CHAPTER 1 Example:taste in clothes or taste in music

What is Ethics? 2. Etiquette

-concerned with ‘right' or ‘wrong’ actions, but those which might be not considered grave
Ethics, generaly speaking,is about matters such as the good thing that we should pursue and enough to belong to a discussion on ethics.
the bad thing that we should avoid;the right ways in which we could or should act and the
wrong ways of acting. It is about what is acceptable and unacceptable in human behavior.It Example: Knock before entering a room
may involve obligations that we are expected to fullfill, prohibitions that we are required to 3. Technical
respect, or ideals that we are encouraged to meet. Derive from the Greek word techne. The English words “technique“ and “technical“ which
Ethics- comes from the Greek word ethos. are often used to refer to a proper way (or right way) of doing things.

– is a science of conduct Example: Basketball techniques

- deal with standards of goodness

- is a normative science. ETHICS AND MORALS

- determines the rightness or wrongness of human actions Moral

Ethos – means character May be used to refer to specific beliefs or attitudes that people have or to describe acts that
people perform.
Mores- customs
Normative science – deals with standards Immoral
Ethics as a subject for us to study is about determining the grounds for the values with An act that falls short of behaving properly.
particular and special significance to human life.
Moral Judgement or Moral Reasoning – suggest a more rational aspect.

Ethics
CLARIFICATIONS AND TERMINOLOGY
Can be spoken of as discipline of studying and understanding ideal human behavior and ideal
Recognizing the notions of good and bad, and right and wrong, are the primary concern of
ways of thinking. Thus, ethics is acknowledged as an intellectual descipline belonging to
ethics.
philosophy.
Kinds of valuation
Professional Ethics – acceptable and unacceptable ways of behaving in a given field.
Our first point of clarification is to recognize that there are instances when we makevalue
judgments that are not considered to be part of ethics

1. Aesthetic
-Derived from the greek word aisthesis ‘sense’ or ‘feeling’ Philisophy
-refers to the judgments of personal approval or disapproval that we make about what we see, -Rooted in the greek words that translate to ‘Love of wisdom’ which are philia and sophia.
hear, smell, or taste.
-Philia; noun translated to english as ‘friendship’ or ‘love’.
-We often use the word “taste”to refer to the personal aesthetic preferences that we have on -Sophia; noun translated to english as ‘Wisdom’
matters.
-Philosophy had been first used by thinkers to refer to their striving to better understand
reality in a maintained and systematic manner . Moral Dilemma

-Historically speaking , philosophy started among the ancient Greeks around two and a half One is torn between choosing one of two goods or choosing between the lesser evil.
thousand years ago
Reasoning
Branches or Areas of Philosophy Why do we suppose that a certain way of acting is right and its opposite wrong?
Metaphysics- wonder as to what constitutes the whole of reality A persons fear of punishment or Desire for reward can provide that person a reason for acting
in a certain way.
Epistemology- asks what is our basis for determining what we know
Is this reason good enough?
Axiology- study of value
That is to say, this way of thinking seems to be a shallow way of understanding reason
because it does not show any true understanding of why cheating in an exam is wrong or why
voting for him is good.
Descriptive Study of Ethics
-reports how people, particularly groups, make their moral valuations without making any
Promise of rewards and fear of punishment
judgment either for or against these valuations.
Can motivate us to act, but not a determinant of the rightness or wrongness of a certain act.
-simply noting
Example: historian, sociologist or anthropologists
Principles
Rationally established grounds by which one justifies and maintains her moral decisions and
Normative Study of Ethics judgment.
Study of ethics as is often done in philosophy or moral theology. Engages the question: What
could or should be considered as the right way of acting? Moral theory
-What we ought to maintain as our standards or bases for moral valuation. A systematic attempt to establish the walidity of maintaining certain moral principles.
-studying Can also be reffered to as framework

Moral Issues Framework

A theory of interconnected ideas
Distinguish a situation that calls for moral valuation.
Plato
Often used to refer to those particular situations that are often the source of considerable and A greek thinker credited as one of the pioneers of Philosophy.
inconclusive debate. Started a school known as Academy and is believed to be the first institution of higher
Moral Decision learning in the Western world.

