GE 8 – REVIEWER

CHAPTER 1: MAN’S HUMANIZATION OF HIMSELF

Ethics
 derived from the Greek word “ethos” which means custom in singular and
character in plural (ethe)
 as a branch of philosophy, it deals with the study of the morality of human
action
 ethics (morality) is concerned with what we do (custom) and the kind of
person we are (Abel, 1994)
 provides a detailed justification of what makes a particular action good or evil
and prescribes which one to pursue
Morality
 derived from the Latin word “mos”, which means custom in singular and
character in plural (mores)
NATURE OF ETHICS
1. CONVENTIONAL – social consensus
2. LOGICAL
3. PRESCRIPTIVE – tells us which is good and bad
4. NORMATIVE
BRACHES OF ETHICS
1. NORMATIVE – what college students encounter in tertiary education
 Divided into ethical theory and applied ethics
 Includes virtual ethics, utilitarian ethics, duty ethics, and natural law ethics
> Applied ethics – applied to concrete moral issues such as death penalty, animal
rights, environment, child bride, homosexuality, abortion, and other personal/social
issues
2. META-ETHICS
 advanced in content and taken by students taking an in-depth study of moral
philosophy
 concerned with the study of the meaning and epistemological foundations of
moral statements (Maboloc, 2010)
 include moral epistemology, moral semantics, and moral metaphysics
MATERIAL AND FORMAL OBJECT OF ETHICS
Human act – material object of ethics
 an individual’s action can be considered as a human act if it has: Knowledge,
freedom, and free-will
Morality – formal object of ethics
  provides reasons on the moral status of a human act
ETHICS AND RELIGION
 Ethics as a philosophical discipline relies on reason, logic, and experience,
esp. in the justification and validation of theories/principles (Fernandez, 2018)
 Theological ethics assumes that the answers (on moral question) given by
revelation is true (Abel, 1994)
 In assessing the morality of an act, religious believers rely on the scripture,
conscience, and church/religious authorities as the sources of God’s will
Divine will – ultimate source of morality in religion

CHAPTER 2: THE NON-HUMAN ENVIRONMENT

Man deals with three specific environments:
1. Non-human Environment
 Includes everything external to him (except his fellow humans and himself)
 Includes trees, rivers, and animals which are indispensable elements as they
form parts of our resources for survival
2. Human Environment
 Man’s fellow humans with whom he shares the same genetic make-up
 Charles Darwin (survival of the fittest)
3. Inner environment – the world in a human’s mind
 Where humans encounter themselves
 It is metaphysical-the world and he sees it- the way he makes sense of the
two previous environments
Buddhism – condemns the slaughter of animals
Peter Singer
 dreamed of crafting a system of ethical principles to cater for issues
concerning our treatment of the animals
 debunk SPECIESISM (a prejudice or attitude of bias in favor of the interest of
member of one’s own species and against those of members of other
species)
 contends that speciesism is no different from racism and sexism
Carl Cohen - countered Peter Singer’s ideas
 argues that animals have no rights because they do not have the mental or
intellectual faculty for a deliberate moral judgement
CHAPTER 3: MAN AND THE NATURAL WORLD
Duty Ethics – by Immanuel Kant
  it is considered immoral to treat others as mere instrument for whatever ends
the moral agent might possess in his mind
Anthropocentric Environmental Ethics
 an approach to environmentalism most common of all the paradigms of
dealing with the environment, especially by the modern consumerist society
like ours
 assumes that moral obligation to the environment is essentially a function of
human interest (Mappes and Zembaty, 1977)
 things are only valuable because they serve human interest
 Anthro (human) and centric (center), it is human centered
Biocentric Environmental Ethics
 Proponents of biocentric ethic consider all life forms to be inherently valuable
 Bio (life) and centric (center), it is life centered
Environmental Ethics – young branch of applies ethics
 Branch of philosophy that emerged as new response to the growing number
of human activities that contribute to the gradual delay of the environment
 Traced ack to the first Earth Day in 1970 when environmentalist urged
philosophers involved in environmental groups to do something about the
environmental problems and issues
Deep Ecology
 From the popularity of the works of Arne Naess, Bill Devall, and George
Seasons
 Coined by Naess in the article “The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range
Ecology Movement (1973)”

BASIC PRINCIPLES OF DEEP ECOLOGY (Mappes and Zembatty, 1977)

