Ethics, Assignment 2

Lazo, Myles N. AC-1A March 27, 2020 Mr. Christian Q.
Feliciano GE-8 Ethics
Discuss the following questions using your own simple words.

1. When do we consider man as a person?
2. The basic of man according to materialism and idealism.
3. Why is it alone that man has morality?
ANSWERS:
1. Usually, our status as persons is based on fulfilling certain general conditions, such
as consciousness, rational power, intentionality, and the like. A person's status is
recognized as the basis for human rights, such as the right to live, democracy,
freedom of speech, freedom of religion and others. Normally, adult human beings
are recognized as persons. I have already noticed that the moral agency is a
requirement for the distribution of responsibility. But not all human beings are
persons too. Deep coma individuals are not, nor are babies and small children, nor
are the embryos and fetuses. There is no point in attributing moral obligations to
certain kinds of human beings in any of these kinds of situations. There are also
some borderline situations in which one may genuinely doubt that someone is a
person, for example, when dealing with seriously psychotic individuals. People who
are troubled in these ways are not normally held to be morally responsible for their
actions, even though they undoubtedly looking like persons.
We consider a man as a person when he is engaged with an activity which ends are
freely sought after being known as concepts, it is said to contain information that is
going beyond our senses and regarded as pleasant. Rationality is embodied and
realized in our search for knowledge which includes Truth, Beauty, Just, Real and
Goodness, also relating to the two forces of the human spirit: intellect and free will,
wisdom and love. Information here is not just a reaction to an external event but is
the first source of our understanding of the environment through our senses and
these are interpreted to gain ideas of common meaning or conclusions that go well
beyond our direct experiences.
We, as Men are considered a “Person” for human activity that includes new

concerns, arising from our intellect and free will. Here, our intelligence is not considered
as new means of acting but of knowing, and those new knowledge should be used in
doing our free actions. Because the activity is not automatically predetermined, we are
accountable for every free action which is being judged as morally good or evil. We need
to look at rationality –our personhood- from different angles and perspectives to know
about its sources and consequences. We as human Person have to live in the totality of
Man, with body and spirit, in two clearly distinct levels. So if we try to reduce ourselves
to only the spirit or just the matter, this is not an acceptable issue when applied to our
total experiences. Because our reasoning/rationality is leading to a non-material
(spiritual) reality as our source of our thought and free will, we now have the answer for
the question on when to consider Man as a Person.
2. In Materialism, the basics of man is matter/ material situation of our society as well as
day-to-day living without considering our spirit or our consciousness. Materialism’s
basic proposition refers to the essence of reality and doesn’t consider the existence of the
divine, supernatural, forces, and even elements, it is independent of human life. It notes
that the matter is in order first. Man is made of the same form of atom as the rest of the
universe. We have a soul consisting of smaller and lighter, atoms. The soul is still an
atom. Materialism guides our actual living and course of actions by aiding our
understanding of the nature, functioning and development of our society.
In Idealism, there is a rejection the physical reality, it says that man’s basics are ideas,
thoughts or spirit. It suggests that everything in our universe is either constructed by
our minds, or that it is without material substance. An idea meant something that was
objective, also it is a state of our minds.
3. Man alone of all the creatures here on earth is capable of moral action. Because we have the
power of reason, the power of thinking and understanding and a conscience, we are held
accountable to God. We are the only beings who can understand what “OUGHT TO” means.
There is a relationship between conscience and our perception of moral truth. Conscience helps
us choose between right and wrong. As a man having an intellect, we perceive the beauty of an
object, and our impression of the beautiful make us realize it. We don’t only know it, but
we feel it. Our intellect perceives, and our conscience makes us feel, that is, it makes us know,
the difference between right and wrong. Conscience make us feel the distinction between moral
truth and falsehood, and between morally good and morally evil and lead us to our purpose of
existence. In addition to this, the feeling of obligation/responsibility, and the feeling of pleasure
and even of pain. No other feeling is like that of moral obligation; no other pain can be
compared with a consciousness of having done wrong; no other pleasure is similar with one
that arises from a consciousness of having done right.
Whether we like it or not, we are moral beings with moral obligations. We have the
freedom or free will of being either good or bad. We tend to be highly gullible. We easily
believe in lies. We are inclined toward errors with consequences associated to it. We have to do
well because we’ll be judged one day with moral considerations and nothing more. It is our
only measure.
We have many characteristics that other creatures lack, for example: parental treatment,
average brain size, etc. We got these features genetically. It is evident from the above paragraph
that morality is a human characteristic. When we read stories, at the end of the story, the moral
of the story is...- this power of judgment to determine what lesson we draw, it is our frame of
reference on what is right or wrong. Likewise, we can claim that the act is not humane. This
means that the act is not in line with our principles, values or morals. Our "Morality," requires a
deep concern for all living beings, and should be accepted as an ethical principle for all human
beings.
Man alone is considered to be moral because, we have the ability to predict the results of
our own actions; the ability to make value judgments; and the ability to choose between
alternative courses of action. And this moral evaluation of actions emerges from human
rationality.

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Lazo, Myles N. AC-1A March 27, 2020 Mr. Christian Q.

Feliciano GE-8 Ethics

Discuss the following questions using your own simple words.

We, as Men are considered a “Person” for human activity that includes new

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