When one is placed in a situation and confronted by the choice of what act to perform. The Apology of Socrates
Written by Plato, socrates makes the claim that it is the greatest good for a person to spend
time thinking about and discussing with others these questions on goodness and virtue.
Moral Judgement
When a person is an observer who makes an assessment of the actions or behavior of
someone, that person is making a moral judgment. Sources of Authority
1.Law Third, we understood that, as a result of cultural relativism, we are unable to pass judgment
on practice or even our own culture.
 Law is one's guide to ethical behavior
 It is enforced by a way of system and sanctions Fourth, perhaps the most obvious contemporary difficulty with cultural relativism is that we
 Basis to determine what is right and what is wrong can only maintain it by adhering to perceptions of culture as a single clearly defined
 One point to be raised is the prohibitive nature of law.The law does not tell us what substance or as something fixed and already determined. It is always possible to find
we should do; it works by constraining us from performing acts we should not do. examples of a particular culture having a unique practice or way of light and distinguishing it
from the practices of other cultures.
Positive law – different rules and regulations that are posited or put forward by an authority
figure that require compliance.
SENSES OF THE SELF
Religion
 The foundation of ethical values is the DIVINE COMMAND THEORY
 Presence of multiplicity of religion results conflict 1.SUBJECTIVISIM

The starting point of subjectivism is the recognition that the individual thinking person is at
Euthypro by Plato – discussed the problem where one requires the believer to clarify her
the heart of all moral valuations.
understanding of the connection between ethics and the Divine.
Claims that an individual is the sole dterminant of what is morally good or bad
 Natural law by Thomas Aquinas
"No one can tell me what is right and wrong"
Culture
"No one knows my situation better than myself“
 People acts Based on their belief
"I am entitled to my own opinion“
 Variety of culture is the reality of diversity
"It is good If I say that it is good".
 Cultural relativism.

Cultural relativism 2.PSYCHOLOGICAL EGOISM

A theory that describes the underlying dynamic behind all human actions.
-States that what is ethically acceptable or unacceptable is relative to, or that is to say, It points out that there is already an underlying basis for how one acts.
dependent on one’s culture.
-is founded on the concept that everyone is different since they have distinct moral codes. Strong points of Psychological Egoism
There is no such thing as wrong or right.
 Simplicity
 Plausibility
Criticisms of Cultural Relativisim
3.ETHICAL EGOISM
First, the argument of cultural relativisim is premised on the reality of difference.Because Prescribes that we should make our own ends , our own interests, as the single overriding
different cultures have different moral codes, we cannot say one moral code is the right one. concern.
Second, under cultural relativism, we recognize that we are not in a position to pass any kind Normative ethical position that moral agents ought to do what is in their own self-interest.
of judgment on the practices of another culture. For example, what if a particular african tribe The Republic
decides that it is advantageous and thus right for them to wipe out the neighboring people
through a terrible genocide? Written by Plato
Plato’s response to the assertion that one should only care about one’s own interests.  Pain
Characters are engaged in a discussion about justice. These masters are given to us by nature to help us determine what is good or bad and what
ought to be done and not; they fasten our choices to their throne.

Chapter 2 PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY

-Is about our subjection to these sovereign masters: pleasure and pain
UTILITARIANISM
-came from the root word, utility, which means the usefulness of the consequences of one’s Principle
action.
- is an ethical theory that argues the goodness of pleasure and the determination of the right -Refers to the motivation of our actions as guides by our avoidance of pain and our desire for
behavior based on the usefulness of the action.This means that pleasure is good and that the pleasure
goodness of an action is dtermined by its usefulness.
Pleasure- is a general term for good feelings.
-consequentialist Pain - signal in your nervous system that something may be wrong.

JOHN STUART MILL (1806-1873)

-was born on May 20, 1806 in Pentoville, London, United Kingdom
-he was the son of James Mill, a friend and disciple of Jeremy Bentham
- he wrote a history of Roman Law at age eleven, and suffered a nervous breakdown at the
Two Utilitarian Thinkers
age of twenty.
Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) - he was married to Harriet Taylor
-born on February 15, 1748
-His ethical theory and his defense of utilitarian views are found in his long essay entitled
-first wrote about the greatest happiness of ethics and was known for a system of penal “UTILITARIANISM” (1861)
management called panopticon. -Mill died on May, 1873 in Avigron, France from erysipelas
-On his death on June 6, 1832 to the university college lundon, where his auto- icon is in
public display up to this day serve as his memorial.
John Stuart Mill
-supports Bentham’s principle of utility
For Bentham and Mill, utility refers to the way of understanding the result of people’s
actions. -He reiterates moral good as happiness and happiness as pleasure.
-He argues that we do things because we find them pleasurable and we avoid things because
they are painful.
THE PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY
-Quality is more preferable than quantity.
In the book an Introduction to the Principles of Moral and Legislation (1789), Jeremy
Bentham begins by arguing that our actions are governed by two “sovereign masters:
 Pleasure Theory of Life
-natural moral preferability of pleasure according to Bentham -Take precendence over legal rights
-personal rights
Felicific Calculus

