Chapter 1

Introduction

Chapter Objectives

After reading this chapter, the student should be able to:

1. Identify the ethical aspect of human life and the scope of ethical thinking.
2. Define and explain terms that are relevant to ethical thinking.
3. Evaluate the commonly held notions on ethics.

Activity 1

Read the story below and analyze it in the light of the questions that follow.

Vietnamese boy, 13, kills woman for money to play video games
 
HANOI - Police in Vietnam have arrested a 13-year-old boy accused of murdering and
robbing an 81-year-old woman for money to play online games. Dinh The Dan was
arrested on Sunday at his home…80 kilometers south of Hanoi…
Police say Dan strangled Mai Thi Mau, 81, with a piece of rope and took 100,000 dong
(6.2 dollars) from her before burying her in a pile of sand in front of his house…. "Dan
confessed that he needed money to play online games and decided to kill and rob the
woman."

Answer the following questions.

1. Is there bad action? Why is it considered bad?

2. What is the problem in the story? Why?
3. Is it an ethical problem? Why?

What is this Ethics course about?

1. Good and bad. It is about doing the good thing and avoiding the bad thing.
2. Right and wrong. It is about what is acceptable and unacceptable for us.
3. Obeying rules
4. Pursuing ideals
5. Developing character. As a subject, it is a study that determines the grounds for
the values with particular and special significance to human life.

What this Ethics course is not?

1. This is not values education

2. This is not catechism
3. This is not moral theology
4. This is not a rulebook or instruction manual
 5. This is not applied ethics (yet)
Clarification

Ethics is not about any of the following.

Ethics is not about matters of taste.

There are many instances that we try to classify or value them as good or bad but they
are not considered to be part of Ethics. Aesthetics is derived from the Greek word
aisthesis that means sense or feeling. It refers to judgments of personal approval or
disapproval that we make about what we see, hear, smell or taste. It talks about our sense
of “taste”. Examples include such as watching movies, our liking for a particular dip for
fried chicken or French fries, our liking for a particular dress, etc.

Ethics is not about etiquette.

I may think that it is “right” to knock politely on someone’s door, while it is “wrong”
to barge into one’s office. In the Philippines a child is expected to use “po” and “opo”.
Any woman is expected not to be seen picking nose in public. These belong to etiquette.

Sources of Moral Authority

Many hold law, religion, and culture to be the fundamental sources of moral authority.
However, they appear to be problematic. They are not absolutely wrong but they are not
universally valid. They do not apply to all people and to all places. They appear to be
relative only to certain groups of people.

Activity 2

Form groups of five and think of examples of situations that demonstrate that law,
religion, and culture cannot be universal sources of moral authority. Discuss why holding
them as universal sources of moral authority would be problematic.

What must be the source of moral authority?

The source of moral authority must be rationally established grounds or principles

by which one justifies and maintains her moral decisions and judgment. These are
practically called moral theories or moral norms or moral standards. These are otherwise
known as Ethical Frameworks. Moral theory is a systematic attempt to establish validity
of maintaining certain moral principles. Framework is a theory of interconnected ideas
and, at the same time, a structure through which we can evaluate a certain decision or
judgment.

Subjectivism, Psychological Egoism, and Ethical Egoism

 Subjectivism, Psychological Egoism, and Ethical Egoism cannot also be sources
of moral authority. Subjectivism is the belief that the individual is the sole determinant of
what is morally good or bad, right or wrong. Psychological egoism is the belief that one’s
actions are ultimately always motivated by self-serving desire. Ethical egoism is the
belief that one acts in a way that is beneficial to others, because one also benefits from
the act.

Activity 3

Look for a newspaper article that tackles an ethical issue. Consider the following
questions:

1. What makes this a matter of ethics?

2. What is your own ethical judgment on this case?
3. What are the reasons for judgment?

Chapter II
Virtue Ethics

Activity 1

MANILA, Philippines – He would have been 46 by now, but a trip to buy pizza – and an
encounter with Rolito Go – ended all possibilities for this La Salle college student.
Eldon Maguan, then a 25-year-old engineering student, died after Go shot him in the head
in 1991. Go went to jail for this and on Wednesday, August 15, eventually went missing.
Who would have thought the shooting incident would happen on July 2, 1991? Maguan
was just driving his car along Wilson St in San Juan when he encountered Go.
A construction magnate, the 43-year-old Go came from a fight with his girlfriend
at a bakeshop nearby. He entered Wilson – a one-way street –in the opposite direction.
He thus went against the traffic and nearly bumped Maguan's vehicle, sparking one of the
Philippines' most sensational road rage incidents.
The businessman then alighted his car and shot Maguan inside his vehicle. The student
would live for a few more days.
Go left the scene aboard his vehicle, but a nearby restaurant's security guard took
down the killer's plate number. He was identified through the car, which was registered to
a certain Elsa Ang Go, and a facsimile or impression of the credit card he used in the
bakeshop. The bakeshop's security guard also identified him as the person who had shot
Maguan.
 WHAT WOULD VIRTUE ETHICS SAY?

Virtue Ethics

Virtue ethics is the ethical framework that is concerned with understanding the
good as a matter of developing the virtuous character of a person. Virtues consist of good
habits, that is, good actions that are done repeatedly with facility and ease. Virtues could
be intellectual virtues or moral virtues. The opposite of virtue is vice. Vice consists of
bad habits.

Aristotle (384 – 322 BCE)

Aristotle is the main advocate of Virtue Ethics. He was a student of Plato in the
Academia in Athens. He gave emphasis on reason as the highest faculty of a person,
which was the same with Socrates and Plato. He founded his own school, Lyceum,
because of his intellectual differences with Plato.

