WEEK 3 MODULE

Course Ethics

Course Description This course explores and articulates a unique way of doing ethics that resonates with the Filipino today
while dealing with the richness and complexities of human condition without compromising the peculiar
character of ethics as a humanistic and philosophic field of study.

Instructor Emmanuel John R. Pangan

Program & Block No Ph 1-1; TM 2-2

Lessons/Topics Inclusive Dates Activity Intended Output

• Being Good and Being 30 March 2020 to Read the provided lecture. Then create a Thought Paper No. 3
Scientific: Can Morality Be 03 April 2020 thought paper.
a Science? (Descartes,
Hume, Mill)

NOTE: Consultation is done ONLY during your respective class schedule. Submission of the intended output will be upon resumption
of classes.

LEARNING OUTCOME
At the end of this module, the students should be able to…
1. Explain the logical progression or link among rationalism, empiricism and utilitarianism
2. Identify the ethical challenges posed by each one of these philosophies
3. Examine the helpful and harmful sides of these philosophies
4. Demonstrate tension between ethics and science
READINGS
From Kreeft, P. (2003). Ethics: A History of Moral Thought. USA: science, because it seeks rational knowledge of something—
Recorded Books, LLC good and evil—through causes and explanations. It is not an
exact, mathematical science, or a physical science, but it is a
LECTURE 10: BEING GOOD AND BEING SCIENTIFIC: CAN science as philosophy is. If philosophy studies human behavior
MORALITY BE A SCIENCE? (DESCARTES, HUME, MILL) and judges and explains it by principles and laws, by arguing and
trying to prove conclusions, ethics is a science. The question is:
Before beginning this lecture, you may want to… Can it be a science not just in this traditional, ancient sense, but
Read René Descartes’ Discourse on Method and John Stuart in the new modern sense as well?
Mill’s Utilitarianism.
Descartes—“The Father of Modern Philosophy”
Science and Modern Philosophy Descartes lived in the early 17th century, when all the sciences
Three influential modern philosophers had one thing in common; were flourishing, and philosophy had been declining for
the respect for science and the desire to do philosophy, centuries. Descartes asked himself why the sciences had
including ethics, in a more scientific way. They were: progressed, but philosophy had not. He wondered how he could
refute the skepticism that came from Nominalism in the late
• René Descartes in the 17th Century. His philosophy is Middle Ages and give philosophy a new start. What was the
called RATIONALISM. secret of scientific progress and why had philosophy not
• David Hume in the 18th Century. His philosophy is called imitated it? Descartes decided to ignore the past and look
EMPIRICISM. forward. As part of his method he chose to deliberately doubt
• John Stuart Mill in the 19th Century. His philosophy is everything that his predecessors had assumed. To answer the
called UTILITARIANISM. skeptic, begin as a skeptic. Assume nothing. Descartes realized
that the secret to science was indeed its method, and he thought
Each one of these philosophies leads to the next one, in a kind that trying to apply this to philosophy could prove very fruitful.
of logical progression.
Descartes’ Discourse on Method
Science and Modern Society Descartes says the ancient philosophies were “… like
The one feature that most distinguishes modern civilization from magnificent temples. They laud the virtues and rightly make
others is science. Pure science has given us more factual them more beautiful than anything else, but they are built on
knowledge and technology (its offshoot) and has given us more foundations of sand and mud,” for they give no certain criteria
power than any culture of the past ever had. Once the scientific or proofs for distinguishing good and evil. The new scientific
“method” was discovered (in the Renaissance of the 16th and method works as a strong foundation, he contends, but it should
17th centuries) there was no going back. When science became have something more than technology built upon it. Descartes
“provable” and gave reliable results, it became natural to ask called for moving the new scientific foundation under the old
whether or not it might help in ethics. For in a sense ethics is a ethical temple.
 Consider this… Empiricism
Are there similarities between Descartes and Socrates? Were Empiricism is a theory of knowledge, or epistemology, that is
their goals the same or different? diametrically opposed to Descartes’ Rationalism in many ways,
though it shared Descartes’ emphasis on the scientific. The
The first thing Descartes does in his book, Discourse on Method, difference is simple: Human knowledge evidently has two
is to redefine reason more narrowly as scientific reason, then he components:
tries to apply the new scientific method to philosophy. The first 1. The Senses and;
rule of Descartes’ method was the same as the first rule of the 2. The Mind
scientific method:
The Rationalists say only the mind can be trusted absolutely, and
Accept nothing as true until proved with certainty to be true. the senses must be judged by the mind. The Empiricist says that
only the senses can be trusted because they alone give you data
Descartes, using this method of universal doubt, tries to prove about the objective world, and that the mind must be judged by
first his own existence with the argument: “I think therefore I the senses, because hypotheses must be judged by the data in
am.” Then secondly that he is a mind; and then in the third place any science. Since reason and sensation are the two poles of our
that there is a God. He tries to prove that there is a God by the knowing, Rationalism and Empiricism are the two simplest
concept of a perfect being in his mind, arguing by pure formal contrasting epistemologies.
logic that the concept of total perfection must include the
perfection of existing independent of our mind. Finally David Hume
Descartes claimed to prove the reality of the material world and David Hume (among others, like John Locke) was an Empiricist
the validity of our sense perceptions of it, from the premise that who reacted against Descartes’ Rationalism. Hume insists that
if the instruments of knowing that we find in our very nature ideas are only less vivid copies of sense impressions, and that
were deceptive, then God, the author of nature, would be a there is nothing in the mind that wasn’t first in the senses. This
deceiver and not perfect. leads to a crisis as far as ethics is concerned because ethics is
not about anything we can sense. Good and evil have no shape
Did Descartes Succeed? or color or scientifically measurable qualities. So how does
Most philosophers agree that Descartes was a genius. Very few Hume account for our ethical ideas? His answer comes down to
people, however, think he succeeded in proving what he tried to emotions. Our ethical ideas, he says, are in fact feelings.
prove. Nor did he succeed in applying his methods to ethics. In
