Catherine Prado BSN II-B Health Care Ethics (NCM108)

ETHICS AND MORALITY

Ethics

What is Ethics?

•Ethics comes from the Greek word ethos which means character

•Political science dealing with morality of human acts. -Paul Glenn

•Concerned with the question of human moral judgements-that is judgement of right and wrong with respect to human
actions.

•Ethics is also defined as practical and normative science, based on reason, which studies human acts and provide
norms for their goodness and wrongness.

•Moral Philosophy, in a sense that it deals with morality, moral rectitude or rightness and wrongness of an act.

•Moral comes from the Latin word mor or moris, customs and manners.

•Ethics pertain to individual character while Morality deals on the consideration of an act as evil or good.

•Philosophy, Ethics then deals in the specific area of study, morality of an act. (human act and values)

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ETHICS AND MORALITY

ETHICS

 By way of applying the words.

 Ethic is theoretical science of good and evil.
 Ethics provides principle morality of act.
 Ethics pertain to reasons.

MORALITY

 Knowing does not necessarily mean doing.

 Ethics does not guarantee man to be moral.
 When one does the theories of Ethics, he performs ethics.
 Morality:praxis of theories. (Ethics)
 Morality. Applied ethics.

•Ethics or Moral Philosophy as it sometimes called, the systematic endeavor to understand moral concepts and justify
moral principles and theories.

•It undertakes to analyze such concept as right, wrong, permissible, ought, good, evil in their moral contexts.
Catherine Prado BSN II-B Health Care Ethics (NCM108)
Ethics from Other Principles

Whereas much of philosophy is concerned with knowledge of “what is” (e.g. metaphysics, philo of science, philo of
mind, philo of religion), ethics is concerned with action and practice.

It is concerned with values-not the “whats” of things but what ought to be.

SOURCE OF ETHICS: SUBJECTIVITY VS. OBJECTIVITY

Where does morality come from?

1. Has morality always been part of the world, originating from some supernatural being or embedded within the nature
itself?

•supported with the objectivists in their objective view of morality.

2. Is moral strictly product of human’s rationality?

•this is the one answered by subjectivists in their subjective view of morality.

MORALITY AS OBJECTIVE VS INTERPRETATION

Morality as Objective

A. Morality comes from supernatural being

•The objectives believe that morality comes from the higher, supernatural or absolute being.

E.g. gods-Greeks and Romans; Yahweh-Jews; Trinity-Catholics; Allah-Muslims; Brahma-Hindus.

Objectivists holds that supernatural being process morality and reveal it only to human beings.

B. Morality comes from natural law.

•According to the objectivists, there are natural law that humans must be adhere to, for him to be considered moral.

•These natural laws are embedded in nature.

E.g. homosexuality is wrong because...

“People are equally human, they ought to be treated equally. Sometimes when people refer to the basic dignity of
humanity or human beings, they have in mind the idea that there is something fundamental about human beings that is
worthy of moral regard.”

Subjective View

“I don’t believe in morality of the individual, and I consider Ethics to be exclusively human concern with no superhuman
authority behind it.”
Catherine Prado BSN II-B Health Care Ethics (NCM108)

Subjective view of Morality

A. Morality strictly comes from human beings

•Things can have values only if there is human being who put values on it.

•If there are no human beings there will have no values.

•Possibility of the existence of supernatural being but...

•based on faith and there is no conclusive proof of the existence of supernatural being.

•there are diverse practices and traditions in beliefs and values.

(Jacques Thiroux:Ethics: Theory and Practice)

B. Moral laws as perspective

•Natural law in science are descriptive.

E.g. Law of gravity

•Moral laws are perspective in a sense that it tells what should and should not; ought to and ought not to.

 DEONTOLOGISM - Duty Ethics

•Greek: dentos: that which is binding, right, proper; deon-duty.

•Emphasis on universal imperatives such moral laws, duties, obligations, prohibitions.

•It is sometimes called imperativism.

Kant’s Ethics

•Others call it deontologism for its emphasis on duty or obligation.

•Others call it intuitionism for its claim that morality is founded in human personality.

•What is morally right is solely a matter of intent, motive and will.

•Intuition here means internal motive or intention; hence it is motivist theory.

Universality?

•How can one know one’s duty in a given situation?

•Is there a test for determining what one’s duty will be under a particular set of circumstances?

•One must judge its action in the light of how it would appear if it were to become a universal precept or code of
behavior.
Catherine Prado BSN II-B Health Care Ethics (NCM108)
•One must test the act’s universability by means of categorical imperative.

•E.g. Do I want every pregnant woman, without exception, whether she be my sister, mother or daughter, who is in the
situation similar to mine, to abort her deformed fetus?

CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE

•It mandates an action without any condition.

•It is command or maxim that enjoins a person to do such act without qualification, thus lay down to universal rule and
ensures that person is acting out of duty.

•Distinguished from hypothetical imperative – command with condition or limitation.

•Categorical Imperative – performed out of duty entails oughtness, an obligation irrespective of results at all times and
places.

FORMULATION OF CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE

1.Act only the maxim which you can at the same time will to become universal law.

E.g. Stealing: Let the maxim be “should everyone steal”.

•It would become universal law if everyone is mandated to steal.

•You will then recognize your duty not to steal.

2.Always act so as to treat humanity, either yourself or others, as end and never only as means.

-No individual should be discriminated before the law.

Different Formulation:

“Do unto others what you want others do unto you”.

•Everyone must be treated equally.

•Persons have inherent value of dignity.

