MODULE 1:

 Ethics
- from the Greek word Ethicos (relating to one’s character customers, or manners)
- a science of character of an individual expressed as right or wrong conduct or action
- seeks to resolve questions of human morality by defining concepts such as good and evil, etc.
 Morality
- from the Latin word mos (normative) and moris (genitive) which means customs or conduct
- refers to what a person ought to do and not to do

1. Socrates:
- stood before a jury of 500 of his fellow Athenians who accused of “refusing to recognize the gods
recognized by the state” & “corrupting the youth”
2. Plato:
- Socrates’ student
- Enhanced ethical orientation of philosophy by presenting human life as a struggle and what life is
ought to be
3. Aristotle:
- Plato’s student
- The necessity of finding one’s purpose and practicing moderation in order to achieve what we call
eudemonia (happiness)

**Golden rule: "Treat others as you want to be treated"

 Rules
- Serve as the foundation for any healthy society
- Tells us what is or what is not allowed in specific situations or contexts
- Refer to explicit regulations governing conduct within a specific activity
- Established to protect the weaker class in society since they are at a disadvantage if such
regulations are broken
**Benefits of rules to social beings
1. Protect social beings
2. Guarantee rights and freedom
3. Produce sense of justice

MORAL STANDARDS NON-MORAL STANDARDS

- Norms that individuals or groups have - Standards which we judge what is good
about the kinds of actions believed to be and bad in a non-moral way
morally right or wrong
- Values placed on what we believed to be - Ex: Etiquette, Aesthetics, Law, Religion
morally good or morally bad.

- Promote the good or the welfare and

wellbeing of humans, animals, and
environment
- Humans ought to do things in terms of
rights and obligations

 Dilemma: a term used for a situation when a tough decision is to be made between two or more options

 Moral Dilemma (Ethical Dilemma): pertains to an agent/person who faces a tough moral decision

1. Personal Dilemmas: experienced on a personal level

2. Organizational Dilemmas: encountered by people in an organization
3. Structural Dilemmas: wider in scope that involves cases of a network of institutions that
encompass multi-sectoral organizations

Minimum requirement for Morality:

1. Reason: tells us that human feelings may be important but sound reasoning helps us to evaluate
whether our feelings and intuitions are correct and defensible

2. Impartiality:
- decisions should be based on the criteria of being just or objective, rather than bias or has a prejudice.
(even handedness or fair-mindedness)
- assumes that every person, generally speaking, is equally important; that is no one is seen as intrinsically
more significant than anyone else
a. Deontological
b. Utilitarian
 MODULE 2:
 Culture
- all around us; it is our way of life
- cumulative deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, and attitude among many others, that is
acquired by a group of people making up a community in the course of their generations
Moral Standard: refers to norms in which people do and is believed to be morally acceptable and/or unacceptable
1. Social Convention Theory
- Rules that are in place are mere inventions of man
- Believes that rules could have been different if man wanted them to be different

2. Social Conditioning Theory

- The rules people follow only echo social approval or disapproval

 Cultural Relativism
- Most known form of moral relativism
- an act is moral if the cultural society approves of it, and an act is therefore immoral if the cultural community
disapproves of it
- discourages being judgmental.
- discourages analytical thinking and independent decision-making
Asian Moral Understanding (Filipino Moral Character) and Universal Values
- primarily centers on having smooth interpersonal relationship with others.

1) Pakikisama
2) Hiya
3) Utang na Loob
4) Hospitality
5) Respect for Elders
Moral Character:
- existence or lack of virtues
- generates acts that help in developing virtue or vice

***Lawrence Kohlberg (American Psychologist)

Kohlberg’s Six Stages of Moral Development

- Makes decisions baes on best interest w/o due

Stage 1: Obedience and Punishment regard of others’ feelings
Orientation - Obey rules by higher authority but tend to
disobey when not get caught/punished
Level 1: [1-10]
Pre Conventional Morality
- Recognition of other’s feelings and needs
Stage 2: Individualism and Exchange - Satisfy other’s needs when own needs are
satisfied

Stage 3: Good Interpersonal - Make decisions based on reactions of people

Relationship - Concerned of maintaining good relationships
Level 2: [8-16+]
Conventional Morality
- Recognize laws and social orders
Stage 4: Maintaining Social Order - Look to the society as a whole for the rules
and guidelines regarding what is right or wrong

Stage 5: Social Contract and Individual - Recognize the meaning of the law set out by
Rights society

Level 3: [adults] - Stick to a few abstract, universal principles

Post Conventional Morality
such as equality, etc.
Stage 6: Universal Principles - Answer to a strong personal conscience and
disobey laws in violation of their own ethical
principles
 MODULE 3:
 Emotivism
- an improved version of subjectivism
- developed chiefly by the American Philosopher Charles L. Stevenson
- moral judgments express positive or negative feelings
- most popular form of non-cognitivism

