REVIEWER IN ETHICS 1.

General Ethics – general and universal

concepts and principles
John Locke Non-normative – factual investigation of
▫ human as “a thinking-intelligent being, that social patterns of society
has reason and reflection and can consider Normative – deals with the issue of the
itself as itself; norm of the morality
▫ Every man will always search for the good 2. Applied Ethics – situation to apply general
Immanuel Kant ethics
▫ considered the human person an Special Ethics – specifies certain situation
autonomous self-regulating will capable of Professional Ethics – professional life
making moral decisions by and for himself Legal Ethics – legal profession
Victor Frankl Code of Ethics for Teachers – for
▫ a human being can live and even die for the educators
sake of his ideas and values. Bioethics – medical profession
▫ human being is a self determining
Erich Fromm THREE MORAL BASES OF IMMANUEL KANT
▫ Conscience enables the person to know 1. Human freedom,
what he ought to do to become himself 2. The immortality of the soul,
St. Thomas Aquinas 3. The existence of God
▫ Conscience constitutes a human person as
a moral subject Chapter II
Plato Dilemma
▫ Called ethics the Supreme Philosophy, the ▫ (dis) - twice (lemma) - assumptions or
science par exellence premise
Confucius, Plato, and Aristotle ▫ an agent is confused about what right
▫ The ruler of society must be a philosopher decision to make because there are
several competing values that are
Ethics seemingly equally important and urgent.
▫ Argument composed of a conjunction of
▫ “ethos” - customs, usage, or character
two conditional-hypothetical statements
▫ customs, habits, character, or attitude of a
community or a group, which pertains to Moral Agents
the group’s standards or norms. ▫ Human who chooses
▫ It is a set of rules of human behavior, which
has been influenced by the standards set LEVELS OF MORALITY
by society or by himself in relation to his 1. A personal or Individual Moral
society Dilemma—resolved on personal level
Practical Science 2. Organizational Moral Dilemma
▫ Systemized body of knowledge that —resolved by social organizations
applies to human action. 3. A structural Moral Dilemma
Normative Science —selecting a proper system of
▫ Sets a basis or norm for the direction and responsibilities
regulation of human actions.
Theologians CHAPTER III
▫ There can be no morality without God Cultural Relativism
Ethicians ▫ Ethical systems and cultural beliefs vary
▫ Who do not believe in God can have moral from one culture to another
life ▫ Standard of right6 and wrong are always
relative to a particular culture or society
Human Acts (actus humanus)
Cultural Relativists
▫ Action that a person does with knowledge
and full consent of the will ▫ ethical system and cultural beliefs vary
from one culture to another
Acts of Man (actus hominis)
Protagoras of Abdera
▫ Actions that lack consent and full-will
▫ Greek philosopher who started cultural
Value
relativism
▫ Objective or goal that we consider
Ethnocentrism
functional, desirable, or significant
▫ Ethnic group’s beliefs and values are
superior to all others
ETHICS AND ITS RELATION TO OTHER
SCIENCES Theocentrism
▫ God’s law is the absolute standard
1. Ethics & Logic – right living, right thinking Edmund Burke
2. Ethics & Psychology – behavior ▫ “the only thing necessary for the triumph
3. Ethics & Sociology – relationship of evil is for good men to do nothing”
4. Ethics & Economics – labor STRENGTHS OF THE FILIPINO CHARACTER
5. Ethics & Education – clear goals and 1. Pakikipagkapwa tao
direction 2. Family orientation
6. Ethics & Law – holistic goodness 3. Humor
7. Ethics & Aesthetics – lives well 4. Flexible, adaptable, and creative
8. Ethics & Politics – good governance 5. Hard work and industriousness
9. Ethics & Religion – same end 6. Religious
7. Strong sense of survivality
DIVISION OF ETHICS
 7. Weight the consequences – consider the consequences
8. Make a decision

CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER IV The Hedonist Philosophy
Character Hedonism
▫ any distinctive feature by which one thing is ▫ General term for any philosophy that says
distinguished from others. that pleasure is good, and pain is evil
Aristotle ▫ Greek word “edonh” - pleasure
▫ A human person who is acting excellently Aristippus
▫ Great follower and founder of hedonism
consistently is said to have a great moral character.
(340-450 BCE)
▫ Excellence is a quality that makes an individual a
▫ Life is a search for pleasure. Pleasure is
good member of its kind. Excellence is connected always good—regardless of its source
to its function. Physical Pleasure
▫ We judge the moral character of the person based ▫ Best to all other things
on consistency
The Epicurean Philosophy
STAGED OF MORAL DEVELOPMENT (Lawrence Epicurus
▫ Founded the school Garden – welcomed
Kohlberg)
everyone
1. Pre-Conventional Stage - concerned with ▫ Made no distinctions on social status or
concrete consequences to individuals, focusing on race.
pursuing concrete interest, while avoiding ▫ The chief aim of human life is pleasure. He
sanctions. inherited the idea of Democritus, the
a) Stage 1: Obedience and Punishment anatomist
▫ People are just only accidental products of
Orientation - to avoid
the collision of atoms just like any other
punishment beings
b) Stage 2: Pleasure Orientation or ▫ His philosophy is a form of EGOISTIC
Instrumental-Purposive Orientation HEDONISM – the only thing important is
– exchange favors one’s life own pleasure
▫ Greatest good is peace of mind
2. Conventional Stage - concerned with fulfilling role
▫ Main aim is to banish people the fear of the
expectations, maintaining and supporting the
god
social order, and identifying persons or groups ▫ There are different kinds of pleasure;
involved in this order. 1. Both natural and necessary
a) Stage 3: Peer and Group Acceptance 2. Natural but non necessary
Orientation – action that pleases, 3. Neither natural nor necessary
helps, and approved by others ▫ Real happiness could be obtained by means
of those activities that will free the human
b) Stage 4: Legalistic Orientation –
being from the troubles of the mind and
respect for laws from the physical pain
3. Post-Conventional Stage - concerned with ▫ His teaching can rightfully be called the
fulfilling role expectations, maintaining and self-centered moral philosophy
supporting the social order, and identifying ▫ Philosophers should not engage
themselves in any political affairs
persons or groups involved in this order
▫ To obtain moral life, epicureans follow
a) Stage 5: Common Good (Social these eight counsels as the basic guide to
contract) Orientation – what is right good living;
b) Stage 6: Universal Principles - ▪ Do not fear God
judgments that are universalizable, ▪ Do not worry about death
irreversible, and consistent. ▪ Do not fear pain
▪ Live a simple life
▪ Pursue pleasure life
CHAPTER V ▪ Make friends and be a good
David Hume friend
▫ Feelings are the foundation of moral judgments ▪ Be honest in your business
Thomas Nagel and private life
▫ The basis of morality must be the happiness that ▪ Avoid fame and political
ambition
action may cause others
▫ Reason
CHAPTER VII
8 STEPS TO MORAL REASONING PROCESS Cynicism
1. Gather the facts - “what do we know?” ▫ A school revolted against rigidly ordered
2. Define the ethical issues - comparing ____vs____ philosophies or Plato and Aristotle
3. Review Relevant Ethical Guidelines – principles ▫ Founded by Antisthenes and took
4. Obtain Consultation – consult competent persons or Socrates as its model
professionals ▫ After the death of socrates, Antisthenes
5. List the alternatives course of action – more choices founded a school called Cynosarges (the
6. Compare the alternative with the principles – eliminate silver dog)
other choices and save the best one ▫ The term cynic is a Greek word for dog
 ▫ Diogenes of Sinope – student of ▫ To control what has been within the
Antisthenes, was labeled as a cynic human power and accept with dignified
because he lived like a dog resignation what had to be
▫ Cynics believed that the very essence of Stoic Morality
civilization is corrupt ▫ Its foundation is the doctrine that has its
▫ Happiness can come from self-discipline, own basis in physics, in the nature of
rational control of all desires and appetites living things
and minimal contact with conventional ▫ This doctrine is oikeiõsis which means