1. The well-being and flourishing of human and non-human Life on Earth have
value in themselves (intrinsic or inherent value). These values are independent
of the usefulness of the nonhuman world for human purposes.
2. Richness and diversity of life forms contribute to the realization of these
values and are also values in themselves.
3. Humans have no right to reduce this richness and diversity except to satisfy
vital needs.
4. The flourishing of human life and cultures is compatible with a substantial
decrease of human population. The flourishing of nonhuman life requires such
a decrease.
5. Present human interference with the nonhuman world is excessive, and the
situation is rapidly worsening.
6. Policies must therefore be changed. The policies affect basic economic,
technological, and ideological structures. The resulting state of affairs will be
deeply different from the present.
7. The ideological change is mainly that of appreciating life quality (dwelling in
situation of inherent value) rather than adhering to an increasing higher
standard of living. There will be a profound awareness of the difference
between big and great.
8. Those who subject to the foregoing points have an obligation directly or
indirectly to try to implement the necessary change.

CHAPTER 4: MAN AND THE SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT

Selfishness
 Highlights the advancement of personal interest at the expense of the publics
 It is a necessity that genes always consider its interest in survival purposes
(Richard Dawkins)
Buddha: “Bad deeds, and deeds hurtful to ourselves are easy to do; what is
beneficial and good, that is very difficult to do.”
Immanuel Khant, Martin Bauber, Levinas, John Rawls
 Philosophers famous for philosophical tenets concerning one’s responsibility
towards the human environment
 Their central tenets prove to defy man’s natural inclinations as biological
beings
Classical moral theory – all about how to be good with others
 The action of humans is referred to as the human which moral agent performs
freely (freedom), knowingly (knowledge), and voluntarily (voluntariness).
Freedom, knowledge, and voluntariness
 essential attributes of the human act
 the absence of any of them renders an act detective and it has a significant
repercussion to its moral status
Examples:
Lack of knowledge: A five-year-old child who writes I love you, Daddy on his
father’s luxury car using a screwdriver.
Lack of freedom: A whistle blower who recants previous statement because of
death threat.
Lack of voluntariness: A cashier who reluctantly hands over the cash to the
robber at a gun point.
  The preceding situations demonstrate the significance of the attributes of the
human acts to its immutability. It means that the moral responsibility of a
person is directly dependent on those attributes.
 A person can’t be held morally responsible of his or her action/s if one
attribute is lacking.
Modifiers (of the human act)
 Factors that negatively alter the essential attributes to the human act
 With respect to affected ignorance, these factors either lessen or removes
complete knowledge, freedom, or voluntariness, and when they do, the moral
agent’s moral responsibility is affected.
Ex: A law enforcer intended to shoot at the assailant but would not have done so
without the fear of being killed in the exercise of his duty.
 Fear modifies the human act (shooting) of the law enforcer. It significantly
affected the voluntariness of his action
Knowledge – one’s true awareness about something
Ignorance – absence of awareness or knowledge
TYPES OF IGNORANCE:
1. INVINCIBLE IGNORANCE
 Characterized by the agent’s incapability (being blind) to know traffic rules as
signified by the traffic signs and lights
 Renders the act involuntary, thus, the agent is free from moral liability
 Ex: Blind pedestrian crosses pedestrian, thus, causes traffic mishaps
2. VINCIBLE IGNORANCE
 The agent acted out of ignorance but should have avoided it with due
diligence
 “Vincible Ignorance does not destroy, but lessens the voluntariness and the
corresponding accounrability over the act.” (Glenn, 1965)
3. AFFECTED IGNORANCE – mostly used for self-protection
 It decreases voluntariness but it increases the accountability over the
resultant act. (Agapay, 1991)
 The malice is greater when the ignorance is used as an excused for not doing
the right thing. (Agapay, 1991)
 Therefore, anyone who acted out of affected ignorance is fully responsible for
his or her deed.
Emotions
 In moral philosophy, emotions propel an individual to act called as “passion”
Passions
  psychic reactions with which we respond to the stimuli within or without us
 emotions like desire, hatred, despair, fear, etc. which are subjected to moral
assessment as we do with our reason-based actions
Way to determine the morality of an action (stirred up because of passion):
 determine the deed consummated
 determine the underlying passion involved
 determine the type of passion – whether antecedent or consequent
TYPE OF PASSION:
1. Antecedent Passions
 those that precede that act (in both cases is anger) which aroused the woman
to thrash the invader
 catches the moral agent off guard because it is an instantaneous reaction to
the perceived danger
 the action incited by antecedent passion is involuntary, therefore, the agent
has a lesser moral liability
*Antecedent passions do not always destroy voluntariness, but they diminish
accountability for the resultant act.” (Panizo, 1964)
2. Consequent Passion
 a passion that is intentionally aroused or when an individual nurses it and
does something out of it
 “Consequent Passions do not lessen voluntariness, but may even increase
accountability.” (Panizo, 1964)
 What makes the agent morally liable when prompted to act under consequent
passion is that he consents to his passion and deliberately commits further
evil deed.
*The difference between antecedent and consequent passion is in the exercise of
consent over the action incited by the psychic reactions with the stimuli.

