The
Nature
of Ethics
Objectives
• It aims to present the nature of It aims to provide
ethics and its relevant application
principles derived largely
in various human affairs. from various human
It attempt to explain the process actions and judgments.
of ethical thinking, vis a vis,
conclusions drawn from
judgments made concerning
human actions.
2
Introduction to
ethics
One way of introducing
Ethics is to try to begin from
our common sensical notions
of the distinction between
'good' and 'bad', or better
still, of our knowledge of
what is right and what is
wrong.
3
• We use these distinctions to identify the kind of judgments we
give when we look at certain human actions.
• We use them to distinguish the range of actions that are
ethically acceptable to us without prejudice to existing ethical
rules and maxims
• Thus, we say that some actions are good since they are ethically
acceptable while others are bad since they are ethically not
acceptable.
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• The ethical acceptability or unacceptability of actions is
somehow dependent upon our knowledge of the nature of what
is ethical and otherwise.
• Principles, which are formed within the complexity of language and
human affairs.
• We generally base our ethical evaluations upon this complexity
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• How we come to understand these judgments is defined by the
language we are accustomed to use.
• There are of course imperceptible assumptions on this point.
1. We generally assume that language is public and so its
meanings.
2. We likewise assume that language is carried through by a
shared background.
• The way we look at ethics and how we understand the ethical point of
view are matters that maybe attributed to this social context.
• Thus, the social context sets the possible direction of understanding the
nature of the ethical question. 6
The ethical question, if understood fully, does not simply refer to what
actions are ethically acceptable or otherwise and what actions are
ethically praiseworthy or not.
Ethical question can possibly define the extent of one's ethical
knowledge on ethical matters.
While it is true that the understanding of the nature of ethics is limited
by one’s knowledge of ethical principles, one cannot ignore the
importance of ethical reasoning.
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ETHICAL REASONING…..
• Allows one to look after • The articulation of ethical
reasons through which judgment does not only
ethical knowledge is recognize the validity of
founded. established rules but
recognizes also the importance
• It gives access to one’s
of personal values which
deepest values and
provides reasons necessary to
commitments.
make judgments.
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Ethical reasoning….
1. Ethical Ethical reasoning One communicates
reasoning allows allows one to the range of one's
one to extend the identify the ethical knowledge on ethical
horizon of one's question matters by trying to
ethical knowledge, provide demarcation
lines on questions,
which have ethical
significance.
9
Ethical reasoning….
2. Ethical reasoning One grounds one's reasons upon
provides constitution for this set of personal values, in the
one's personal values absence of which, one may fail
and commitments when to
one deals with ethical recognize that such issue is of
issues. ethical significance.
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Ethical reasoning….
3. Ethical reasoning permits one to go beyond the
generally acceptable principles of right conduct by
directing one to carefully assess the ethical
significance or difference of an ethical issue.
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Ethical reasoning….
4. Allows one to look into the significance of other
ethical reasoning made by other persons, through
which one grounds one's respect towards other
ethical point of views.
12
This is not to say however
that the reasons forwarded
are conclusive.
It is a necessity primarily
because our understanding of
ethics is deeply grounded from
the conventional standpoint Trying to arrive at the best
perpetuated by the practices possible ethical reasoning that
lived by the society. one can make when confronted
by an ethical issue.
13
Ethics embodies the principles
necessary to develop, if not
perfect, one's character, in
order to create a certain
modus vivendi or mode of
living.
14
ETHICS PERSONS CHARACTER
15
CHARACTER
Personal Deliberately
determinatio cultivate one’s
n character
16
Possible only if one understands the nature of
one's self as a concrete individual immersed in
the very complexity of human interactions.
Thus, understanding moral rectitude
necessitates an understanding of the person
17
What is in question here is man in all [his]
truth, in [his] full magnitude. We are not
dealing with the abstract man, but the real,
"concrete" historical [man]. We are dealing
with each [man]… in all the unrepeatable
reality of what [he] is and what [he] does of
[his] intellect and will, of [his] conscience and
heart (Francisco, 1995).