society “orientation and appropriation”
▫ The basis desire of all living things is sel-
Stoicism preservation
▫ “potico or painted porch” a place where
Zeno could have his lectures Stoic’s concept of Justice
▫ happiness can be obtained by the way of ▫ Shared a common element – reason
wisdom ▫ All have right reason which is regarded as
▫ Stoics believes that excessive desires lead the Law
to depression ▫ Those who share law must also share
▫ Ethical principle guided by logic as a justice, correspondingly, they are regarded
method and rests upon physics as its as members of the same commonwealth
foundation (COSMOPOLITANISM)
▫ Give importance to the three division of
philosophy formulated by Aristotle: Although Stoicism shared many characteristics with the
namely, logic, physics, and ethics.
Epicureanism has made some radical innovations.
Zeno of Citium
▫ Founder of stoicism
▫ Studied philosophy under the Cynic They regard self-control as the center of ethics and they
philosopher Crates view all of nature in materialistic terms.
Alexander the Great
▫ Greece was able to conquer the Persian “While making reasonable efforts to get what we
Empire want, it is wise to learn to be happy with what we get.
Stoic Philosophers
Epictetus, the Sage Slave
Criticism
▫ most philosophically influential Stoic
▫ Roman slave, former slave of ▫ The following of the Reason or the Divine
Epaphroditus Providence may lead to idleness since everything
▫ Controlling what we can and accepting is already planned, accordingly, there is no need
what is beyond our control for a person to work hard.
▫ Musonius Rufus, the most powerful Stoic ▫ Learning to be happy with what one gets may lead
since the days of Zeno and was Epictetus’
to contentment can be looked in two perspective.
teacher
▫ Motto in life: Bear and forbear o On the positive side, one will be able to
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus accept one’s fate and will not feel bad
▫ Stoic emperor should there be failures.
▫ Lived his life surrounded by commotion, o On the negative side, being contented
deception, and crowds may lead one to rely on one’s fate
▫ Kindest, wisest, and most virtuous
philosophers
CHAPTER VIII
Stoic maxim has two aspects:
1. Human persons should conform Virtue Ethics of Aristotle
themselves to nature in the wider sense, Socrates——> Plato——> Aristotle
to the law of universe Herodotus
2. They should conform their actions to ▫ Claimed that what is good is relative to a specific
nature in the narrower sense, to their culture.
own essential nature-reason ▫ His idea inspired Protagoras to say that “man is the
measure of all things”
▫ Stoics believed in destiny and fate Socrates
▫ Man cannot control what may transpire, but man ▫ relativist
should learn to control the attitudes towards ▫ Believed in objective ethical standards while noting
what might happen how difficult it was for a person to identify what is
The Human Drama really the objective ethical standards that one should
▫ Every person is an actor or actress uphold.
▫ Director (God) who selects actors to play various ▫ Ethical standards could not be pleasure and pain
roles but good and evil
▫ Knowing the role which an individual will play. ▫ Good deed = when one is doing justice to others
He/she acquires wisdom in dealing with life ▫ Justice is when there is a proper balance between
▫ The only thing that actors can control is their the rational, energetic, and appetitive aspects of
attitudes and emotions every person’s soul.
▫ Moral Virtue is the only good, wickedness is the ▫ Happiness = A person who has a well-ordered soul
only evil which means the one who is doing good deeds for
Wisdom others.
 ▫ Good life means realizing his function and every o irrational soul – connected with the
function given, one must fullfill it body, is divided into the vegetatve part
▫ THREE ORDERS OF THE SOUL and the desiring part
o Vegetative – natural functions o rational soul – independent of the body
o Sensitive – emotions/feelings Subdivided into phronesis (practical
o Rational – use of reason intelligent – ordained towards action and
Three levels of the society according to Plato: determines the appropriate means to
1. Philosopher-King = rule the society attain the end)
2. Military(Soldiers)/Guardian = guard the society Speculative intellect, pure thought or
3. Peasants/Farmers = producers of the society intellection and the level of contemplation

