Ethics: A Background

Morality is a powerful and pervading force in human life. A cursory glance at the news would show the
following:

 Some politicians were caught having a mistress or trapped in a corruption controversy from which
there seems to be no escape.
 A presidential candidate vowing to optimally minimize crime in the country by killing heinous
criminals like kidnappers, drug lords and rapists.
 While swimming in a known falls, a typical teenager saved the life of a friend in grave danger of
drowning while sacrificing his life in return.
 A man turned himself to the police because he was part of a horrifying crime involving a woman.
What brought him to confess? His conscience.

What are these examples telling us? They tell us that morality as practiced or violated is everywhere. The
first example tells us that having a mistress or being a part of a corruption scheme are moral wrongs.
These politicians may have violated our nation’s laws that led to their being jailed but their actions are
abhorrent in other sense. What they did violate are our moral sensibilities regarding what we ought to do or
not do in all circumstances. We know that we ought to honor our contracts, marriage or otherwise, and we
know that we ought not to steal even if there is a low or even zero probability of being caught. The second
example prompts us to question whether doing something evil, which is killing in this case, in order to
prevent further more damaging evils may be justified in certain circumstances. Is it the case that the end
justifies the means in this particular scenario? The third example brings us into a highly admirable yet
heart-wrenching story of a moral heroism that is of the highest degree: to sacrifice one’s life to save
another. The last one engages our moral nature by invoking the great force of moral conscience in making
us applaud or regret our actions.

All these examples raise many questions regarding human morality: what are things that we ought to do or
not do in all circumstances? Would a commonly considered immoral act be justified in order to produce a
greater good? What are our moral obligations towards other people? What are the roots of our moral
conscience? Is it right to view conscience as the voice of God? Indeed, these practically-oriented moral
questions are connected to questions about our general idea of morality: what is right and wrong? Are there
any actions that are inherently good or bad? What make them so? Is morality binding to all people in all
circumstances or is it simply a matter of culture that varies depending on your point of view? These are
some of the universally important questions that we will deal on this book. Indeed, as important morality is
to our society, nation and human civilization as a whole, it is equally necessary to ask questions that
critically examine our most fundamental assumptions about the moral life, moral laws and moral principles.
We all want to know how to live a good life just as Socrates and the other ancient philosophers have asked
and wrested about it. Indeed if possible, what we want is to live the best life that is in accordance with, not
in opposition to the true and universally binding morality.
Ethics and Its Branches

Before we define ethics, let us look first at the definition and scope of morality. Morality is the sphere of
human life that is concerned with right and wrong, good acts as opposed to bad acts, and universally
accepted principles and laws as to how to live with others . On the other hand, ethics is the branch of
philosophy that deals with questions of morality. Morality then is the object of study while ethics is the field
of study itself. Since morality is such a wide and multilayered phenomenon, ethics has been divided into
different branches of study.

Descriptive ethics is concerned with the actual morality that people have practiced and upheld throughout
history. It answers the following related questions: what are the moral laws and principles that people
actually came up with and practiced? What do certain cultures actually believe about morality? Are there
any universal moral notions that cut across culture, time and place? In the field of sociology and
anthropology, descriptive ethics is about what societies and cultures have believed about morality and how
they practiced these moral principles and laws that they believe. In the field of psychology, descriptive
ethics is about how people developed their moral sense and what factors are involved in their moral
development. Also, moral psychology is concerned with how people actually behave in accordance with or
as opposed to certain moral laws and principles and more importantly, knowing the psychological factors
that lead to certain moral or immoral behaviors. These are important tasks which will be the concern of our
chapter on science and morality.

By now, it is clear that descriptive ethics is a field for social scientists, not philosophers. Descriptive ethics
is concerned with what people actually believe and how do people actually behave and think with regards
to morality and not how people ought to behave. Those concerned with descriptive ethics go out, survey
different cultures, calculate statistical data and understand different notions of morality, as opposed to the
nature of the study of philosophical ethics that is primarily concerned with the concepts of right and wrong
and other moral concepts, all of which can be generally studied without leaving the home or the library.

