GECETH (Ethics)

REVIEWER - ENDTERM EXAMINATION

*According to Aristotle, being morally good is a process of getting used to doing the proper act. (correct)

*Practical wisdom does not involve learning from experiences. (Incorrect)

*Eudaimonia - older individuals would agree that the highest purpose and the ultimate good of man is
happiness, which the Greeks refer as

*The duty to hear mass on Sundays and to pay taxes are examples of Positive Duty.

*Perfect duty - The kind of duty which obliges one under strict justice such as the payment of a just wage.

*Autonomy - It refers to self-legislating or leading one’s life according to reasons, values or desires that are
authentically one’s own.

*The ultimate goal of a man is Happiness.

*Categorical Imperative - Immanuel Kant provides a procedural way of identifying the rightness or wrongness
of an action

*Arbitrium brutum - It refers to the set of human compulsions for survival and the propagation of the species
which Kant calls set of actions that are caused by sensible impulse of animal choice or ________.

*Deontology falls within the domain of moral theories that guide and assess our choices of what we ought to
do in contrast to those that guide and assess what kind of person we are and should be. (correct)

*Universalizability - states that the only morally acceptable maxims of our actions are those that could
rationally be willed to be universal law.

*Heteronomy - The simple legislation and imposition of a law by an external authority.

*Man and Historical Action which explained that an individual a product of cross points or many forces
written by Ramon Reyes.

*Interpersonal - One of the 4 cross points that influence the identity of the individual in his/her interaction
with people like parents, sibling, workmates.

*Natural Duty - The duty to preserve or uphold human life

*Imperfect duty - The duty which obligate a person from the standpoint of charity or other virtues.

*Vegetative - The aspect of the soul that follows the natural processes involved in the physical activities and
growth of a person.

*Sexual impulse is part of the Appetitive aspect of the soul that naturally runs counter to reason and most of
the time refuses to go along with reason.

*Intellectual - An aspect of rational faculty which concerns the act of knowing.

*Cowardice - the deficiency of courage in terms of feelings and passions.

*Impulsiveness - is considered as the excess of self-control in terms of feelings and passions.

Viewed objectively, duty means anything that ought to be done or omitted. Subjectively, duty means the
moral obligation of a person to respect the rights of others. As a moral obligation, duty binds the will or it is
laid on the will.

Duty may come in six kinds namely, natural, positive, affirmative, negative, perfect, and imperfect.

A natural duty is one imposed by the natural law such as the duty to preserve human life.

Positive duty is one which comes from positive law such as the duty to hear mass on Sundays and to pay taxes.

Affirmative duty refers to the moral obligation to do an act.

Negative duty refers to the moral obligation of a person to avoid or omit something an example of which is “
do not steal”.

A perfect duty is one which obliges one under strict justice such as the payment of a just wage.

Lastly, an imperfect duty is one which does not obligate a person from the standpoint of justice, but from the
standpoint of charity or other virtues. Giving donations during calamities can be a perfect example.

The word deontology derives from the Greek words for duty (deon) and science (or study) of (logos). In
contemporary moral philosophy, deontology is one of those kinds of normative theories regarding which
choices are morally required, forbidden, or permitted. In other words, deontology falls within the domain of
moral theories that guide and assess our choices of what we ought to do (deontic theories), in contrast to
those that guide and assess what kind of person we are and should be (aretaic [virtue] theories). And within
the domain of moral theories that assess our choices, deontologists—those who subscribe to deontological
theories of morality—stand in opposition to consequentialists (Stanford).

*Autonomy Kant claims that the property of the rational will is autonomy, which is the opposite of
heteronomy. Autonomy refers to self-law and (or self-legislating ) and heteronomy means other law

Happiness and Ultimate Purpose

According to Aristotle, an act a person does is directed toward a particular purpose, aim or what the Greeks
called telos. A person’s action manifests a good that one aspires for. Every pursuit of a person hopes to
achieve a good. A person pursues a career, aiming for the good, that is, to provide a better future for one’s
family. Therefore, the good is considered to be the telos or purpose for which all acts seek to achieve.
According to Aristotle, older individuals would agree that the highest purpose and the ultimate good of man is
happiness, or for the Greeks, eudaimonia. One can therefore say that happiness seems to fit the first criterion
of being the final end of a human being. But one should remember that if one accumulates wealth, for
example, one would want to have not just richness but also power and other desirable things as well, such as
honor and pleasures.