Exemplifies the dynamic nature of the rational
PERSON being toward self creation and fulfillment
PERSONAL SUBJECTIVITY
Source of meaning for one's being and acting as
well as for one's essence and existence
INDIVID Reveals the primal nature of man as a
rational being
UAL
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Personal subjectivity….
UNDERSTOOD BEING ACTING
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EXISTING ACTING THE HUMAN
PERSON MUST
BE
HUMAN EXPERIENCE UNDERSTOOD
….
MANIFESTATION OF ONE’S RATIO-
NALITY
21
The primal unity of
[man] and [his] Operari
actions, apparently, sequitur esse
is deeply rooted from
the classical axiom
action follows being
22
The maxim does not
only reveal the
primordial unity of MODUS
being and acting, but VIVENDI
also unfolds….. mode of living
CHARACTER
MAY BE
CREATED
23
The development of Central to this modus
character, as a moral vivendi is the person's
goodness, is marked by ability to discern
one's willingness to (phronesis) what action
persist in doing what to take to allow for the
one thinks is right to generation of one's
the best of one's ability character or better yet
one's person.
24
Action reveals the person, and we look at the person
through [his] action. Action is thereby conceived as a
specific moment of revealing the person. In
experiencing [himself] as a person through actions,
[man] becomes manifest to [himself] as such and this
manifestation happens by an understanding, which
consists in the intellectual apprehension grounded from
the fact that [man] acts in its innumerable recurrences
(Wojtyla, 1979).
25
It makes sense
This is
all the more to
to say simply that
parody Immanuel
moral knowledge
Kant's famous
without moral
dictum that
practice is as
principles without
good as dead or
character are
better still, entirely
impotent and
useless.
character without
principles is blind.
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This is why Ethics primarily deals with human actions.
It is believed that human actions carry the fundamental autonomy of a
person.
In choosing to do an action, whether there are rules of action that must be
obeyed, one always does an action on the basis of one's intention.
The intention to act proceeds from one's deliberate willing to achieve
some end.
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It reveals two significant things:
1. It unfolds that [man] is a rational being, that is, [he]
possesses moral knowledge through which reasons for
actions are grounded.
2. It shows [man]’s freewill, that is, [man] can always, through
[his] intention, shape the form of [his] actions, which is of
course magnified by the means through which [man] chooses
to carry out [his] intention, then achieve the desired end or
result that the action may bring into the community of
actors.
28
There are however, other factors that may affect this dynamism. One,
emotions like fear and pity may indirectly influence, if not wholly affect,
the reason why a person intends to do an action.
Fear and pity diminish the moral knowledge of the person to the point
that the very reason for acting is no longer grounded upon the objective
rules of reason but upon certain inclinations derived from some source
other than reason itself, in this case, from feelings of fear and pity.
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It is therefore imperative to look into the very reason why an action is
done and for what purpose it is anchored.
As thus stated, action is a specific moment of revealing the person
provided that [his] actions are grounded upon the objective rules that
reason gives to itself.
Action then is the only means to uncover the character of the person as
well as one's ethical principles toward the realization of one's modus
vivendi or one's moral rectitude.
30
Character, Moral Judgments and
Moral Standards
In Ethical theory for example, ethical judgments and moral
judgments are used quite synonymously.
Both express values or prescribe certain acceptable behaviors
that are normally associated with praise or blame and with
social reprobation or approbation.
31
Judgments thus, define the extent of one's sense of moral
responsibility and are closely connected to both moral and ethical
evaluations.
Judgment provides distinctive marks between actions that are
morally acceptable and actions that are abhorred.
We generally assume that actions are morally acceptable since they
are consummated within the limits of existing moral principles, that
is, they are done in the realization of some rules of duty or
obligation as dictated by accepted moral principles. 32
On the other hand, judgment constitutes the range of one's moral
sensitivity.
It allows a person to recognize the sort of actions where moral
judgments are necessary and when moral judgments do not apply.
Moral sensitivity means that a person knows what constitutes an
action to be judged as morally permissible or otherwise, that is, one
is capable of picking out the morally significant features of the
actions required of judgments.
