Chapter 1: The Ethical Dimension of Human Existence

• Value
• Sources of Authority
• Senses of Self

At the end of the lesson, the students should be able to:

1. Identify the ethical aspect of human life and the scope of ethical thinking;
2. Define and explain the terms that are relevant to ethical thinking; and
3. Evaluate the difficulties that are involved in maintaining certain commonly-
held notions on ethics.

Introduction: Situationers
• September 17. 2017: Horacio “Atio” Castillo III, UST, First year Law student died
of hazing by Aegis Juris Fraternity.
• August 17, 2017: Kian Lloyd Delos Santos, Grade 11, killed by Police Caloocan
during “Oplan Galugad” for drug related incident.
• August 2007: Cris Anthony Mendez, UP student died of hazing by Sigma Rho
fraternity

A. VALUE
Ethics:
• Is about matters of good things that need to pursue and the bad thing that should
be avoided; the right ways in which we could or should act, and the wrong ways
of acting.
• Acceptable and unacceptable in human behavior.
• Obligations that are expected to fulfill, prohibitions that are required us to respect,
or ideals that are encouraged us to meet.
• Ethics as a subject is about determining the ground for the values with particular
and special significance to human life.
*CLARIFICATIONS AND TERMINOLOGY*
• Recognizing the notion of good and bad, right and wrong, are the primary
concern of Ethics. The following points are useful to clarify them.
1st point to consider is on value judgment whether or not within the bounds of ethics.
Meaning of Valuation
• In ethics, value denotes the degree of importance of some thing or action, with
the aim of determining what actions are best to do or what way is best to live
(normative ethics), or to describe the significance of different actions. ... As such,
values reflect a person's sense of right and wrong or what "ought" to be.
Kinds of Valuation
1. Aesthetics (Grk. “aesthesis” sense or feeling) refers to judgments of personal
approval or disapproval that we make to what we see, hear, or taste. We often used the
word “taste” for personal aesthetic preferences, e.g. “taste in music”, “taste in clothes”
2. Etiquette concerned with right or wrong actions which are considered not quite grave
enough.
e.g. right: knock politely at someone’s door; wrong: barge to one’s office).

3. Technical – (Greek word “techne” refers to a proper way or right way of doing things
but a technical valuation (or right and wrong technique of doing things) may not
necessarily be an ethical one.
e.g. right thing to do in baking, washing clothes, playing basketball, proper
manner of eating etc.
e.g. wrong or inappropriate manner of eating dressing etc.
How about?
 Are clothes always just a matter of taste or would provocative clothing call for
some kind of moral judgment?
 Can we say a man verbally abuses his girlfriend/wife simply showing bad
manners or does this behavior deserve strong moral condemnation?

Ethics – involves valuation within the sphere of human actions, characterized by

certain gravity and concern the well-being or human life itself. Thus,
 matters concerning life and death such as war, capital punishment, or
abortion; and
 matters concerning human well-being such as poverty, inequality, or sexual
identity are integral in ethics discussions.

2nd Point: Ethics and Moral

 “Morals” may be used to refer to specific beliefs or attitudes that people have or
to describe acts that people perform. We also have terms such as “moral
judgment” or “moral reasoning,” which suggest a more rational aspect.
 “Ethics” can be spoken of as the discipline of studying and understanding ideal
human behavior and ideal ways of thinking. Thus, ethics is acknowledged as an
intellectual discipline belonging to philosophy.
Aristotle used these terms to explain how rhetoric works:
Modes of persuasion furnished by the spoken:
• The first kind depends on the personal character of the speaker [ethos];
• the second on putting the audience into a certain frame of mind [pathos];
• the third on the proof, or apparent proof, provided by the words of the speech
itself [logos].
 Persuasion is achieved by the speaker's personal character when the speech is so
spoken as to make us think him credible."
• Ethos (an appeal to ethics), is used as a means of convincing an audience via
the authority or credibility of the persuader, be it a notable or experienced figure
in the field or even a popular celebrity.
• Pathos (appeal to emotion) is a way of convincing an audience of an argument
by creating an emotional response to an impassioned plea or a convincing story.
• Logos (appeal to logic) is a way of persuading an audience with reason, using
facts and figures.
Acceptable and Unacceptable ways of behaving (Ethical and Unethical)
• Professional Ethics:
• Legal Ethics
• Medical Ethics/Health Ethics
• Media Ethics
• Business Ethics
• Engineering Ethics
• Environmental / Ecological Ethics etc.

