CHAPTER 3

Frameworks and Principles

behind our
Moral Disposition Frameworks
References:
Gallinero, W.B., Morte, A.A.,
Salado, F.B., Fernandez
This section addresses the following questions:
• What are the overarching frameworks that dictate
the way we make our individual moral decisions?

• What is my framework in making my decisions?

The basic concepts that will be discussed are:
A. Virtue Ethics B. Kant and Rights Theorist C. Utilitarianism
1. Aristotle 1. Kant 1. Origin and Nature of Theory
i. Telos i. Good Will
ii. Virtue as Habit ii. Categorical Imperative
iii. Happiness as Virtue
2. St. Thomas: Natural Law 2. Different Kinds of Rights 2. Distributive Justice
i. The Natural and its i. Legal i. Egalitarian
Tenets ii. Moral ii. Capitalist
ii. Happiness as iii. Socialist
Constructive of Moral
and Cardinal Virtues
Diagnostic Exercise
Can you recall some good habits you acquired in
school and at home? What is your favorite good
habit from your teachers and from your parents?
Are they helpful in doing moral things?
(Please elaborate whether your answer is YES or NO.)
ARISTOTLE
 What is virtue ethics and who is Aristotle?

Virtue Ethics is the general term for theories that

put emphasis on the role of character and virtue in
living one’s life rather than in doing one’s duty or in
acting to bring about good consequences.

Moral Code:
“Act as a virtuous person would act in your
situation”
ARISTOTLE
Most virtue ethics theories take their inspiration from
Aristotle who declared that a virtuous person is someone
who has ideal character traits.

• Born in a small colony of Stragira in Greece

• Father was Nicomachus, a court physician during
the reign of King Amyntas
• Became tutor of Alexander the Great
• Became student of Plato in Academy for 20years
• Known works related to Moral Philosophy are:
Nicomachean Ethics (NE), Eudemian Ethics (EE),
and the Magna Moralia.
TELOS
 Means all our human actions would lead to our
desired end.
 The end of human act is either good or bad but for
Aristotle, in his Nicomachean Ethics, the end is
something that is good.

There are two things about the end as good:

1. Achievable and a rational activity
2.Achieving the good is the Telos/End of human actions
Aristotle understands the meaning of good from
the perspective of finality and self-sufficiency.
These are the two features that serve as criteria of
determining the good:

1. The finality of the object of human action has

two views – the dominant or monistic and the
inclusivists’ view.
2. The object of the act must be something that
will make life worthwhile.
VIRTUE AS HABIT
Acquisition of character excellence by habituation
(ethismos).

Character – the development of personality that

resulted in the application of virtues.

Habit – human acts being carried out frequently.

Virtues – good acts habitually put into action.

- two kinds of virtues:
1. Moral Virtue
2. Intellectual Virtue
 Intellectual Virtue Vs. Moral Virtue
• There are two • Moral Virtue is not
classifications of innate, and just flow from
Intellectual Virtue: the our beings.
intellectual virtue of • Acquired through
wisdom and the constant practice, which
intellectual virtue of in turn develops ones
understanding. character excellence.
• When put in action,
should be observe
moderation.
HAPPINESS AS VIRTUE
• Eudaimonia – Greek word Aristotle referred
as happiness.
-- a pleasant activity or excellent
rational action where one judges his whole life as
successful and worth living.

-- happiness is not an immediate

result of a certain human action, but a
conglomeration of human virtuous acts so as to
achieve a eudaemon life.
ST. THOMAS AQUINAS
St. Thomas Aquinas
• Born in Roccasecca, Italy
• Studied liberal arts at the University of Naples
• Known as the Doctor of the Church because of
his immense contribution to theology and the
doctrine of the Catholic Church
• His most important works are the Summa
Theologica where he expounded on the 5 proofs
of God’s existence and the Summa Contra
Gentiles or the “Book on the truth of the Catholic
faith against the errors of the unbelievers”.
NATURAL LAW
• Discussed natural law along with eternal law.
• His philosophy is theistic or belief in God as the
highest of all beings and the highest of all goods.
• God expresses self through eternal law, His will
and His plan for all His creatures while natural
law expresses moral requirements (rules,
commands, and action-guiding requirements).
We adhere to the will and plan of God who shares His love and
goodness to us, His creature. In that, we live up to the
expectation of God – to be His moral creature, and with
obedience to the law.