the Discourse on Method he gave a purely provisional pragmatic The Emotive Theory of Values
ethic, a way to live safely and comfortably while building the When we see a mugger kill an old lady Hume says we haven’t
new scientific ethical system, but he never got around to actually SEEN evil at all, only sense impressions: a knife, a cry, blood, etc.
building it. He thought of himself as a scientist first and as a We may CALL it evil, but we don’t SEE evil. Moral evil and good
philosopher second. are both in our feelings. And unlike our sensations, our feelings
are not objective, and do not reveal anything in the world Consider this…
outside of us. According to Hume, we project our subjective How does the phrase “different strokes for different folks” fit
feelings onto the act and call it bad, if it has made us feel bad. into an Empiricist philosophy?
The act, though, he says, is just physical, it is not good or bad.
Ethics then is subjective, not objective, and can never become a Problems with Logical Positivism
science. Hume’s Empiricism eliminates any knowledge of a real The principle that all meaningful propositions are either logical
good and evil. tautologies (self-proving, like equations) or empirically verifiable,
contradicts itself, because it itself is neither a logical tautology
Three Other Conclusions of Hume’s Empiricism nor empirically verifiable. Also, it’s not empirical because we
1. We must also deny the knowledge of causality, because observe people all the time arguing about right and wrong, and
we cannot derive it from sense impressions. We do not they do not argue about feelings but about what is or is not
sense, for example, the causal connection between the objective fact. Ethics is not about our feelings, just as color is not
bird and the egg. It is only mental habit that makes us about our seeing. What we see is color, what we calculate is
connect them. math, what we believe is religion, and what we feel approving
2. We do not sense the substance, or thing, or entity that of, or guilty about, are moral good and evil. So subjective moral
possesses all the sensible qualities that we perceive. We feelings are about objective moral facts, not vice versa. The fact
see the brownness of the table, and feel its hardness, but that everyone argues about morality proves that either the
no sense senses its tableness. emotive theory is wrong, and everyone is right, or that the
3. We never sense ourselves. We look within and all we theory is right, and everyone is wrong.
find are thoughts, feelings, desires and choices. Not only
are there no physical, material substances outside you, If ethics is about objective facts, then the question remains: Can
there is not even any non-physical substance inside of ethics be done by the modern scientific method?
you. There is no substantial you.
Utilitarianism
Empiricism and Ethics Utilitarianism was invented by Jeremy Bentham and refined by
A.J. Ayer in his Language, Truth and Logic, along with the John Stuart Mill, two 18th-century English philosophers. In his
“Logical Positivists” or “Logical Empiricists,” argued that if Hume book, Utilitarianism, Mill claimed that you could do ethics by the
is right, then all ethical statements, all propositions about good modern scientific method. Science uses essentially two things in
and evil, right and wrong, ought and ought not, are strictly its method:
meaningless. “Murder is wrong” can’t be proved by sense data 1. empirical observation and;
or by formal, mathematical logic. All ethics thus become 2. mathematical measurement
expressions of personal, private, subjective feelings rather than
intellectual claims or universally meaningful propositions that Mill observes that everyone in fact desires happiness, and he
you can argue about. identifies happiness with pleasure, so it remains something
empirical or something you can sense, feel, or observe. He then
gets the notion of moral responsibility from the observed fact 2. It’s subjectivism. Its concept of happiness is merely
that our choices and actions affect other people and make them subjective. But happiness is also something objective, so
more happy or less happy. that we can speak meaningfully of “true happiness” or
“false happiness.” True happiness might even require
He says that happiness can be measured, since you can have some suffering. Utilitarianism eliminates heroism.
more of it or less of it. Therefore, he concludes, ethics can be 3. The Utilitarian wants to avoid metaphysics and stick to
scientific. The criterion for good and evil, says Mill, is: “the scientific calculation, but there is an implicit metaphysics
greatest happiness for the greatest number of people.” An act is in Utilitarianism: the metaphysics of Materialism, which
good in so far as it produces happiness and bad in so far as it identifies our greatest good with material pleasure.
produces unhappiness. Mill identified happiness with pleasure, Utilitarians, for instance, are not neutral on questions of
though unlike Bentham, he admitted that there are higher and God and a spiritual soul, as they should be if they were
lower pleasures. Thus, he could say: only scientists.
4. If making moral evaluations depend on the
“It is better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied.” consequences of our acts, Utilitarianism plays God: it
—John Stuart Mill claims to know the future. Its principles could justify
anything—murder, cannibalism, lying—if only you think it
But, essentially, Mill says that an act is good only because it will lead to greater happiness.
makes people happy, that is, because of its consequences. This 5. The Utilitarian has no answer for why one should be
is known as Consequentialism. An act is good not because it altruistic, why the greatest good should serve the
obeys a good principle, a good moral law, but because it greatest number of people.
produces good consequences. This makes Utilitarianism 6. Utilitarianism can’t account for evil. Evil is reduced to
scientific because consequences can be calculated and wrong calculation of consequences.
observed, while principles cannot. 7. It does not help us make sense of death. It’s hard to die
as a Utilitarian.
Consider this… 8. Its psychology is too simplistic. We don’t want pleasure
If I am a sadist and you are a masochist, then would Mill say only. We have deeper desires.
that there is nothing wrong with my torturing you? Or if nine 9. It is universally condemned by good people. The better
cannibals ate one non-cannibal, would this produce “the you are, the less you are a Utilitarian. If Utilitarianism is
greatest happiness for the greatest number?” true, then truth and moral goodness contradict each
other.
Ten Problems with Utilitarianism 10. Utilitarianism lacks the whole ethical dimension. It just
1. It doesn’t work in concrete situations. It is too simplistic. doesn’t understand what ethics is. It reduces values to
Utilitarianism thinks only of quantity of happiness, not of facts, like reducing color to black and white. It is morally
justice, or rights, or of what is right. color blind.
 FOR GREATER UNDERSTANDING

