ETHICS and SOCIETY
REPORT BY : Jasten Jay Jayme
Junel Carampatanta
Heartcel Villaflor
SOCIETY
a community, nation, or broad grouping of people having
common traditions, institutions, and collective activities
and interests.
- three sectors: the public sector (government), private
sector (business enterprises) and civil society (non-profit
organizations).
Greece is a good place to start a discussion of the
concept of society (Frisby and Sayer, 1986)The Greeks did
not have a separate word for society, but referred to society
in combination with references to community and
association (koinonia). This word was used both within the
political as well as a household context and already
contains an ethical dimension since a relationship with the
concept of justice is implied. Of course, the fact that only
those who were not slaves were deemed qualified to
discuss these matters also illustrates some interesting
ethical dimensions about freedom which were not apparent
at the time.
All the main ethical theories can be applied to different
actions within or dimensions of society. Some of the most
popular and well-known normative theories are utilitarianism,
where ethical decisions are made based on an assessment
of the likely consequences of an action; deontology, where
decisions are made based on rights and duties; ethics of
care, where morality depends on care for the wellbeing of
others; and virtue ethics, where the focus is not on assessing
the action, but rather the individual involved.
Within the secular tradition, the idea of a social contract is
critical to understanding the concept of society. In essence,
a social contract comprises the voluntary agreement of
individuals for society to be regulated in a way that would
benefit both society and individuals, based on the ethical
dimensions of justice and fairness. The social contract has
been defined as follows: “people live together in society
in accordance with an agreement that establishes
moral and political rules of behavior’’. Some people
believe that if we live according to a social contract, we can
live morally by our own choice and not because a divine
being requires it” (Ethics Unwrapped, 2018).
Greek Philosophers
The 17th Century English philosopher
Thomas Hobbes is now widely
regarded as one of a handful of truly
great political philosophers, whose
masterwork Leviathan rivals in
significance the political writings of
Plato, Aristotle, Locke, Rousseau,
Kant, and Rawls.
Thomas Hobbes
Hobbes is famous for his early and
elaborate development of what has
come to be known as “social contract
theory”, the method of justifying
political principles or arrangements by
appeal to the agreement that would be
made among suitably situated rational,
free, and equal persons.
Thomas Hobbes
John Locke (1632–1704) is among the
most influential political philosophers of
the modern period. In the Two Treatises
of Government, he defended the claim
that men are by nature free and equal
against claims that God had made all
people naturally subject to a monarch.
He argued that people have rights, such
as the right to life, liberty, and property,
that have a foundation independent of
the laws of any particular society.
John Locke
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) is the
central figure in modern philosophy. He
synthesized early modern rationalism
and empiricism, set the terms for much
of nineteenth and twentieth century
philosophy, and continues to exercise a
significant influence today inmetaphysics,
epistemology, ethics, political philosophy,
aesthetics, and other fields.
Immanuel Kant
The fundamental idea of Kant’s “critical
philosophy” - especially in his three Critiques:
the Critique of Pure Reason (1781, 1787), the
Critique of Practical Reason (1788), and the
Critique of the Power of Judgment (1790) - is
human autonomy. He argues that the human
understanding is the source of the general
laws of nature that structure all our experience;
and that human reason gives itself the moral
law, which is our basis for belief in God,
freedom, and immortality (Rohlf, 2016)
Immanuel Kant
Jean-Jacques Rousseau remains an important
figure in the hist ory of philosophy, bot h
because of his contributions to political
philosophy and moral psychology and because
of his influence on later thinkers. Rousseau’s
own view of philosophy and philosophers was
firmly negative, seeing philosophers as the
post-hoc rationalizers of self-interest, as
apologists for various forms of tyranny, and as
playing a role in the alienation of the modern
individual from humanity’s natural impulse to Jean-Jacques
compassion. Rousseau
The concern that dominates Rousseau’s work
is to find a way of preserving human freedom
in a world where human beings are
increasingly dependent on one another for the
satisfaction of their needs (Bertram, 2017).
Jean-Jacques
Rousseau
JUSTICE and
FAIRNESS
John Rawls - was an American political philosopher in
the liberal tradition. His theory of justice as
fairness describes a society of free citizens
holding equal basic rights and cooperating
within an egalitarian economic system. His
theory of political liberalism explores the
legitimate use of political power in a
democracy, and envisions how civic unity
might endure despite the diversity of
worldviews that free institutions allow. His
writings on the law of peoples set out a
liberal foreign policy that aims to create a
permanently peaceful and tolerant
international order.
Justice
- means giving each person what he or she deserves or, in
more traditional terms, giving each person his or her due.
Justice and fairness are closely related terms that are often
today used interchangeably. There have, however, also
been more distinct understandings of the two terms. While
justice usually has been used with reference to a standard
of rightness.
Fairness
- often has been used with regard to an ability to judge
without reference to one's feelings or interests; fairness has
also been used to refer to the ability to make judgments that
are not overly general but that are concrete and specific
to a particular case. In any case, a notion of being treated
as one deserves is crucial to both justice and fairness.
Principles of Justice
The most fundamental principle of justice one that has
been widely accepted since it was first defined by Aristotle
more than two thousand years ago--is the principle that
“equals should be treated equally and unequals unequally."
In its contemporary form, this principle is sometimes
expressed as follows: “Individuals should be treated the
same, unless they differ in ways that are relevant to the
situation in which they are involved."
Distributive Justice
refers to the extent to which society's
institutions ensure that benefits and burdens
are distributed among society's members in
ways that are fair and just.
Retributive Justice
refers to the extent to which punishments are
fair and just. In general, punishments are held
to be just to the extent that they take into
account relevant criteria such as the
seriousness of the crime and the intent of the
criminal, and discount irrelevant criteria such as
race.
Restorative Justice
seeks to examine the harmful impact of a crime
and then determines what can be done to repair
that harm while holding the person who caused
it accountable for his or her actions.