Below shows some of the virtues and vices:

Middle: Self-control, Courage, Liberality

Deficiency: Indecisiveness, Cowardice Meanness

Aristotle identifies the virtue of courage as the middle, in between the vices of being coward and reckless. Cowardice is
a deficiency in terms of feelings and passions. This means that one lacks the capacity to muster enough bravery of
carrying herself appropriately in a given situation. Recklessness, on the other hand, is an excess in terms of one’s
feelings and passions. In this regard, one acts with a surplus of guts that she overdoes an act in such rashness and
without any deliberation. The virtue of having courage is being able to act daringly enough but able to weigh up possible
implications of such act that she proceeds with caution.
*Suggest a pressing issue that concerns you the most at this time. Then, reflect and apply the concepts
learned in Module 6 in making ethical conclusion or decision.
Brief discussion of Module 6
According to Reyes, “ who one is “ is also a project for one’s self. This happens because a human individual has freedom.
This freedom is not absolute: one does not become something because one chooses to be. Even if one wants to fly, she
cannot, unless she finds a way to invent a device that can help her do so. This finite freedom means that one has the
capacity to give herself a particular direction in life according to her own ideal self. Thus, for one’s existence is in the
intersection between the fact that one’s being is a product of many forces outside her choosing and her ideal future for
herself. Ethics plays a big role of forming one’s self. What one ought to do in one’s life is not dictated by one’s physical,
interpersonal, social, or historical conditions. Using Reyes’ philosophical lens, we can now focus on one of the major
issues in ethical thought: What is the relationship between ethics and one’s own culture? Culture and Ethics

A common opinion many people hold is that one’s culture dictates what is right or wrong for an individual. For such
people, saying “ when in Rome, do as the Romans do” by St. Ambrose applies to deciding on moral issues. This quote
implies that one’s culture is inescapable, that is, one has to look into the standards of her society to resolve all her
ethical questions with finality. How one relates to oneself, society and other elements with the natural world are all
predetermined by her membership in her society and culture.

Filipino traits sometimes end up as empty stereotypes, especially since one may be hard put to think if any other culture
does not exhibit such traits. Such example is hospitality, where it is manifested differently among Filipinos and Chinese.
Thus, to simply say that there is a “ Filipino way “ of doing things, remains a matter for discussion. We hear claims from
time to time that “ Americans “ are individualistic; Filipinos are communal,” a supposed difference that grounds, for
some people, radically different sets of moral values. But one may ask: Is there really any radical difference between one
culture’s moral reasoning and another’s? Or do all cultures share in at least some fundamental values and that the
differences are not on the level of value but on the level of its manifestation in the context of different socio-
historicalcultural dimensions? One culture, because of its particular history, may construct hospitality in a particular way
and manifest it in its own customs and traditions. Yet, both cultures honor hospitality

The Value of Studying Ethical Theories or Frameworks What then is the role of ethical theories or frameworks in the
continuing cultivation of one’s capacity for moral choice? These ethical theories or 61 frameworks may serve as
guideposts, given that they are the best attempts to understand morality that the history of human thought has to offer.
As guideposts, they can shed light on many important considerations, though of course not all, in one’s quest to answer
the twin questions of “ What ought I to do?” and “ Why ought I to do so? “

Utilitarianism pays tribute to the value of impartiality, arguing that an act is good if it will bring about the greatest good
for the greatest number of those affected by the action, and each one of those affected should be counted as one, each
equal to each. Utilitarianism, arguably, puts more value on the notion of “ common good “ compared to any of the other
ethical frameworks we have covered

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