E.g. prostitutes (they are treated as means)

•Ethics can be put into scientific basis that is:

a. Add the pleasures

b. Subtract the pains
c. Strike the balance
d. Make decisions

“It is better to human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied.” – Mill

NATURAL LAW ETHICS

Catherine Prado BSN II-B Health Care Ethics (NCM108)
•Teaches that there exists a natural moral law which is manifested by natural light of human reason.

•It demands the preservation of natural order and forbidding its violation.

•In this theory, moral law is apprehend by reason, which directs us towards good as goal of our action.

•In the operation of the reason, it recognizes the principle: do good and avoid evil, which is known as voice of reason or
conscience.

•I know I am doing the right thing if and when I follow the voice of conscience; I feel a sense of guilt or remorse
otherwise.

•This theory says that we cannot run away from our conscience, as Judas Iscariot allegedly tried but failed when he
betrayed Jesus.

NATURAL LAW – natural order of things.

•The law derived from the nature of man.

•States the first and essential precepts which govern the moral life.

•Expressing the original moral sense which enables man to discern by reason the good and evil.

The concept of good:

1.Good is built in nature.

 We have three natural inclinations: self-preservation, just dealings and; propagation of our species.
 We are naturally inclined to [reserve life and self-destruction is unnatural for natural law ethics.
 This natural urges led us to take care of one’s life and life of others.

2. Good is treating others with same dignity and respect as we treat ourselves.

 This is the basis of justice which arises out of human relations.

 Any act of injustice such as subjecting others to indignities, degradations, and inhumanities is against nature.

3.We are naturally inclined to perpetuate our species which is viewed as good.

 Bioethical issues

PRINCIPLES OF NATURAL LAW ETHICS

A. Principle of Totality

•An individual has the right to cut off, mutilate, or remove any defective or worn out non-functioning part of his body.

•To dispose his organs or to destroy their capacity to function only insofar as the general well-being of the body requires
it.

B. Principle of Stewardship

•Human life comes from God and no man is the master of his own body.
Catherine Prado BSN II-B Health Care Ethics (NCM108)
•Humans are mere stewards or caretakers, with responsibility of protecting and cultivating spiritual bodily functions.

•We are obligated to take care of ourselves.

C. Principle of Inviolation

•States that life is loaned to us; hence, it is inviolable and sacred.

•It is only God who has complete dominion over one’s life.

D. Principle of Sexuality and Procreation

•Two-fold purpose of sexual union

a. Procreation and nurturing of children

b. Expression of loving union and companionship

•Human life is to be actualized in marriage.

 TELEOLOGY

•teleological from Greel telos, ‘end’; logos ‘science’

•theory of morality that derives duty or moral obligation from what is good or desirable as an end to be achieved.

•is an account of a given thing’s purpose.

 UTILITARIANISM

•Latin utilis, ’useful’

•Great Happiness Principle

•the greatest happiness of the greatest is the test of right and wrong.

•action is good if it produces as much or more good than the alternative behavior.

•what is useful is good, and consequently

•the ethical value of conduct is determined by the utility of its result

•Opposed to doctrine which claims, inner sense or faculty, often called the conscience, is made the absolute arbiter of
right and wrong.

•No action is intrinsically right, moral or good.

•Choose the action the produce the most benefits and least cost of pain and unhappiness.

Principle of Utility

•By utility, we mean property in any object, whereby it tends to produce benefit, advantage, pleasure or happiness
Catherine Prado BSN II-B Health Care Ethics (NCM108)
•By preventing mischief, pain, evil or unhappiness to happen.

It is also called:

Principle of Greatest Happiness

-An action is good insofar as it produces the greatest happiness for greatest number of people, and bad insofar it
produces more harm than benefit for the greatest number of individuals.

•Faced with moral decision, one should not just consider one’s happiness or benefit, or happiness of a particular person
or group but the overall balance of the greatest benefits for greatest number of people.

• ”Equal benefits or happiness for greatest number of individuals concerned”.

•Bentham employed the utilitarian theory as a foundation, not merely of an ethical system, but also of legal and political
reforms.

MILL’S UTILITARIANISM

•John Stuart Mill, who made utilitarianism the subject of one of his philosophical treaties (Utilitarianism, 1863) is the
ablest champion of the doctrine after Bentham.

•His contribution to the theory consists in his recognition of distinction of quality, in addition to those of intensity,
among pleasures.

•Happiness for Bentham and Mill in intrinsic good or good per se.

•Happiness is intended pleasure and absence of pain.

•Pain-unhappiness

•Pleasure calculus of Bentham

Pleasure-pain calculus

1.Intensity

•The more intense the pleasure, the better

2.Duration

•The longer it lasts, the better

3.Certainty

•The more certain and surer we are that it will happen, the better

4. Propinquity

•The near or close or more often it occurs, the better

5.Fecundity
Catherine Prado BSN II-B Health Care Ethics (NCM108)
•The greater chance that it will be followed by more pleasures, the better

6.Purity

•The purer the pleasure, the better

7. Extent

•The greater the number of benefited, the better

•In Bentham’s view, ethical attitude is to calculate carefully the amount of pain that any act would bring; then the pain
from the pleasure is subtracted and the balance determined. If there is balance in favor of pleasure then that act is
morally legitimate.

CONCLUSSION

•Making moral decisions manifest the existence of freedom and rationality making human existence different from
other beings.

•Different ethical theories present the diversity of human thought in the history of Philosophy.

•One can be ethical and not moral but one cannot be moral without being ethical (employing the use of Ethics and
Morality)

•Ethical theories provide norms or even guidelines but the moral aspect rests on the praxis (acting part).

•A person thinks, decides and more importantly, acts.