This does not mean that one field is more superior to the other or that one field cannot learn or enlighten
the other. Each field has different objects of knowledge and both can provide genuine insights into morality.
Indeed, some discoveries regarding different cultures’ take on morality led some anthropologists to claim
that all morality is relative, which is a meta-ethical not a descriptive, claim. Although their claim will be
questioned on the chapter on moral relativism, this only serves to show that an empirical study on ethics
can enlighten moral deliberation about the meaning and nature of right and wrong.

Meta-ethics is the branch of ethics that deals with nature, origin, meaning, value and over-all significance of
morality. With regards to the nature of morality, the on-going debate is whether morality is relative or
objective. This will be the focus of chapters 2 and 3. Meta-ethics also deals with the question of where
morality originate, if it has any origins at all. This will be answered on chapter 4. On the meaning of
morality, the main question is: what do we mean when we say that an act is good or bad? Are we speaking
of an objective fact that holds whether we believe it or not, or we are simply expressing our distaste or
admiration for certain actions, much as we dislike some foods and love others? As with regards to the value
of morality, meta-ethics tries to answer what goods are we going to get or benefits that are going to come
out if we consistently live our lives following moral rules. This concern is very much alive, especially when
one is asked “Why should I be moral, especially when I can get away with being immoral and benefit from
it?” This is one important question that meta-ethics tries to deal with. Lastly, with regards to the over-all
significance of morality, meta-ethics tries to place morality among other spheres of human living and
analyze how living morally has helped human civilization and inspired progress that benefits all of
humanity.

Normative ethics is the branch of ethics whose main concern is to determine what moral principles and
norms ought to govern our lives . So, while descriptive ethics simply asks, for instance, what are the acts
that are considered moral in one culture but immoral on another, normative ethics asks what moral
principles should govern in deciding whether an act is moral, permissible, obligatory or wrong. In
contemporary discussions, the main considerations are the nature of the act itself, consequences,
character and human nature. Deontology is the normative theory that takes some acts to be inherently
wrong or right, regardless of the consequences. Consequentialism is another theory that takes the
consequences of an act to be the arbiter whether an act is good or bad. Virtue theory puts human character
or virtue to be the highest consideration. For virtue theory, it is not enough to perform an action, we have to
know what character does the person possess for doing it. Lastly, natural law theory states that we can
determine the rightness or wrongness of an action based on human nature. If a certain act violates the
purpose for which human nature is made, then it is wrong. If another act fulfills the function for which
human nature is designed, then it is right. The over-arching theme for normative ethics then is: how should
we actually live our lives?

Finally, applied ethics is the branch of ethics that deals with practical problems that have great ethical
import. It examines certain actions that are considered ethically relevant such as death penalty, abortion,
pornography, euthanasia, suicide, same-sex marriage, legal ethics, business ethics and professional
ethics. Indeed, without applied ethics, talks about the nature and norms of morality seem shallow. All talks
about the technicalities of moral terms and concepts would have little value if they cannot bear to enlighten
us in certain matters and issues that call for rational moral deliberation and action. Moreover, applied ethics
has enormous implications to policymaking. If there are strong reasons that can be given to establish that a
particular act is immoral, then policymakers would have good reasons not to pass the legalization of such
an act.