Two groups of God’s creatures to Natural Law:

1. Rational Creatures – refers to human beings who are

gifted with rationality and freedom. We are thinking beings,
it is we who can understand and analyze content of the moral
requirements, and since we are free beings, it is we who can
either show obedience to the moral requirements of not.

2. Irrational Creatures – refers to animals, plants and other

nonliving creatures without rationality and freedom.
In his book ETHICS: A Class Manual in Moral Philosophy,
The Right Reverend Msgr. Paul J. Glenn made a distinction
of natural law in broad sense and in narrow sense of
rational and irrational creatures.

In the narrow sense, for rational creatures, it is already

given that natural law is already present in us who are
rational beings. All we have to do is to recognize that we are
his creatures, and that we are called to participate in the
divine life of the highest being in order to have a fullness of
being. For irrational creatures, the way they exist and the
way their actions tend toward something that seems to be
good are all guided by this natural law.

In the broad sense, the natural law guides both the rational
and irrational creatures in their own perspective tendencies
towards the realization of their beings.
HAPPINESS AS CONSTRUCTIVE OF MORAL
AND CARDINAL VIRTUES
Virtues
- consist of human actions that are frequently
carrying out, so much so that such human act becomes
easily executed.
- are special kind of human acts that are moral;
means that such moral act is carried out in accordance
with the dictates of reason or also called
conscience.

Vice
- opposite of virtue; the immoral frequent act
Four Moral Cardinal Virtues
Prudence
The exercise of understanding that helps us know
the best means in solving moral problems in which
we encounter in the concrete circumstance.
Knowing the best means, and without acting
carelessly, will incline us to apply them immediately
with certainty. It is one-step-backward-and-two-
steps-forward technique.
Justice
The exercise of the will to give or render the things,
be it intellectual or material, to anyone who owns it.
If a thing belongs to you, then everyone should
respect it and not own it, or if it belongs to
someone, then we must not treat it as ours.

Fortitude
Exercise of courage to face any dangers one
encounters without fear, especially when life is at
stake.
Temperance
The exercise of control in the midst of strong
attraction to pleasures. The keyword here is
moderation. Getting indulged into strong pleasures
has undesirable consequences, either excess or
disorder.
For Aquinas, happiness becomes constructive of moral
and cardinal virtues as it entails the wholeness of
human beings involving body and soul to be united
with the highest good or summum bonum, no other
than God Himself who is in heaven.

The ultimate good for man is for him to fulfill his

nature no other than to live as being His creature, in
accordance to his purpose and to the divine plan of
God, and to act that does not hinder his future union
with God in heaven.
Kant and the Rights Theorists
Immanuel Kant
• Born in Konisberg, Germany in 1724.
• He spent the rest of his life in Konisberg from
birth to death.
• His works related to moral philosophy are the
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals
(1785) and The Critique of Practical Reason
(1788).
GOOD WILL
Kant said that we need to look into our will, as either we possess the
will that is good or will that is bad. In highlighting the role of the will
as the starting point of his moral theory, Kant gives the argument that
happiness or eudaimonia of Aristotle and St. Aquinas is not the
highest good.

Kant claims that the only good without qualification is the good will.
He treats the good will as the highest good since its end will always be
good.

He added that the role of reason, particularly ethics, is to produce a

will that is good, and this will become good only when it is motivated
by duty. So when we act from duty, we exhibit the good will. More so,
will rests on the fact that humans, aside from being rational are
persons of moral worth.
CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE
For Kant, moral commands are always categorical and
not hypothetical. Categorical is all about ought, that is to
say, one is ought to do the moral law in absence of
conditions since it is simply done out of duty.

First formulation of Categorical Imperative: “act only

according to maxim by which you can at the same time
will that is shall become a universal law”. The second
formulation, that is also known as the formula of
humanity, is: “act in such a way that you always treat
humanity, whether in your own person or in the person
of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the
same time as an end.”
From the two formulas are the two principles/determinants
of Moral Imperative:

1. PERSON – respect for person is the basic thing about

how we treat people we encounter in our daily living.
For Kant, the act that is good happens only when we
deal with other people not as merely means.