 Subjectivism
- We are to identify our moral principles by simply following our feelings
- No such thing as objective right or wrong
- Interprets ethical statements as statement of fact

The 7-Step Moral Reasoning Model:

Scott B Rae, Ph.D.: offered a model which can be used to insure that the II needed bases are covered. It is not a
model that will automatically generate the right answer but a guideline only ascertaining the right questions are
asked in the process
1) Gather the Facts
2) Determine the Ethical Issues
3) Identify the Principles that have a bearing on the case
4) List the alternatives
5) Compare the alternatives with the Principles
6) Weigh the Consequences
7) Made a Decision

 Moral Courage
- doing the right thing even at the risk of inconvenience, ridicule, punishment, loss of job or security or
social status, etc.
- we rise above the apathy or social status
 Will
- refers to that faculty of the mind which chooses at the moment of making decisions, the strongest
desire from among the various desires present
- Arthur Schopenhauer: "Will" is the innermost essence
**Having moral courage and will means doing the right thing, which may include listening to our conscience.
Disregarding our conscience may lead to feeling of inadequacy, guilt and diminished personal integrity.

MODULE 4:
 Meta Ethics
- an attempt to discern on two premises:
1) what moral concepts and phrases mean, and,
2) what are its ethical statement-truth conditions, vis-a-vis whether the statements can be given a
non-moral or logical justification

- studies the nature of morality.

- talks about the meaning, reference, and the truth values of moral judgments. Also, it explains what
goodness and wickedness mean and how we know about them

Cognitivism Refers that moral judgments are ‘truth bearers,’ or are either true or false.
- Believes that the existence of moral facts and the truth (or falsity) of
moral judgments are independent of people’s thoughts and
- Moral Realism perceptions.
- There are real objective moral facts or truths in the universe.
- Regarded as moral facts/truths
- Holds that the truth (or falsity) of moral judgments or ethical
Semantically propositions are dependent on the attitudes or standards of a person
-Ethical Subjectivism or group of persons.
- statements of feelings, attitudes and emotions
- contrary to moral realism
Non-Cognitivism Denies that moral judgments are either true or false.
- moral judgments are taken s mere expressions of our emotions and
-Emotivism feelings.
- merely expresses feelings.
- explains that moral facts and principles apply to everybody in all
Moral Universalism places.
- very much compatible with ‘moral realism’.
Substantially
- different moral facts and principles apply to different persons or
Moral Relativism group of individuals.
- very much compatible with ‘ethical subjectivism’.
 - states that moral facts are known thru observation and experience..
Moral Empiricism
- corresponds to experiments and observation
- states that moral facts and principles are knowable a priori, that is,
Epistemologically
Moral Rationalism by reason alone and without reference to experience.
- corresponds to mathematical analysis
Moral Intuitionism - Implies that moral truths are knowable by intuition

 Normative Ethics: pertains to the principle of how man (should) ought to act.
1) it evaluates standards for the rightness and wrongness of actions, and
2) it determines a moral course of action

3 KINDS OF NORMATIVE ETHICS

- determines moral actions by their outcomes or results
1. Teleological
- Telos means ‘end’
2. Deontological - bases morality on independent moral values or duties
- Emphasis is on developing good habits of character like kindness and
3. Virtue Ethics generosity
- gives importance to moral education

 Applied Ethics: deals with ethical questions particular to professional, disciplinary, or practical field

5 KINDS OF APPLIED ETHICS

1. Bioethics - life, biomedical researches, medicines, health care, and medical profession
2. Environmental
- nature, ecosystem, and its nonhuman contents
Ethics
3. Business - moral principles concerning business environment of issues related to
Ethics corporate practices, policies, business behaviors
- sexuality and human sexual behavior
4. Sexual Ethics - homosexuality, lesbianism, polygamy, premarital sex, non-marital
procreation, loveless sexual relations, safe sex, and contraceptive use
- what is right for a society to do, and how should society act as a whole
5. Social Ethics - racial discrimination, death penalty, nuclear production, gun control, drug
use for fun, and welfare rights

MODULE 4:
 Virtue Ethics
: a moral philosophy that emphasizes the development of good habits of character and avoiding bad character
traits and vices. From this definition, we can deduce that virtue is a good habit of character while vice or moral
weakness is its opposite.
Virtues are the freely chosen character traits that people praise in others. People praise them because:
1) they are difficult to develop;
2) they are corrective of natural deficiencies (e.g. industriousness is corrective of laziness); and
3) they are beneficial both to self and to society.
Four cardinal virtues:
1) wisdom,
2) courage,
3) moderation,
4) justice.
Christian:
1) faith
2) hope,
3) charity.
Others suggest that virtue is associated with humanity namely: grace, mercy, forgiveness, honor, restraint,
reasonableness, and solidarity.
Virtue, therefore, is knowledge and can be taught. Knowledge of the Good is considered as the source of guidance
in moral decision making.