Although these distinctions may seem hair-splitting for the uninitiated, they are very much convenient when
facing an ethical question. We would have easier routes towards the exact answers when we know the
nature of the question being asked. As traditional wisdom rightly claims, understanding the question is half
the answer. If the question is about normative ethics, then we would miss the target if we answer it with a
meta-ethical claim. If the question is a meta-ethical one, it would be vain to answer it with a normative
ethical proposition. Dividing the field into branches serve to ease the work of knowing the nature of ethical
questions and consequently helping us to traverse the multilayered sphere of human morality. Connected
to this is the fact that a claim on one branch has natural implications on the others. The branches are
indeed interconnected such as to make a claim on one is to imply certain implicit claim on the others. For
instance, a certain meta-ethical claim would determine whether the one who made the claim can argue for
a normative ethical theory that should apply to all. A concrete illustration may be helpful. Suppose for
instance that a certain person makes the claim that all morality is relative, then she further claims that
euthanasia is wrong and people ought not to do it. Upon understanding, we realize that this person cannot
consistently hold both of those views. If she believes in moral relativism, then she cannot make a universal
normative ethical claim that ought to apply to all people because the two views are contradictory. So we
see that her meta-ethical belief (moral relativism) actually impedes her to make a genuine normative claim
about morality.

Also, a normative theory may be rightly questioned if it appears to have genuinely negative implications or
consequences when applied to specific circumstances, real or otherwise. For instance, utilitarianism is a
normative theory that states that an act is permissible, moral or justified if it promotes the greatest
happiness for the greatest number of people. On this theory, letting the elderly die may likely promote the
greatest happiness for the majority because the taxes that are for the care of the elderly may be used for
creating more hospitals, more efficient government services and even lower taxes. But it seems morally
abhorrent to even consider the gross and deliberate negligence of the elderly just to promote the welfare of
the society. This seems a clear violation of the principle that no person ought to use other people as means
to further his or her or even the majority’s ends. Thus, a normative theory can be brought to further, more
enlightened examination when applied into real-life situations or possibilities.

7 Traits of Moral Principles

In order to guide us in living moral lives, we need moral principles. These principles constitute the blueprint
from which our actions and decisions should be based. In order to see whether a particular moral principle
is valid, it should possess these seven traits. Some of these traits have gone through the rigorous analysis
of moral philosophers while some are pretty much assumed to be universally true. The first five of these are
adopted from Louis Pojman 1 while the other two are included because they are pretty much discussed and
argued as important characteristics for a valid moral principle.

a) Prescriptivity – Moral principles are generally known to be in the form of commands or imperatives.
Generally, they are prescriptions towards doing the right action or avoiding a wrong one. Some
common examples of moral principles are “Do not steal” or “Be fair to everyone involved”. As such,
moral principles are not simply descriptions of reality or facts to be accepted. Rather, they are definite
commands to perform certain actions or avoid other ones.

b) Universalizability – Moral principles should be possible to be made universal. A moral principle is not
valid if it requires an act for certain people but does not require others when both groups are in a
similar context. For instance, it would be wrong to claim that a typical person ought to tell the truth
about his romantic relationship while it is ok for a rich man to hide the truth about his mistresses simply
because of differences in wealth (and perhaps because the rich man can get away with it.) Moral
principles do not take sides. If a person is required by basic morality to obey certain moral rules, then
1
Louis Pojman & James Fieser, Ethics: Discovering Right and Wrong, 7th ed. (Boston MA: Wadsworth, 2012), 7-8.
 all other people in similar context have to do the same. That is what is meant by saying that morality is
universalizable: moral principles ought to be universally binding to all people, across different cultures,
time or place. What is morally required of me should be required of anyone else when confronted with
a similar situation. When contemplating doing an act, we have to ask whether that act can be made
universal: can I will that everyone acts the way that I am about to act now?