Nichomachean Ethics

Nicomachean Ethics is a voluminous text written by Aristotle that consists of his

philosophy on Ethics and virtues. Aristotle departs from the Platonic theory that the real
is outside the realm of the sensory experience and is in the world of forms.
To Aristotle the real consists of matter and form. Likewise, Aristotle holds that the good
does not exist independent of the person’s experience in the world.

Telos

Telos means end or purpose. There is a purpose in every action of a person that is
perceived as something good. As for example, a person studies in order to learn
(end/telos). There is a hierarchy of purpose. As for example, a person studies in order to
learn. Why does a person wants learn? The person wants to learn to graduate and obtain a
degree. Why does a person want to graduate and to obtain a degree? The person wants to
be qualified for a good job. Why does the person want to be qualified for a good job?
The person wants to put up a family or the person wants to help in addressing the needs
of one’s own family. Eventually one would become happy when all these purposes are
fulfilled. Hence, the ultimate purpose of man is happiness (eudaimonia). There are two
criteria for the ultimate telos (end/purpose): a. final and b. self-sufficient. It has to be final
because it has to be the last and final end in a series of ends (telos) that issue from man’s
actions. It has to be self-sufficient because it has to be attainable.

Eudaimonia

Eudaimonia is the Greek word for happiness and it is the highest purpose and highest
good of man. It is the ultimate purpose of man. It is not an emotion that is temporary. It is
not nirvana that is the state of liberation from samsara (reincarnation). It is not stoicism
that is the rejection of emotions. It is the state of existence brought about by the activity
of the soul that is in accordance with virtue. It is a way of life wherein one is able to
fulfill the ergon of being a human person. The ergon of man is to employ the powers of
reason to understand the essences of things, most especially of the good life and how to
practice it. The powers of human reason and the ability to apply it separate man from
other things. Hence, keeping an active reason to understand the essences of things and
how to live the good causes eudaimonia to happen.

Arete: Virtue

Arete is the equivalent Greek word for virtue. Arete means excellence (virtue,
birtud, kagalingan, maayo). To Aristotle virtue means the excellence in knowing and
acting. Aristotle holds that virtue is controlling man’s irrational part with man’s rational
part to think correctly and to act appropriately in a given situation. This may be
understood in the light of the natural components of the the human soul; a. the rational
part and b. the irrational part. The vegetative part consists of those aspects of the human
person that has to do with growth and nutrition while the appetitive part consists of those
that have to do with desires. The irrational part has to do with emotions, passions, and
desires. The rational part has two basic components: a. the intellectual aspect and b. the
moral aspect. The intellectual aspect has to do with the rational ability to understand
essences. The moral aspect has to do with understanding how to act so that one does the
right thing in a situation. The human soul is therefore where excellence takes form. It
could be moral or intellectual virtues. Intellectual virtue has to do with the act of knowing
and is acquired through teaching and learning. On the other hand, moral virtue is
phronesis that is the excellence of knowing what to do. It is therefore necessary for the
formation of moral virtues. But virtue is not accomplished by a single act because it is
acquired through habit. Hence, to be a good person is to perform one’s rational activity
well. Hence, the basic principle is the rational part has to control and regulate the
irrational part.

Phronimos

Phronimos is the Greek word for the virtuous person. A virtuous person does not
even have to control oneself because one’s resolution has been so habituated to always
rightly act; self-possessed

Moral Virtue

Moral virtue is the quality or feature of man, particularly of the human soul, that
enables one to control one’s irrational part (emotions, passions, etc.) to act appropriately
in a given situation. It always works together with intellectual virtue because one has to
understand the essence of the good to be able to act appropriately in a given situation.
Moral virtue enables one to do the good and to avoid evil actions. It is acquired through
habit, that is, through constant practice. It is habitually willing and doing the good
(mabuting pag-uugali). In turn, it forms one’s character. It enables one to act out the right
feelings/passions. It is the e
xcellent management of one’s feelings and passions. Ex. being angry is good with the
right person, at the right time, for the right reason, in the right manner, under the right
circumstances. This shows how Mesotes works. Mesotes is right measurement (mean).

Mesotes

Mesotes is the Greek word for Aristotle’s Doctrine of the Mean. Mean means
middle. To Aristotle, Mesotes or the Doctrine of the Mean has to be the principle or
measure by which a human action, whether it is intellectual or moral, should be classified
as virtuous or not (intellectual virtue or moral virtue). Mesotes holds that when a person
acts one must not do more than what is necessary or less than what is necessary. A person
must do only what is demanded by the situation. The principle of Mesotes may be best
understood in the following excerpt from Aristotle’s book Nicomachean Ethics, which
contains his philosophy on Virtue Ethics.

Hence it is hard work to be virtuous, since in each case it is hard work to find
what is the mean (mesotes) …So also getting angry, or giving and spending
money, is easy and anyone can do it; but doing it to the right person, in the right
amount, at the right time, for the right end, and in the right way is no longer easy,
nor can everyone do it. Hence, (doing these things) well is rare, praiseworthy,
and fine. (Bk. II, 1109a24)

Mesotes demonstrates that virtue is the mean between excess and deficiency. The
paradigm below shows how this works.

Deficiency (vice) ---------- Virtue ---------- Excess (vice)

Excess (vice) virtue deficiency

Arrogance
(overconfidence)/ rashness courage cowardice
prodigality Liberality meanness

Other actions that demonstrate how Mesotes works are the following: not
sobrang bait, not over sa tapang, sobrang palakaibigan.

However, keep in mind that Mesotes does not apply to all actions because not all
actions have mean. Evil actions such as murder, adultery, spite, etc. are essentially evil.