-Is a common currency framework that calculates the pleasure that some actions can produce Base Pleasures
in this framework, an action can be evaluated on the basis of intensity of strength pleasure -also called as lower pleasure which refers to the animalistic desires
duration or length of the experience of pleasure.
- these indicators allows us to measure pleasure and pain in action
Higher Plelasures
- it also allows the evaluation of aactions and and their resultant pleasure.This means that
-are those that can only be experienced by humans.
actions are evaluated on thuscaleregardless regardless of preferenceand values.
The most famous quote in Mill's Utilitarianism :

- it is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied: better to be Socrates

dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool or the pig is of a different opinion,it is CHAPTER 3 : NATURAL LAW
because they only know their own side of the question. The other party to the comparison
knows both side.
The Context of the Christian Story
** Utilitarianism is interested with the best consequence for the highest number of people.

 The fundamental truth maintained and elaborated by Aquinas in all his works is the
Justice and moral rights promise right at the center of the Christian Faith : that we are created by God in order
to return to Him.
What is a right?  Summa Theologiae of Aquinas follows this trajectory of this story

Mill understand justice as a respect for rights directed toward society's pursuit for the greatest
number.
Three Parts of Summa Theologiae
Rights are a valid claim on society and are justified by utility.
1. Aquinas speaks of God

Legal Rights
2. Deals with the man or the dynamic of human life
3. Focusses on Jesus as our Savior
-neither inviobale nor natural
-an interest accepted and protected by the law.
Thomas Aquinas

Moral Rights  Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church

 Dominican friar
 2. Formal Cause – The “shape” that makes a being a particular kind can be called its
The Context of Aquinas’ Ethics form
3. Efficient Cause – There is something which brings about the presence of another
 The Christian Life , therefore , is about developing the capacities given to us by God being.
into a disposition of virtue inclined toward the good.
 Aquinas also puts forward that there is within us as a conscience that directs our
4. Final Cause – a being has an apparent end or goal
moral thinking.
 Identifying these four cases gives a way to understand any being.

Natural Law
 Creation is the activity of the outpouring or overflowing of God’s goodness.
 A clearer basis of ethics
 A ground that will more concreteky direct our sense of what is right and wrong  The unique way that we have been created can be called our nature.

ESSENCE AND VARIETIES OF LAW

The Greek Heritage

Common Good
Neoplatonic Good
-Considering what is good for the community as well as our own good
 God creates
 Plato is credited for giving the subsequent history of Philosophy Law
 Plato’s The Republic envision the ideal society.
- Determination of proper measure of our acts
Neoplatonists
Eternal Law
-scholars who turned to Plato’s texts and tried to decipher the wealth of ideas contained there.
- Refers to what God wills for creation, how each participant in it is intended to return
-In their hands, Plato’s idea of the good, which is the source of all beings, becomes identified to Him
with the One and the Beautiful.
Natural Law

- Participation of the eternal law in the rational creature

Aristotelian Being and Becoming
Human Law
-refers to all instances wherein human beings construct and enforce laws in their
Four Concepts which provide way of understanding any particular / Four Causes communities.
1. Material Cause – We recognize that any being we can see around is corporeal, Divine law
possessed of a certain materiality or physical stuff.
- The form where we have been directed towards a supernatural end.
Potency AUTONOMY

- The capacity to generate responsibility  Kant claims that the property of the rational will is autonomy, which is the opposite
of heteronomy.
Autos- self
CHAPTER 4 : DEONTOLOGY
Heteros- other
Nomos- law
DUTY AND AGENCY
 Autonomy means self-law
 Heteronomy means other law
Deontology Authorship of the Law
-the moral theory that evaluates actions that are done because of duty  In any given scenario where a person complies with the law, we ask where the author
-comes from the greek word deon, which means “ being necessary “ is

-refers to the study of duty and obligations

 There is hardly anything that comes between the stimulus and the reaction. Kant calls
this set of actions that are caused by sensible impulse animal choice or arbitrium
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) brutum.
-the main proponent of Deontology
 There is a choice or action that is determined by pure reason. Kant calls this kind of
-a german enlightenment philosopher who wrote one of the most important works on moral action free choice.
philosophy, Groundwork towards a Metaphysics of Morals (1785)

Groundwork towards a Metaphysics of Morals

-Kant brings our attention to the fact that we , human beings, have the faculty called rational UNIVERSALIZABILITY
will, which is the capacity to act according to principles that we determine for ourselves.