c) Overridingness – Moral principles have a unique authority over other considerations. If there is an
option to either choose financial or emotional reason (but not both) when choosing a career, either
option is open for the individual. But when morality is involved, it has to take precedence over social,
legal, intellectual and religious norms. Consider social norms, more commonly known as etiquettes.
These are norms that vary from culture to culture. In the Inuit culture, there is a social norm that when a
visitor comes to a house, the husband/wife should let her wife/husband sleep with the visitor. This is
how they express their courtesy to visitors who choose to spend the night at their house. However,
many people subscribe to the moral norm of sexual exclusivity, and would find such social norms to be
immoral. In this case, the moral norm should override the social norm. Now consider legal norms.
These refer to the written laws of a certain society. In many Western societies, abortion is legal. In
America, there is even a government-funded agency in the name of Planned Parenthood that provides
assistance to women who want to have an abortion. Imagine if you are a doctor in America who finds
abortion to be morally reprehensible, given that it is an act that kills an innocent human being. So there
is a conflict between the moral norm against murder and the legal norm of performing one’s
professional duties. Again in this case, the moral norm should override the legal norm. Now on to
intellectual norms, which refer to norms that have to do with expanding our knowledge of the world and
of ourselves. These are the norms that drive research since research is geared towards increasing our
knowledge and understanding. However, there are cases in which certain researches violate moral
norms. Consider the scientists funded by Hitler’s regime. Their research experiments are motivated by
intellectual norms to understand and solve human problems but since the experiments involved
violating the autonomy, dignity and rights of certain individuals, they still have committed grave moral
wrongs. The intellectual value of understanding the human body should never trump the moral value of
respecting human life. Finally, there are religious norms, norms that are mandated by one’s religious
tradition or even one’s deity. The most well-known case of a conflict between religious and moral norm
is the case of Abraham being commanded by God to sacrifice the life of his son Isaac by killing him and
offering his son to God. Let us assume that it is God who commanded the sacrifice. Abraham is torn in
a conflict: he knows that killing an innocent human being is wrong but he may have been motivated by
the religious norm of putting his absolute faith in God and obey all His commands. If we follow the
overridingness trait to its logical conclusion, Abraham should not choose to kill his son even if God is
commanding him to do so. This issue is admittedly debatable and will be dealt in more detail in the
section on “Religion and Morality”.

d) Publicity – Moral principles should be made public in order to strengthen their hold upon us. Since
morality mostly involves our duties towards one another, moral principles should be explicitly known
and imposed to the public. It is self-defeating to keep moral principles a private matter.
e) Practicability – Ought implies can. One can only be required to do something if it is humanly possible
for that person to do it. Moral principles should be workable and doable. Thus, if a person is required to
abide by a moral principle, it is to be expected that that person can actually do it. Moral principles
should not put an impossible demand on individuals. Such an overly idealistic requirement may lead
someone to moral despair. If a moral law seems to put so much pressure on an individual that the
individual is psychologically overwhelmed, it may lead her to decide that the goal is not worth pursuing
and thus equates the decision to moral inaction. Thus, it is important that moral principles should take
human limitations into considerations. Just as important is to know how the minds of individuals
actually work when faced with an ethical decision or an immediate moral response. This knowledge of
moral psychology will make it easier for people to follow moral rules, and will be the topic of the chapter
on science and morality.

f) Normativity – Moral principles have an independent binding force that demands us to follow them . This
is easy to prove by way of our phenomenological experience of moral norms. When we are about to do
something that we know is wrong, such as lying or making a promise that we know we cannot keep, we
feel a force that commands us not to do such act. This force of morality is something independent of
our wants and desires; in fact, we recognize that this force often gets in the way of our immediate
desires and wants. Many people have called this external force “the voice of conscience”. But if we
disassociate such experience with religious connotations, we may simply regard it as the impersonal
voice of morality. This is what is meant by morality having a normative force. Secondly, normativity
refers to the idea that the force of morality is irreducible . This means that the fact that something is a
valid moral principle is enough reason for us to follow it. The fact that honoring your contracts is the
right thing to do should be enough reason for us to do it. The fact that stealing is wrong should be
enough reason for us not to do it. As such, when somebody asks, “why should I not steal?”, the answer
“because it is wrong” should be enough reason for that person not to engage in the act of stealing. To
further ask “why shouldn’t I do something that is wrong?” is to ask a tautological question, similar to
asking “why is 1 + 1 equal to 2?” The buck stops with morality. As such, the rightness and wrongness
of an act should be enough to motivate anyone to perform good actions and refrain from immoral ones.
Thus, moral principles are determinants of norms that bind us towards certain behaviors.