3rd Point: On Descriptive and Normative Study of Ethics

1. Descriptive study of ethics reports how people, particularly groups, make their
moral valuations without making any judgment either for or against these
valuations. (social scientist: historian, sociologist or anthropologist)
2. A normative study of ethics, is often done in philosophy or moral theology,
engages the question: What could or should be considered as the right way of
acting? Thus, a normative discussion prescribes what we ought to maintain as
our standards or bases for moral valuation. (e.g. filial piety)
Ethics: a Philosophical Discipline
• Philosophical discussion of ethics goes beyond recognizing the characteristics
of some descriptive theory; also, it does not simply accept as correct any
normative theory.
• Philosophical discussion of ethics engages in a critical consideration of the
strengths and weaknesses of these theories. This is the prime concern in this
course: Ethics
Examples:
• Female Genital Mutilation (FGM- Africa)
• Olog (trial marriage) – Cordillera
• Eskimo’s manner of hospitality
 • Manner of eating (Chopsticks people)

4th Point: On Issue, Decision, Judgment, & Dilemma

1. A situation that calls for moral valuation can be called a moral issue.
e.g. A mother cannot afford to buy milk for her baby was forced to steal.

2. When one is placed in a situation and confronted by the choice of what act to
perform, s/he is called to make a moral decision.
e.g. When one chooses not to take something that one did not pay for it.

3. When a person is an observer making an assessment on the actions or behavior

of someone, s/he is making a moral judgment.
e.g. When a friend chooses to steal from a store and you make an assessment
that it is wrong.

4. When one is torn between choosing one of two goods or choosing between the
lesser of two evils, this is referred to as a moral dilemma.
When an individual can choose only one from a number of possible actions, and
there are compelling ethical reason for various choices.
e.g. A father may be conflicted/confused between wanting to feed his hungry
children, but then recognizing that it would be wrong to sell high grade cocaine,
shabu etc.
*REASONING*
What reasons do we give to decide or to judge that a certain way of acting is either right
or wrong?
 A person’s fear of punishment or desire for reward can provide him/her a
reason for acting in a certain way.
 The promise of rewards and the fear of punishments can certainly motivate us to
act, but are not in themselves a determinant of the rightness or wrongness of
a certain way of acting or of the good or the bad in a particular pursuit.
 Beyond rewards and punishments, it is possible for our moral valuation—our
decisions and judgments—to be based on a principle.
 Thus, one may conclude one’s action (cheating, stealing) is wrong based on a
“sense of fair play or respect” for the importance and validity of testing.
 Principles can be defined as rationally established grounds by which one
justifies and maintains his or her moral decisions and judgments.
 MORAL THEORY is a systematic attempt to establish the validity of maintaining
certain moral principles. Insofar as a theory is a system of thought of ideas, it is
referred as framework.
  Framework as a theory of interconnected ideas, and at the same time, a
structure through which we can evaluate our reasons for valuing a certain
decision or judgment.
Plato (427- 347 BCE), Greek Thinker
 For Plato, he raised the questions: “Can virtue be taught?”, “What is beauty?”,
and “What is love?”
 He started the School of Athens known as the Academy and believed to be the
first institution of higher learning in the Western world.
 The Apology of Socrates was written by Plato where Socrates claimed that it
is the greatest good for a person to spend time thinking about and discussing
with others the questions on goodness and virtue.
B. SOURCES OF AUTHORITY
1. Law –
 It is supposed that law is one’s guide to ethical behavior.
 In the Philippines, Filipinos are constrained to obey the laws of the land as stated
in the country’s criminal and civil codes.
 The law cannot tell us what to pursue, only what to avoid (the prohibitive nature
of law).
 The concept of law is creatively utilized in the Deontology of Immanuel Kant in a
more ethically significant way.
2. Religion -
 The divinity called God, Allah, or Supreme Being commands and one is obliged
to obey his/her Creator.
(Divine Command Theory)
 “Love the Lord Your God, therefore, and always heed His charge: his statutes,
decrees, and commandments.” (Deut 11:1, NAB). The reward for obedience is a
blessing and a curse to one who disobey.
“Ethics is simple.” Just follow what your religion says.
Implications:
1. Practical level: we realize the multiplicity of religions and each faith demands
differently from its adherents and would result to conflicting ethical standards.
e.g. food, everyone is devout or maintain religious faith.

