason
 Reasons must be consistent and coherent
 Having a duty to others based on ethical principles
 Respecting the autonomy of ethics is a primary value

These three schools of ethics are tools for thinking about morality

Principles of Ethics
 Beneficence • Request for autonomy
 Efficiency • Health Maximisation

 Justice
 Non maleficence
 Profortionality