2. UNIVERSALIZABILITY – an act is considered morally

good if a maxim or law can be made universal. That
maxim or law is made not only for our self but also for
others as well to perform or to prohibit. Kant uses the
example of lie and promise to illustrate the point of
contradiction under universalizability. The respect for
person as end and means, and never solely as means to
serve one’s end must be considered at all times.
LEGAL RIGHTS VS. MORAL RIGHTS
LEGAL RIGHTS MORAL RIGHTS
• Refer to all the rights one has • Rights that belong to any
by simply being a citizen of a moral entities such as human
particular country. beings and animals – what
make them moral entities are
the following features such as
freedom, rationality and
sentience.
UTILITARIANISM
Jeremy Bentham
• The founder of utilitarianism.
• Born in London in 1748 to a father who was a
prosperous lawyer.
• His famous works related to moral philosophy
are: Introduction to the Principles of
Morals and Legislation and A Fragment
on Government.
• His theory of utility was inspired by the book of
David Hume on the Treasite of Human Nature.
The theory of utilitarianism, sometimes called
consequentialism, focuses on the effect of a particular
end or telos called happiness.

First, the basis for an act to be treated morally right or

wrong is in its consequence they produced. The second
point is, what matters in every act that we do would be
the amount of pleasure produced. If there is no
pleasure yielded, then the act is morally wrong. Third
point, the happiness experienced by every person is
counted the same.
Bentham uses the felicific calculus, a method that can calculate
or measure happiness and pain. Accordingly, Bentham is a
hedonist and he understands happiness as pleasure in which
pleasure’s partner is pain.

Now to measure happiness or pleasure, all we need to do is to

count all the happiness or pleasure that an act brings minus
the amount of pain that an act will also bring. If the amount of
happiness or pleasure is greater than the pain, then the act is
good.

amount of pleasure – amount of pain = moral or immoral act

Considerations in assessing an act:
1. Happiness/pleasure should be more intense;
2. Happiness/pleasure should last longer;
3. Happiness/pleasure should be more certain to occur;
4. Happiness/pleasure should be happening sooner
rather than later;
5. Happiness/pleasure will produce in turn many
happiness and few pains;
6. In determining the amount of happiness/pleasure, one
has to consider how many people will be affected.

The better position would be when there are more people

affected positively, that is, greatest happiness for the
greatest number of people, and fewer affected negatively.
PROMOTING THE COMMON GOOD
Pre-discussion
In the light of the free tuition law, the RA 10931, also
known as the “Universal Access to Quality Tertiary
Education Act”, signed by President Duterte in 2016,
all college students have the privilege to enroll in any
state colleges and state universties without paying
the tuition and other fees. Are you in favor that no
,matter what the financial status – upper class,
middle class, and lower class – of the students will be
given the same privilege?
John Rawls
One of the important political philosophers during
the 20th century. His main work is A Theory of Justice
published in 1971.

Rawl’s proposes justice and fairness as an ethical

framework. This framework focuses on how justice
should be distributed that would yield fairness for
those who have more and those who have less. The
term fairness refers not to equality but as equity.
The justice of Rawl’s embraces not only sociological dimension but
includes political and socio economic as well. In fact, for Rawl’s he
understands justice where there is fairness among members of the
society with the goal of promoting their common good.

The two principles are as follows:

1st: Each person is to have an equal right to the most

extensive scheme of equal basic liberties compatible with a similar
scheme of liberties for others.

2nd: Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so

that they are both (a) reasonably expected to be everyone’s
advantage, and (b) attached to positions and offices open to all.

These two principles are not independent from each other. The
second principle shapes the decision making of the political
institutions while the first principle is most of the time influenced by
the socioeconomic institutions.
Before he speaks what is a just society, he would first
lay the foundation of a social order where there are
rules and sanctions that put social affairs into places.

So if one wants to accept a social order that is just,

then see to it that the object of agreement is fair, that
is, that social order takes into account the interest of
all members of such society equally. This is the
barometer of where justice as fairness prevails.
DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE
Means everyone in the society has to share both the
burden and the benefit of whatever the society offers.
Nobody enjoys only benefits without taking the burden or
purely burden without taking the benefit.

 Egalitarian – one is concerned with a just distribution

in terms of receiving an equal share.

 Political – where legal rights of every citizen are equally

observed.
Economic – where distribution of socioeconomic goods is
equally observed.
DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE
 Capitalist – concerned with a just distribution in
terms of receiving one’s share according to how much
one contributes to the overall success of the goals of
the institution where one is employed. The term
proportion is useful here.

 Socialist – one is concerned with the just

distribution in terms of one’s needs. If one has greater
needs, then one expects that his share is greater in the
distribution scheme, and vice versa.