g) Impartiality – Moral principles should not favor one group or another when they have no significant
differences that have important moral consequences. They should be categorically impartial. That is
the reason why the symbol of justice in the Philippines is a woman blindfolded. The blindfold testifies to
the ideal that justice, as one of the most important components of morality, implies that we treat
everybody equally, regardless of race, religion, ethnicity or education. A just legal system is impartial
and does not favor one person over the other merely because they are two different individuals. How
about the special considerations given to senior citizens, persons with disabilities and pregnant women
under our nation’s law? For instance these groups of people are given special lanes in fast food
restaurants, cinemas and drugstores. Do these treatments imply that moral principles can be partial
and still just? Not at all. The law gives special considerations to these people because of their special
 circumstances. The law equally applies to everyone as long as they satisfy the conditions that these
people fulfill.

Evaluating Actions

When we are faced with a morally significant situation, we often turn to the nature of the action and decide
whether the action done is right or wrong. Although these two categories are common in moral discourse,
they can mean different things and can be categorized in several ways. Before we go to these details, it is
important to mention morally neutral actions. These are acts that are permissible one way or another. For
instance, choosing whether to use a black or a blue pen is a morally neutral act. Any of these two options
are morally neutral since none of them is morally required and the choice would have no morally significant
implications. Now that we’ve set that definition straight, let us move forward to the categories of right and
wrong actions:

1) A right act is an act that is either morally required for people to do or brings about positive moral
implications and consequences. The second criterion is put forward in order to leave morally neutral
actions from the category of right acts, as some moral philosophers have tried to do. 2 It just seems
more appropriate that when we talk about right actions, we are talking about actions that bring about a
certain moral good or produce morally significant consequences. Choosing a black over a blue pen
does not clearly produce that particular good or consequence. It would make it more confusing to call it
(in a moral sense) a right act. With that in mind, there are two kinds of right action:

a. An obligatory act is one that morality requires you to perform; it is not permissible for you to
refrain from doing it. One example would be fulfilling a promise. When somebody makes a
promise, it is that person’s prima facie obligation to fulfill it. (That is why, promise is made to be
broken is a morally abhorrent cliché.) Unless there are overriding obligations that impede a
person from fulfilling the promise, she is not morally allowed to break it. She has a moral
obligation to fulfill any promise she has made.

b. A supererogatory act is an action that is commonly known as actions that go beyond the call of
duty. Supererogatory acts may be divided into two: minimal supererogation and heroic action.
Minimally supererogatory acts are good actions that go beyond the call of duty but do not
involve a major self-sacrifice on the part of the doer. Some common examples would be giving
a piece of yellow paper for your classmates when there is a quiz or giving small amount of
money to them when they run out of money for certain payments. Heroic actions are such
because they involve major self-sacrifice, either one sacrifices one’s life or one’s career in
order to do the right thing. The third example given in the beginning of this chapter is an act of
heroism. The act of saving a friend from death while risking one’s life in the process is an act of
utmost good but is not obligatory. No one is morally required to risk his life to save others from
danger or death. And yet such an act is highly esteemed and is clearly morally valuable.

2
Louis Pojman & James Fieser, Ethics: Discovering Right and Wrong, 7th ed. (Boston MA: Wadsworth, 2012), 9.
2) A wrong act is either an act that is morally forbidden for people to do or something that is bad but not
necessarily prohibited.

a. A morally forbidden act is an act that people have an obligation not to perform. These are
actions that we ought not do; it is not permissible for us to do them. Examples of such acts are
theft, murder and promise-breaking.

b. An infravetatory act is an act that is bad but not necessarily morally prohibited. 3 For instance, it
is bad but not wrong to refuse to offer your seat in a public bus to a standing old lady. It may be
morally callous for you to do it but morality does not require you to refrain from doing it. After
all, you might think that you are entitled to the first come, first serve policy of the bus. 4