Aristotle
▫ Born in 384 BCE in Stagira, Greek colony of Thrace
in Northern Greece
▫ Learned basic anatomy and dissection from his
father
▫ Proxenus of Atarneus directed his education when
his parents died
▫ Went to Athens to study at Plato’s school known as The Aristotelian Ethics
Academy Three version of Aristotle’s Moral Philosophy
▫ The mind and the reader of the school 1. Eudemian – never been studied by more thn
▫ Plato’s Academy two parts: the body(students) the hndful scholars
brain(Aristotle) 2. Nicomachean (Ethics of Aristotle)
▫ Aristotle, which was supposedly be replacing Plato 3. Magna Moralia – notes of his lecture made by his
as the head of the Academy, the trustees of the student
school picked Speussipus
▫ Another reason: he opposed some of the doctrines ▫ Ethics is not only a science, or an (episteme), the
of Plato. knowledge that deals with the absolute and
▫ Aristotle trained the Alexander the great, son of eternal truths; ethics is a (techne), an art of living
King Philip of Macedon. well.
▫ Founded his own school ‘Lyceum. Eudaimonia
▫ Methods of teaching is ‘paripatetics.’ giving lectures ▫ A person is live rather than just merely existing
while strolling(walking) along the garden path. ▫ Fully aware, vital, and alert of his existence
▫ Married Pythias ▫ Highest or perfect happiness
▫ Trained Alexander the Great
Philosophy of Aristotle Highest or perfect happiness
▫ he held that a thing would undergo change only ▫ Comes from a life of reason and contemplation—
insofar as the nature of such thing permits it to be not a life of inactivity or imbalance, rationally
such. There must be a principle within such a thing ordered life
to allow for the change.
▫ Principle of actuality – perfection of existence ▪ A reasonable person doesn't avoid life, instead, he
▫ Potentiality – capability of an existing thing to engages in it fully.
attain another perfection ▪ Man's life is complete once he learns to live with
▫ Aristotle calls this principle form- perfection of the polis or the society
things, matter- potency or the capacity of the stuff ▪ Human action = ultimate end
to obtain fullness/perfection Just Middle (mesotes)
▫ This teaching is called Hylomorphic doctrine ▫ Neither deficient nor excessive
▫ Father of Science Virtue
The Human Person of Aristotle ▫ Activity that proceeds from certain proper
▫ A human being is composed of body and soul. dispositions
▫ Body and Soul are not separate entities, rather they Virtuous Act
are correlative constituents of one being. ▫ Righteous act had become a kind of second nature
▫ Man being composed of body and soul is neither of the part of human person
a body nor a soul. ▫ An act done voluntarily
▫ Aristotle held that man is composed of a body ▫ Proceeds to...
and a soul. The body serves as the matter. The Right Intention
soul forms the entelechy, the definitive form of the ▫ Action is desired solely for its own sake
body. Moral Virtue
▫ The soul has two main parts: ▫ Rationally measured activity—following the rule of
just middle, motivated by right intention, and
 proceeding from a permanent disposition
acquired through habitual action

An Action that proceeds from contemplation

▫ Performing such activity is related to moral virtue
because whenever we contemplate before doing
an action, this action comes from practical wisdom
Practical Wisdom
▫ Truth about the intrinsic worth and excellence and
beauty or goodness (kalon) of the action done.

According to Aristotle, the main problem of

morality is how to discipline the lower desires and
passions and how to educate and cultivate the
intellectual part of the soul to attain’s man
fulfillment

Plato
▫ GOOD = transcendent, otherworldly end of
man
Aristotle
▫ GOOD = the moral end is something
immanent in human activity and achievable in
his life.

Ergon
▫ Function habitually
Arete
▫ Excellent fashion

The action of a human person must originate from

contemplation if he wants to be sure that his action
is ethical