KINDS OF MORAL THEORIES

Rationality

- Consists of the mental faculty to construct ideas and thoughts that are beyond our
 Substantive Moral Theory immediately promulgates the specific actions that
immediate surroundings.
comprise that theory. As such, it identifies the particular duties in a straightforward
- Capacity for mental abstraction , which arises from the operations of the faculty of
manner that the adherents of the theory must follow.
reason.
  Formal Moral Theory does not supply the rules or commands straightaway. It Virtue ethics- one theory that can possibly provide a comprehensive understanding of how an
provides us the “form” or the “framework” of the moral theory.To provide the “form” individual can develop moral character
of a moral theory is to supply a procedure and the criteria for determining, on one’s
own, the rules and moral command. - Ethical framework that is concerned with understanding the good as a matter of
developing virtous character
Four Key Elements of Categorical Imperative - Focusses on formation of one’s character
 Action Different aspects of aesthetics:
 Maxim- subjective principle of action; consists of a rule that we live by
 Will - Utilitarianism
 Universal Law - Natural inclinations for natural law
- Autonomy for deontology

Two Major Thinker of Ancient Greece:

False Promising
 Plato
-Kant says that the man would like to make such a promise, but he stops and asks himself if  Aristotle
what he is about to do is right or wrong
Nichomachean Ethics- first comprehensive and programmatic study of virtue ethics
Making sense
** For Plato, the real is outside the realm of any human being
- We refer to the logical plausibility of the universal maxim.
** For Aristotle, the real is found within our everyday encounter. For him, every act that a
Rational Permissibility person does is directed toward a particular purpose , called telos.
- Refers to intrinsic quality of an action that is objectiveky and necessarily rational Telos-purpose
Teloi- plural form of telos
General Criteria to recognize the highest good of man:
1. The highest good of a person must be final
2. The ultimate telos of a perosn must be self-sufficient
Eudaimonia- highest purpose and ultimate good of a man
CHAPTER 5 : VIRTUE ETHICS
Happiness- only self-sufficient aim that one can aspire for
Luistro- claims seemed to be based on a particular vision
Virtue or arete- excellent way of doing things
American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry- enumerated the harmful effects of
television Virtue- is something thatone strives for in time
Violence- way to solve problems Excellence- according to Aristotle is an activity of the human soul
Mature individuals- are aware that is is vital for children to go through process of building For Aristotle, human soul is divied into two parts:
their personality
1. Irrational element
 Consist of : Bro. Armin Luistro- has observed the possible effect of television violence on the young so
 Vegetative aspects- functions as giving nutrition and providing the activity of he issued a guideline on television viewing chidren.
physical growth in person
** As maintained by Aristotle, it is the middle, intermediate, or mesotes for the Greeks that is
 Appetitive aspects- works as a desiring faculty of a man
aimed at by a morally virtous person.
2. Rational Faculty
** Determining the middle becomes the proper tool by which one can arrive at the proper
Exercise excellence on him.
way of doing things.
Divided into two parts:
Virtue-is the middle or the intermediary point in between extremes.
 Moral- concerns the act of doing
Mesotes- in between virtue and vice
 Intellectual- concerns the act of knowing
**these two aspects are basically where the functions of reasons is Mesotes- constantly moving depending on the circumstance where she is in.
exercised.
Moral Virtue- is firstly the condition arrived at by a person who has a character identified our
** One rational aspect where one can attain excellence is in the intellectual faculty of the of her habitual exercise of a particuar action.
soul. As stated by Aristotle, this excellence is attained through teaching.
Cowardice- deficiency in terms of feelings
Two ways by which one can attain intellectual excellence:
Virtous person- learns from experiences
1. Philosophic Wisdom- deals with attaining knowledge about fundamental
principles Recklessness- an excess in terms of one’s feelings and passion
2. Practical Wisdom- is an excellence in knowing the right conduct in carrying out a
particular act.
** According to Socrates, knowledge already contains the ability of choice or action.
** For Socrates, moral goodness is already within the realm of intellectual excellence.
Kinds of Virtue:
 Moral
 Intellectual
**According to Aristotle, moral virtue is attained by means of habit.
Moral person- habitually chooses the good and consistently does good deeds
Character- identification mark of a person
Pag-uugali- the filipino term which precisely reflects the meaning of moral character,
One can have mabuting pag-uugali ( good character) or masamang pag-uugali ( bad
character )
Practical wisdom- involves learning from experiences.