5 Fundamental Moral Principles5

These five fundamental principles are very basic in the fabric of morality. Although philosophers are
notoriously known to constantly disagree with each other, moral philosophers agree on the values of these
principles when it comes to morality.

a) The Principle of Freedom – Freedom is essential in the moral sphere. By freedom I mean, the ability to
do something when the person could have done otherwise. It is impossible to think of moral
responsibility and accountability without freedom of choice. If human beings are not free, they cannot
be held morally responsible. In this sense, freedom is an essential prerequisite of morality. It is no
wonder that Immanuel Kant, a great modern German philosopher, argued that we need to assume that
we are free even if we cannot scientifically prove that we are. Otherwise, the scientific determinism that
dominates the current thinking will make morality moot. Although it is natural to have questions about
the extent that freedom has in relation to morality and what this freedom means, it cannot be doubted
that freedom is an important moral consideration in a way that wealth and sex are not. If a person has
killed someone, it does not matter whether the killer is a man or a woman; the person has to be judged
based on that person’s actions, regardless of gender. The same with wealth: if someone has stolen
money, that person is morally culpable and legally liable, regardless of whether the person is a
millionaire or a typical tambay, all else being equal. The wealth and gender of a person should not be
taken into account because by themselves they are quite irrelevant. Also, by this principle, we can
sometimes determine if an action is right if it extends human freedom or wrong if the action restricts
freedom. This is one reason why slavery is immoral, because it severely restricts the freedom of slaves
when the slave-owners have no right to do so. Although freedom is not the only value in morality so
that it can be overridden by other considerations (such as the other four fundamental principles),
freedom as a moral value is established beyond reasonable doubt. When contemplating on the moral

3
Richard Swinburne, “What Difference Does God Make to Morality?” in Is Goodness without God Good Enough?, eds. Robert K. Garcia and
Nathan L. King (New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2009), 151.
4
For example, see Julia Driver, Ethics: The Fundamentals (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), 7.
5
Robin Barrow, An Introduction to Moral Philosophy and Moral Education (London, Routledge, 2007), 73-80.
 status of an action, it is helpful to ask: does this act restrict someone else’s freedom for no good
reason? Will this policy extend or restrict the freedom of those involved?
b) The Principle of Fairness – To be fair is to treat a person in a manner that she deserves. What a
person deserves may be difficult to determine at times but an important cue is to treat anyone in a way
that we would like to be treated if we are put in the other’s situation. This principle is the basis of the
Golden Rule, which commands us to do unto others what we would like others to do unto us. We
cannot doubt the value of fairness to morality. Indeed, it is weird for someone to say “I want to be moral
but I don’t want to be fair.” Most moral principles are built around the principle of fairness. Breaching a
contract is morally wrong because it is unfair. The one who breached the contract would not want to be
treated in the same way. By agreeing to do the right thing, we are expecting that others would do the
same. That is why we are outraged if someone does not give one’s fair share. It is no wonder that
freeriders are often looked down in any society. Freeriders want to benefit from others being fair while
they themselves do not fulfill the action that is expected of them. They are violating the principle of
fairness to which others submit themselves to. When contemplating on the moral status of an action, it
is helpful to ask: am I being fair? If somebody does this to me, would I feel unjustly treated?
c) The Principle of Respect for Persons – This is made famous by Immanuel Kant in the second
formulation of his Categorical Imperative: act as to treat humanity, whether in your own person or in
that of any other, in every case as an end and never merely as a means. 6 Humans are autonomous
beings, with their own desires, goals, aspirations and needs. This principle demands that we treat
human beings as such, as persons with autonomy, and not as mere robots or objects that can be
controlled or manipulated. This is another reason why slavery is gravely immoral: because slaves are
treated as objects, rather than persons, which are completely under the will of the slave’s master. It is
easy to see that this principle has been taken as the basis for human rights. Human beings have rights
by virtue of their being human beings. Regardless of age, gender, nationality, religion or ethnicity,
human beings should be treated as such because they have a right to be treated in such manner.
These rights are so fundamental that they cannot be trumped by other considerations. We can see that
some acts are clearly immoral because they violate this fundamental principle of respect. Take for
example the case of abortion. A woman who opts for abortion is violating the principle of respect
towards her child. An unborn child is a human being. The unborn is not just a blob of cells; it is a
person. To abort a child is to violate the child’s right to life. When contemplating on the moral status of
an action, it is helpful to ask: does my action respect the persons involved? Am I violating anyone’s
rights for doing this?
d) The Principle of Truth – Truth is indeed an essential value to society as a whole. Without a commitment
to truth, societies would disintegrate. Just as socially important, it is equally (or even more important) in
moral discourse. If there is no truth, there would be no moral facts. Nobody can assert that rape or
genocide is wrong if it is not true that they are both wrong. Debates about moral issues are fruitful only
if there is some truth about what really is the right thing to do. It would be useless to discuss things of
which there never can be truth about. Consequently, truth makes morality actually work and move
forward. As such, human beings are obligated to uphold the truth, if there are no overriding reasons for