33
There are however unstated contingencies in this process:
1. the identification of the morally salient features of
actions necessary for moral evaluations requires moral
perception.
Moral perception refers to one's way of looking at moral
phenomena, at how one perceives moral problems and how one
arrives at resolutions to resolve these problems. This is sometimes
referred to as one’s moral point of view, through which one's moral
sensitivity is developed.
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2. One's moral sensitivity does not prescribe what actions
are morally right or otherwise, it only presents the
morally salient features of actions chosen to achieve
some ends.
Moral sensitivity does not generate duties and obligations. It only
identifies the reasons why they are called duties and obligations.
3. Moral sensitivity depends on one's moral perception or
one's moral point of view.
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4. moral perception is, to a large extent, influenced by the
social context.
The differing judgments about the moral permissibility of an action
depending on the nature of the convention that one lives by or
conforms to.
The virtue of honesty for instance, may be regarded as a cardinal
virtue by some persons and thus has a greater moral weight in this
sense but if perceived differently, honesty may not appear as the
sort of virtue that one is expected to cultivate.
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5. Moral sensitivity, as a constitutive element of moral
perception allows the possibility of competing moral
judgments and hence recognizes the presence of
significant moral standards used for moral evaluations.
The practice of moral sensitivity gives the person access to the
nature of a given moral judgment concerning an action viewed as
the kind of action, which is morally permissible to do. In addition, it
also assists the person to recognize what sort of moral standard one
uses and thus enables the person to discern the origin of the
judgment.
37
1. What is the nature of moral judgments? How are they generated?
2. How is moral evaluation possible?
3. Under what conditions an evaluation is morally necessary?
The answers to these issues may be viewed in two ways:
A. The reasons alluded to in moral judgments are accessible only
to the individual doing the evaluation, which later on magnifies
the range of one's personal values and principles.
The first view thus maybe considered subjective since the standards
for evaluation proceed from one's pool of moral knowledge.
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B. The evaluations made of actions are articulated in language that
has a shared meaning and background.
The standards for evaluation proceed from a common criteria of
moral evaluation shared by the community of moral agents, making
the evaluations, thus, objective since the evaluations make use of
the existence of morally acceptable principles of conduct.
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On the other hand, while the answers may be viewed as both
subjective and objective, one cannot deny that most of the times,
one appeals to the subjective evaluation of conduct creating
eventually a conflict between one's values and the values lived by
the community of moral agents.
Obviously this calls for a set of common criteria for judgment and
evaluation to avoid any possible conflict between one’s moral
perception and the moral point of view upheld by the community of
moral agents.
40
Utilitarian's, for example, equate obligation with what is good.
The concept good thus, is what defines obligation. Here, the
concept good is closely associated with what is beneficial to
oneself, to others and to the community of persons.
Following this principle, it is obvious that the standard for
evaluation rests mainly upon a consequentialist doctrine of
happiness.
41
On the other hand, deontologists do not look at the consequences of
the acts as the measure of what is morally right, instead they look
into the nature of the act itself as well as the motive for performing
the act.
Here, the concept of obligation is defined by what is right rather
than good.
The moral ought, rightness or wrongness is understood to be closely
tied up with moral obligation rather than moral value.
42
This imperative of morality however is possible only through an a
priori knowledge of what is right.
One arrives at this a priori knowledge when one can will that one’s
maxim or volition is universalizable, that is, under relevantly similar
conditions, all men can possibly arrive at the same maxim or
volition.
43
Following Kant, an action is morally right if and only if a) one’s
maxim is universal, b) it can be a universal law of nature, c) it treats
humanity as an end in itself, d) the maxim is made by a will giving-
universal-laws and e) it is a maxim for a possible kingdom of ends.
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On one hand, Kant’s idea of maxim, as it is generated by human
beings, is not a maxim of action. Instead they are maxims that allow
us to generate possible rules or policies. Its function therefore is to
lay down the general principles through which human beings must
anchor their actions. It is not in this sense, a maxim of action.
Actions as such properly belong to the domain and responsibility of
human judgments.
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THANK
S!
GOD BLESS and KEEP SAFE
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