2. Conceptual level: further conflict may happen when one requires the believer to
clarify her understanding of the connection between ethics and the Divine. The
 problem was first elucidated in the history of thought by Plato in Socrates’ dialogue
with Euthypro concerning “holiness”.
 “Holiness” is that which in itself holy so it is loved by the gods. Thus, something
is right only because God commanded it, or it is in the case that something is
right in itself that is why God commanded it?
The Divine Command Theory requires us to identify the entire sense of right and
wrong with what religion dictates. Our calling into question of the Divine Command
Theory is not a calling into question of one’s belief in God; it is not intended to
challenge to one’s faith as well.
• Instead, it is an invitation to consider whether there may be more creative and
less problematic ways of seeing the connection of faith and ethics, rather than
simply equating what is ethical with whatever one takes to be commanded by
God.
• A subtle yet powerful presentation of how one’s faith may contribute to ethical
thought is the NATURAL LAW THEORY as proposed by St. Thomas Aquinas.
3. Culture
 Our exposure to different societies and their cultures makes us aware that there
are ways of thinking and valuing different from our own, that there is in fact a
wide diversity in how different people believe it is proper to act.
 Therefore, what is ethically acceptable or unacceptable is relative to, or that is to
say, dependent on one’s culture. This position is referred to as cultural
relativism.
Criticisms on Cultural Relativism
1. Cultural Relativism is premised on the reality of difference.
2. Under Cultural Relativism, we are in no position to render any kind of judgment
on the practices of another culture.
3. Under Cultural Relativism, we are in no position to render judgment on the
practices of even our own culture.
4. The most evident contemporary difficulty with cultural relativism is we can
maintain it only by following the presumption of culture as a single, clearly–defined
substance or as something fix and already determined.
To conclude: Cultural Relativism promotes a sense of humility since it urges no culture
is superior over the other.
 Thus, humility gives one the capacity for rational, critical discernment that is
truly appreciative of human values.
  Unfortunately, cultural relativism basically renders us incapable of discerning
about values we wish to maintain as we are forced to simply accept whatever our
culture gives us.
C. SENSES OF THE SELF
1. Subjectivism
 The starting point of subjectivism is the recognition that the individual thinking
person (the subject) is at the heart of all moral valuations.
 From this point, subjectivism leaps to the more radical claim that the individual
is the sole determinant of what is morally good or bad, or right or wrong.
2. Psychological Egoism
 “Human beings are naturally self-centered, so all our actions are always already
motivated by self-interest.”
 As a descriptive theory, it does not direct one to act in a particular way. Instead,
it points out that there is already an underlying basis for how one acts.
 The ego or self has its desires and interests, and all his/her actions are geared
toward satisfying these interests.
NB. We do things in pursuit of our own self-interest all the time.
 The psychological egoist maintains apparently other-directed behavior as self-
serving desire, even if one does not acknowledge or conscious of it.
STRENGHTS:
1. Simplicity – when an idea marked by simplicity has a unique appeal and
conveniently identifies on a single basis for all actions.
2. Plausibility – when self-interest is behind a person’s action, it is plausible. The
motivation behind the many actions one performs are manifestations of self-serving
or other – directed actions. Thus, it is not only plausible but also irrefutable.
 Psychological Egoism is an irrefutable theory due to NO way to answer without
confrontation, self-serving motive is the root of everything.