6
Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Mary Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
 them to do otherwise. Indeed, it seems to me that this commitment to truth is embedded in our nature.
We cannot live consistently if we constantly bend the truth. In fact, contracts, promises, suggestions
and even simple conversations would be senseless if people don’t have the duty to uphold the truth.
That is why lying and deception by themselves are immoral because they violate this principle.
Hypocrisy is also a moral wrong because it is to bend the truth for one’s convenience. When
contemplating on the moral status of an action, it is helpful to ask: Am I upholding the truth? Are my
actions consistent with my fundamental beliefs?
e) The Principle of Well-being – Well-being can mean different things to different people. It is commonly
associated with happiness although well-being connotes a more inclusive term than happiness. The
Greek term for it seems to suit best: eudaimonia. Eudaimonia is a state in which the person achieves a
total balance of spiritual, intellectual, emotional and moral equilibrium. That is why many scholars of
Aristotle chose to use the original Greek word in order to capture its essence. Aristotle’s ethics, which
is an ethics based on eudemonia, proposes that morality should matter in such a way that people
would be better off following moral rules than disobeying them. There would be seem to be no good
reason to follow morality if following it does not provide net benefit for the person in the long run. Just
as following the right morality should necessarily promote well-being, human beings as moral agents
ought to promote well-being as an important moral value. Human beings are expected to minimize
suffering and increase happiness. Anything that causes human suffering for no good reason would
easily count as wrong while anything that increases well-being would be easily deemed right. When
contemplating on the moral status of an action, it is helpful to ask: Will this action increase the well-
being of myself and others? Will this reduce or contribute to other’s suffering?

Conclusion

We have seen that morality pervades so many aspects of our lives that it is impossible to imagine a society
without some sort of morality or moral rules embedded in their culture. Without morality, society would
disintegrate and inevitably perish. As ubiquitous as it is, morality is subdivided into different branches to
assist the inquiring individual in better clarifying the kind of questions to which she is seeking an answer.
The point of this delineation is not to compartmentalize ethical thought but to better deal with specific
ethical questions. A better way of looking at it is that ethics is a team and the branches are the members
who are working to achieve the same goal: better and more enlightened ethical thought and living. Although
morality can be examined from different perspectives, knowing fundamental moral principles is a
paramount priority in ethics. Without a grasp of these basic principles, the individual would have a hard time
deciding on what the right thing to do is and what actions to avoid. And since actions are the most common
domain for ethical assessment, it can mean different things in ethics. The definitions given in relation to
evaluating actions are expected to provide the reader with important distinctions for better ethical analysis.
Finally, important traits of moral principles are laid out with the goal of providing a guideline to which
personal moral principles can be assessed.