 Socrates:
- Socrates was Plato's teacher, and Plato documented Socrates' teachings.
- Socrates argued that pleasure and pain cannot serve as objective standards for morality since they are
interconnected, while good and evil exist independently.
- He believed in the existence of objective ethical standards but acknowledged the difficulty of specifying
them.
- Socrates emphasized that what is good is not solely determined by the whims of the gods.
 Plato:
- Plato proposed the theory of forms, which are objectively existing immaterial entities that are the proper
objects of knowledge.
- Material objects derive their identity from their resemblance to or participation in these universal forms.
- There are forms for various concepts, including moral predicates such as justice and happiness.
- The highest form is the Form of the Good.
- Plato believed that those who comprehend the Good will always perform good actions, while bad actions
result from ignorance of the Good.
- Knowledge of the Good requires a disciplined and intellectually rigorous way of life.

 Aristotle's Ethics:
- Aristotle's ethics can be described as self-realizationism, eudaimonistic, and aretaic.
- Self-realizationism: Acting in line with one's nature or purpose (telos) leads to moral action and happiness.
Human flourishing is achieved through a life of contemplation.
- Eudaimonistic: Happiness (eudaimonia) is the ultimate goal and intrinsic good for humans. Other things
like pleasure, wealth, and honor are means to achieving happiness.
- Aretaic: Aristotle's ethics is virtue-based, focused on what kind of person one should strive to become.
- Moral virtue is acquired through habit and leads to effective action. It involves finding the golden mean
between excess and deficiency.
- Aristotle identifies moral virtues such as courage, temperance, justice, and prudence, and intellectual
virtues like practical wisdom.
- Moral education involves imitation, internalization, and practice to cultivate virtuous actions.
- Aristotle's ideal is a morally virtuous person who consistently acts in accordance with moral virtue and
practical wisdom.

 Evaluation of Greek Philosophers' Ethical Theories:

- Socrates and Plato's view that ignorance of what is good leads to immoral behavior is criticized, as
ignorance does not excuse wrongdoing.
- Plato's theory of Forms, although rejected by many, suggests the existence of objective moral truths.
- Aristotle's concept of virtue is more active and practical compared to Plato's. Virtue is acquired through
practice and is not innate.
- Aristotle distinguishes between "doing right" and "knowing what is right," emphasizing the importance of
moral action.
- Aristotle's ethics is seen as more practical and applicable, guiding individuals to find the mean and avoid
extremes in specific situations.
- Accountability and responsibility are addressed in Aristotle's view, where bad actions involve a temporary
suppression of knowledge.
- Practical wisdom opens the possibility of bias and subjectivity, potentially justifying any decision regardless
of its impact on others and society.

 St. Thomas Aquinas:

- Thomas Aquinas, known as the Angelic Doctor and the Prince of Scholastics, heavily relied on Aristotle
in his ethical views.
- Aquinas believes that all actions are directed towards ends, and happiness is the ultimate end.
- Happiness consists of virtuous activities but is fully attained only in the afterlife, either in the souls of the
blessed or in the beatitude of God.
- Aquinas categorizes law into Natural Law, Eternal Law, Human Law, and Divine Law.
- Natural Law is accessible to human reason and is a part of the eternal law. It guides human conduct and
directs people to do good and avoid evil.
- Human Law refers to positive laws that provide specific guidance based on the broad principles of the
natural law. Moral virtues are reinforced and cultivated through human laws.
- Divine Law complements other types of laws and is revealed through sacred texts and the Church. It
focuses on guiding individuals towards their final end and attaining salvation.
- Divine law emphasizes both external conduct and inner holiness.

 An Analysis of Thomistic Ethics

- Aquinas' ethics encompasses various factors that matter in the ethical evaluation of actions, including the
interior act of the will, the external bodily act, the nature of the act, and its consequences.
- Aquinas emphasizes the importance of intention in moral evaluation, considering not only what one does
but also why they do it.
- Thomistic ethics does not neatly fit into a single contemporary moral theory category but has elements of
deontology, virtue ethics, and rejects certain aspects of Aristotle's moral philosophy.
- Aquinas' doctrine of natural law opposes nihilism, relativism, and conventionalism, affirming the existence
of objective moral values and rejecting absolute skepticism.
- Thomistic ethics has practical applications, advocating for actions that promote good, avoid evil, pursue
knowledge, and live in harmony with others.
- Aquinas suggests that governments should support beneficial scientific and technological endeavors,
while opposing the production of weapons of mass destruction and the mistreatment of human beings.