CONTENTS

Preface
Salient Features

Chapter I The Ethical Dimension of Human Existence

Value
Sources of Authority
Senses of the Self..

Chapter II Utilitarianism
The Principle of Utility
Principle of the Greatest Number
Justice and Moral Rights.

Chapter III Natural Law

Thomas Aquinas
The Greek Heritage
The Essence and Varieties of Law

Chapter IV Deontology
Duty and Agency
Autonomy
Universalizability

Chapter V Virtue Ethics

Happiness and Ultimate Purpose
Virtue as Excellence
Moral Virtue and Mesotes

Chapter VI Synthesis: Making Informed Decisions

The Moral Agent and Contexts
Moral Deliberation
Self, Society, and Environment

References
Index

PREFACE

This is a textbook on Ethics. This book will not tell you what is right and wrong; it will help you in
determining it for yourself. More specifically, it will present you with conceptual and analytic tools that
will hopefully guide you in your ethical thinking.
The Commission on Higher Education had mandated that Ethics be a general education course required
for all college students. As stated in Memorandum Order No. 20, series of 2013, “The fundamental
purpose of higher education…is not only to develop knowledgeable and competent graduates in a
particular field, but also well-rounded individuals who appreciate knowledge in a general sense, are
open-minded because of it, secure in their identities as individuals and as Filipinos, and cognizant of
their role in the life of the nation and the larger community.” Ethics, then, is one of the courses that will
ideally contribute to the development of your intellectual competencies and civic capacities, and to the
development of your ability to comprehend the complexities of the social and natural realities around
us, as well as your ability to think through the ethical and social implications of a given course of actions.
This textbook strives to be faithful to the pursuit of this ideal.
In addition to being faithful with the rationale for the Ethics course, this textbook is also consistent with
the structure of the course as specified in the Memorandum Order. The course is envisioned as being
comprised of three parts.

First, the course description states, “The first part lays the groundwork—the meaning of ethics—and
leads the students through the analysis of human experience, linking it to elements of the ethical
dimension: The first chapter of this textbook serves as our initial discussion into the subject matter.
Here, we recognize ethics as a significant dimension of Human existence, and start to explore how we
may engage in careful ethical thinking.

Second, the course description states, “The second part of the course takes students through the
various classical ethical frameworks—utilitarianism, deontological ethics, virtue ethics, and natural [law]
ethics…These frameworks also embed sets of values that students will be asked to examine In Chapters l
to V, we go in-depth through each one of these frameworks. This is in order to arrive at an
understanding of the different ways that these theories provide us an avenue of determining ethical
valuation.

Finally, the course description states, The last part guides students through the analysis and evaluation
of the strengths and weaknesses of the various ethical frameworks and their value to human life and
society.” The final chapter of this textbook involves an extensive engagement of these classical ethical
theories with the real-life issues that confront us, calling for moral deliberation. The end goal is for us to
be able to make informed decisions and judgments on significant concerns after careful thought.

Salient Features
Understanding the foundations of moral valuation necessitates different approaches to the study and
learning of ethics contextualized in contemporary Filipino experience. We have designed each chapter
of this textbook to follow a philosophical pedagogy developed through years of teaching the course
while at the same time fully complying with the CHED Memorandum Order No. 20, series of 2013.
Aiming at interdisciplinarity, the text is interspersed with philosophical texts, historical overviews, and
real-life case studies to challenge the students to come up with an informed ethical decision. Each
chapter is divided into these salient features:

•Chapter Objectives -Articulated OBE learning outcomes that are observable and measureable.
•Introduction- A case study from a contemporary Filipino experience that raises the ethical question and
that cuts through the entire chapter.

•Philosopher’s Box – This features a philosopher/s who has played a critical role in the development of
the ethical theory being discussed.

•Text and Commentary-Overview and in-depth discussion of the ethical theory, using engaging and
commenting on primary philosophical sources.

•Key Words-A list of significant words in understanding the ethical theory.

•Study Questions-A list of questions to further the discussion in the class.

•Suggested Readings- A list of recommended readings to further inform one’s knowledge of the subject
matter.

•Activity Pages – A set of activities on special topics to deepen, strengthen, and apply students’
understanding of ethical concepts and theories.

Aside from discussing the different ethical theories and thinkers, this textbook also analyzes the
different dimensions of ethics (Chapter I) and ethical decision-making (Chapter VI). The first chapter
allows the student to consider the different factors affecting her understanding of ethics and the pursuit
of the good. The last chapter encourages the student to reflect further and to apply these various
lessons in making ethical decisions.