Konrad Lorenz (1963)

 Identified four major instincts in mammals, one is the “instinct of flight.”
Instinct of flight
 Manifested in the animal’s natural tendency to avoid danger-whether real or
perceived
 In this context, fear plays a vital role to play for an animal to thrive
Fear
 Moralists, in the classical moral philosophy, identify fear as psychic response
that modifies the moral status of an act
  It is the disturbance of the mind of a person who is confronted by an
impending danger or harm to himself or loved ones. (Agapay, 1991)

PRINCIPLES ON FEAR AND ACCOMPANYING MORAL RESPONSIBILITY OF
THE MORAL AGENT (AGAPAY, 1991):
1. Acts done with fear are voluntary.
2. Acts done out of fear, however, great, is simply voluntary, although it is also
conditionally voluntary.
3. Acts done because of intense fear or panic are involuntary.

VIOLENCE
 any physical force exerted on a person by another free agent for the purpose
of compelling said person to act against his will (Agapay, 1991)
 Violent acts are the experience of the sensation of pain and accompanied by
intense fear for one’s life.

2 PRINCIPLES CONCERNING VIOLENCE (GLENN, 1965)

1. External actions, or commanded actions, performed by a person subjected
to violence, to which reasonable resistance has been offered, are involuntary
and are not accountable. Panizo (1964) says active resistance should always be
offered to an unjust aggressor. The underlying reason for such emphasis is to make
sure the victim was left with no other choice but to succumb to the aggressor’s
command.
- The first principle answers the question whether a person subjected to
violence has a moral culpability. The principle makes it clear that violence removes
the agent’s freedom to choose to act within the bounds of his will, thus, making him
morally unaccountable.
2. Elicited acts, or those done by the will alone, are not subject to violence and
are therefore voluntary.
- The second principle states that the person who acted on his own volition on
an evil deed, without being inflicted with any form of violence, is morally accountable.
This is because according to Haring (1981), as mentioned by Agapay (1991) “the will
insofar as it is spiritual faculty is not within the reach of violence.”

HABIT
 Lasting readiness and facility, born of frequently repeated acts, for acting in a
certain manner (Glenn, 1965)
 It does not alter the knowledge or the freedom of the individual acting on it.
  Habits are voluntary in cause, because they are the result of previously willed
acts done repeatedly as a matter of fact. (Agapay, 1991)
*The individual doing a bad habit is morally accountable. However, when the
same individual becomes aware of his evil habit and willfully prevents himself from
exhibiting it, but fail all the same, he may not be held responsible for his action. This
is due to the reason that such habit emanates from within against his will. (Glenn,
1965)

DETERMINANTS OF MORALITY
1. Act in itself.
2. Motive – the moral agent intends to achieve within the act
3. Circumstance
*An act, to be good in classical moral theory should be flawless in all there of the
determinants. All determinants should be good.

THE ACT IN ITSELF AND THE MOTIVE

 The “act in itself” is the deed instrumental in carrying out the doer’s motive
 “The end does not justify the means.” The end means that which the doer
desires to achieve through the act, or the “motive” for doing something.

THE CIRCUMSTANCES
 Circumstances are factors accidental (actions take place with, or without
them) to both the act in itself and the motive of the doer.
 Circumstances answers to the who, how, where, when, why, and with
whom of an act as it takes place within a definite space and time.
Who – refers primarily to the doer and the receiver of the act
 Includes the age, status, relation, family background, educational attainment,
health and socio-economic situation of the person or persons involved in an
act
What – refers to the act itself and to the quality and quantity of the results of such act
Where – refers to the place where the act is committed
With whom – refers to the companion or accomplices in an act performed
 Includes the number and status of the person involved
 The more people are involved in the commission of an act, the greater and
serious is the crime.
Why – refers to the motive of the doer
How – refers to the manner how the act is made possible
When – refers to the time of the act
 A murder committed when the victim is sleeping is more offensive than one
done when the victim was wide awake.