 Psychological Egoist can and will insist on his/her stand no matter how one
might try to object. This opens up to questions:
1st Because we cannot refute it, shall we accept as true? and
2nd Do we accept the consequence of this theory?
 In the 1st Question: Human nature is intrinsically self-interested and human
beings are not benevolent. It is a matter of pretense. One could maintain but
does one have to.
 In the 2nd Question: Can we move from moral judgment to moral decision?
Given psychological egoism, it does not matter, we only think that we have a
choice but whatever way we end up acting to what best serve our interests.
  So, Psychological Egoism leads us to a cynical view of humanity, to a gloomy
description of human nature, and finally to a useless theory.
 This ends up nullifying the possibility of any normative ethics for the already-
determined human being.
3. Ethical Egoism
 In Ethical Egoism, actions are not inevitably self-serving instead, it prescribes
what we should make of our own ends, our own interests, as the single
overriding concern.
 We may act on what is beneficial to others, but we should only do if it ultimately
benefits us.
 This theory is a dog-eat-dog world where everyone ought to put oneself at the
center, consider herself as the priority and not allow any others concerns such as
the welfare of other people, to detract from this pursuit.
 Clearly, we have interests and desires to be satisfied. So, why bothered of the
interests of others? This question challenges the idea of not just the study of
ethics but the effort of being ethical.
 To examine ethical egoism, take Plato’s Republic: The Myth of Gyges (359 –
360d)
 In the Republic, the characters are engaged in a discussion about justice where
Socrates raised the question: “What is justice?” and Why should one be just?” to
Glaucon who provided a powerful restatement for egoism in the “Myth of Gyges”
(Bk 2)…Thus, if one would never called to account for one’s action, perhaps one
would choose to do whatever s/he wants.
 For Glaucon, one must be honest and admit what s/he cares for or one own self-
interest rather than some notion of justice of justice or moral goodness.
 Does it make sense to be ethical? In Bk 4, Socrates presented how the good life
stems from proper harmony of the parts of the soul. Harmony require certain
ordering, a hierarchical system in which reason as the “highest” (rational soul)
part followed by the “lower” parts of the soul of will (affective soul) and appetite
(appetitive soul).
 The presence of internal ordering for one to consciously strive to accomplish is
what it means justice to be present in the individual.
 The absence of order or harmony, with desires and appetites running rampant,
results in acts of injustice.
PARTS OF THE SOUL
1. Appetitive- for the biological needs (stomach).
2. Spiritual- for affection (chest / heart).
3. Rational- for intellection or thinking (head).
 In Bk 9 is the portrayal of tyrant. The presence of internal disorder in a person
placed in power doing whatever one wants – of acting with impunity – into a
terrifying of portrait without self-control or self-position.
  Being nothing more than a disordered and nervous jumble cravings is obsessed.
In social and political context, one’s pursuit of one’s interest with abuse of power
result in million’s misery. In the face of what history has shown us of tyrants and
dictators, do we still say that to act with impunity is desirable?
 Ethical egoism ultimately translates into – not just some pleasant pursuit of
one’s own desires but the imposition of a “will to power” that is potentially
destructive of both the self and of others.
 The study of ethics is also about wondering and recognizing our being in the
world with others, thinking of our own well-being concomitantly with the well-
being of others.
Reference:
1. Bulaong, O., Calano, M.J., Lagliva, A., Mariano, M.N., and Principe, J. D. (2018).
ETHICS: Foundations of Moral Valuation. Manila: Rex Book Store Inc.