Each chapter begins with the learning objectives for that particular chapter. There is at least one story or
case derived from a news report to get us to begin reflecting on the specific lesson, and to highlight how
we are concerned with actual issues; in this textbook, we draw materials, cases, and examples from
Philippine realities, contexts, and experiences. Each chapter ends with a summary, a set of key terms,
questions about the discussions points, and suggestions for further reading.

CHAPTER I
THE ETHICAL DIMENSION OF HUMAN EXISTENCE
Chapter Objectives
After reading this chapter, you should be able to:
identify the ethical aspect of human life and the scope of ethical thinking:
define and explain the terms that are relevant to ethical thinking: and
evaluate the difficulties that are involved in maintaining certain commonly-held notions on ethics.

INTRODUCTION
In August 2007, newspapers' reported what seemed to be yet another sad incident of fraternity
violence. Cris Anthony Mendez, a twenty-year-old student of the University of the Philippines (UP), was
rushed to the hospital in the early morning hours, unconscious, with large bruises on his chest, back, and
legs. He passed away that morning, and the subsequent autopsy report strongly suggests that his
physical injuries were most probably the result of "hazing" (the term colloquially used to refer to
initiation rites in which neophytes may be subjected to various forms of physical abuse). What exactly
happened remains an open question, as none of those who were with him that night came forward to
shed light on what had transpired. Needless to say, none of them came forward to assume responsibility
for the death of Cris.

Even as the leaders of the Sigma Rho fraternity publicly denounced the death of Cris, those members of
theirs who had been with him that night vanished, avoiding and refusing to cooperate with legal
authorities. Meanwhile, UP students and the general public clamored for justice. In a move that
surprised the student body, the UP chancellor called on all fraternities to justify their continued
existence. Meanwhile, the case of the tragic death of Cris Anthony Mendez was left unresolved. It
remains that way up to this day.

No one knows just what exactly happened. No charges have been fled, no definitive testimony has been
forthcoming. But there is more to this for us than just a criminal mystery. Pondering on the death of
Cris, we may find ourselves asking questions such as "What is the value of one's life” “What exactly were
the wrongs done to Cris by his so-called fraternity brothers?" or perhaps even "Is there any good to
fraternities?" These questions that concern good and bad, or right and wrong-and these are questions
concerning value-are the kind of questions that we deal with in ethics.

VALUE
Ethics, generally speaking, is about matters Such as the good thing that we should pursue and the bad
thing that we should avoid; the right ways in which we could or should act and the wrong ways of acting.
It is about what is acceptable and unacceptable in human behavior. It may involve obligations that we
are expected to fulfill, prohibitions that we are required to respect, or ideals that we are encouraged to
meet. Ethics as a subject for us to study is about determining the grounds for the values with particular
and special significance to human life.

CLARIFICATIONS AND TERMINOLOGY

Recognizing the notions of good and bad, and right and wrong, are the primary concern of ethics. In
order to start, it would be useful to clarify the following points.

Kinds of Valuation
Our first point of clarification is to recognize that there are instances when we make value judgments
that are not considered to be part of ethics. For instance, I could say that this new movie I had just seen
was a “’good” one because I enjoyed it, or a song I had just heard on the radio was a “bad” one because
it had an unpleasant tone, but these are not part of a discussion of ethics. I may have an opinion as to
what is the “right” dip (sawsawan) for my chicken barbecue, or I may maintain that it is “wrong” to wear
a leather vest over a Barong Tagalog, and these are not concerns of ethics. These are valuations that fall
under the domain of aesthetics. The word “aesthetics” is derived from the Greek word aisthesis (“sense”
or “feeling”) and refers to the judgments of personal approval or disapproval that we make about what
we see, hear, smell, or taste. In fact, we often use the word “taste” to refer to the personal aesthetic
preferences that we have on these matters, such as “his taste in music” or “her taste in clothes.”
Similarly, we have a sense of approval or disapproval concerning certain actions which can be
considered relatively more trivial in nature. Thus, for instance, I may think that it is “right” to knock
politely on someone’s door, while it is “wrong” to barge into one’s office. Perhaps I may approve of a
child who knows how to ask for something properly by saying, “please” and otherwise, disapprove of a
woman that I see picking her nose in public. These and other similar examples belong to the category of
etiquette, which is concerned with right and wrong actions, but those which might be considered not
quite grave enough to belong to a discussion on ethics. To clarify this point, we can differentiate how I
may be displeased seeing a healthy young man refuse to offer his seat on the bus to an elderly lady but
my indignation and shock would be much greater if I were to see a man deliberately push another one
out of a moving bus.