SUGGESTED READING AND OTHER BOOKS OF INTEREST

Ayer, A.J. Language, Truth and Logic. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 1977.
Descartes, René, Donald A. Cress. (ed.). Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy. New York: Hackett Publishing
Company, Inc., 1999.
Hume, David, David Fate Norton and Mary J.Norton (eds.). A Treatise of Human Nature. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Mill, John Stuart, George Sher (ed.). Utilitarianism. 1863. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., Inc., 2002.
Grene, Marjorie. Descartes. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Co., Inc., 1998
Mill, John Stuart, John M. Robson (ed.). Autobiography. New York: Penguin Classics, 1990.
Penelhum, Terence, David Hume: An Introduction to His Philosophical System. Ashland, OH: Purdue University Press, 1994.

WEBSITE TO VISIT
1. http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/Mind/Table.html - Exhibition on René Descartes.
2. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume/ - The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, David Hume.
3. http://www.jsmill.com/ - John Stuart Mill site.
4. http://www.utilitarianism.com - Utilitarianism site.
FORMAT
Thought Paper
A thought paper is a method of assessing what one knows about a certain topic. This includes facts from researches and opinion based
on logical inferences not just simply reactions particularly psychological in nature such as fear, anxiety, anger, joy, disgust, etc.

In making a good thought paper, it is essential to find a comfortable place. Writing your paper should include an introduction which
may consist of the current situation of the topic at hand, description of the issue/s, current practices and conventions used to address
the issue/s, and the research gap. The research gaps are those in need of clarification such as those with highly debatable nature,
unresolved issues, or unknown to all. Then one can do a critique and an analysis. This could be done methodically and scientifically.

The step-by-step process to achieve a good thought paper is as follows:

1. After reading the document or researching the topic at hand, usually you are going to look at your reaction to the matter.
Formulate a question or questions you want to answer. Read it several times and allow it to sink into your mind.
2. Read again the document to have a clear idea of its message. List down its points.
3. Write down your thesis statement that answers the question you have prepared.
4. You may write subthemes to the main question. The subthemes must supplement your main answer to your main question.
Write as many subthemes as you can think of. Then choose among it, the subtheme/s you wish to discuss on your paper.
5. Write an outline.
6. Write the first draft. The suggested format of a thought paper would be:
a. Introduction
b. Question to be answered
c. Message of the document
d. Your arguments
e. Conclusion
7. Edit and proofread your paper. Go over it several times and look for errors. Do not stop until you are satisfied.

NOTE: Your thought paper should be about 500 to 1000 words in length (one to two pages). Sources and quotations should be
appropriately identified. You must observe the following paper specifications: Arial typeface, 11 font size, single spacing, one-inch
margin, letter-size paper, and in portrait orientation. Write your name, block, subject and thought paper number at the upper right corner
of the first page.
RUBRICS
For Thought Paper:
CRITERIA 4 3 2 1 SCORE
Content
Does the paper have a focus? Is the message clear? Did you provide convincing
support for your claims and assertions?
Organization
Have you arranged the main points of your paper clearly and logically? Are there
order and logic in the ideas you presented in each paragraph?
Language and Mechanics
Did you observe proper use of language (grammar) and mechanics (punctuation,
capitalization, paper format, etc.)?
Bibliography and Citations
Are your sources credible and up to date? Are your sources from varied mediums?
(4=Highly Proficient; 3=Proficient; 2=Minimum Standards; 1=Below Standards) TOTAL SCORE

RATING