We can also consider how a notion of right and wrong actions can easily appear in a context that is not a
matter of ethics. This could also be when learning how to bake, for instance. I am told that the right
thing to do would be to mix the dry ingredients first, such as flour or sugar before bringing in any liquids,
like milk or cream; this is the right thing to do in baking, but not one that belongs to a discussion of
ethics. This could also be when learning how to play basketball l am instructed that it is against the rules
to walk more than two steps without dribbling the ball; again, obeying this rule to not travel is
something that makes sense only in the context of the game and is not an ethical prohibition. We derive
from the Greek word techne the English words “technique” and “technical” which are often used to
refer 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 as these examples show.

Recognizing the characteristics of aesthetic and technical valuation allows us to have a rough guide as to
what belongs to a discussion of ethics. They involve valuations that we make in a sphere of human
actions, characterized by certain gravity and concern the human well-being or human life itself.
Therefore, matters that concern life and death such as war, capital punishment, or abortion and matters
that concern human well-being such as poverty, inequality, or sexual identity are often included in
discussions of ethics. However, this general description is only a starting point and will require further
elaboration.

One complication that can be noted is that the distinction between what belongs to ethics and what
does not is not always so clearly defined. At times, the question of what is grave or trivial is debatable,
and sometimes some of the most heated discussions in ethics could be on the fundamental question of
whether a certain sphere of human activities belongs to this discussion. Are clothes always just a matter
of taste or would provocative clothing call for some kind of moral judgment? Can we say that a man who
verbally abuses his girlfriend is simply showing bad manners or does this behavior deserve stronger
moral condemnation?

Ethics and Morals

Our second point of clarification is on the use of the words “ethics” and “morals This discussion of ethics
and morals would include cognates such as ethical, unethical, immoral, amoral, morality, and so on. As
we proceed, we should be careful particularly on the use of the word “not” when applied to the words
“moral” or “ethical” as this can be ambiguous. One might say that cooking is not ethical, that is, the act
of cooking does not belong to a discussion of ethics; on the other hand, one might say that lying is not
ethical, but the meaning here is that the act of lying would be an unethical act.

Let us consider those two words further. The term “morals” may be used to refer to specific beliefs or
attitudes that people have or to describe acts that people perform. Thus, it is sometimes said that an
individual’s personal conduct is referred to as his morals, and if he falls short of behaving properly this
can be described as immoral. However, we also have terms such as “moral judgment” or "moral
reasoning,” which suggest a more rational aspect. The term "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. However, acceptable and
unacceptable behaviors are also generally described as ethical and unethical, respectively. In addition,
with regard to the acceptable and unacceptable ways of behaving in a given field, we have the term
"professional ethics" (e.g., legal ethics for the proper comportment of lawyers and other people in the
legal profession; medical ethics for doctors and nurses; and media ethics for writers and reporters).

Therefore, various thinkers and writers posit a distinction between the terms "moral" and "ethics" and
they may have good reasons for doing so, but there is no consensus as to how to make that distinction.
Ordinary conversation presents a much less rigid distinction between these terms, and in this book, we
will lean in that direction as we do not need to occupy ourselves here with the question of how different
thinkers and writers construe that distinction. So, in this book, we will be using the terms "ethical" and
"moral" (likewise, "ethics" and "'morality") interchangeably.

Philosophy is commonly thought of today as a particular discipline in a college curriculum, perhaps a

subject that one could take, or a course in which one could get a degree. The word "philosophy" is
rooted in the Greek words that translate to "love of wisdom (philia is the noun often translated into
English as some form of "friendship" or "love" while sophia is the noun often translated into English as
"wisdom). More specifically, the word "philosophy" had been first used by thinkers to refer to their
striving to better understand reality in a maintained and systematic manner. Historically speaking, it can
be said that philosophy started among the ancient Greeks around two and a half thousand years ago,
when certain people in the Mediterranean made the mental effort of trying to make sense of the world
and of human life in a unique way, As time passed, asking certain specific questions would develop into
specific methods; these particular topics and the ways of addressing them established themselves as
disciplines in their own right, which is why we now have the empirical sciences such as biology or the
social sciences such as psychology. Philosophy remains as the unique discipline that asks significant
questions that other fields are unable to address. The different branches or areas of philosophy
correspond to some of these questions, generally stated as follows: metaphysics wonders as to what
constitutes the whole of reality; epistemology asks what is our basis for determining what we know;
axiology refers broadly to the study of value and is often divided into aesthetics, which concerns itself
with the value of beauty, and ethics, which concerns itself with the value of human actions.