TOPIC 3: ETHICAL REQUIREMENTS

 ORAL REPORTERS:
1. Batitis, Khrystel Mae
2. Bayas, Adrian
3. Bernabe, Antonio Sebastian
 DATE OF REPORTS: APRIL 19, 2021
 TIME FRAME: 30mins. each

Introduction

Based on Hare's view, to prescribe acting in accordance with a Universal moral principle from which, in
conjunction with statements specifying one's beliefs concerning the relevant facts, the judgment can be
derived. To in turn determine whether one can prescribe acting in accordance with a universal principle
is to determine whether one would actually choose to perform that action if one knew that one would
have to play, in a series of possible worlds otherwise identical to the actual world, the role of each
person (including oneself) who would be affected. Moreover, it is not enough that one simply imagines
oneself, with one's own interests, in the place of those other persons - rather, one must imagine oneself
as being in their place while having, in turn, their interests and desires.

Reason and Impartiality

The ultimate basis for ethics is clear: Human behavior has consequences for the welfare of others. We
are capable of acting toward others in such a way as to increase or decrease the quality of their lives. We
are capable of helping or harming. What is more, we are theoretically capable of understanding when
we are doing the one and when the other. This is so because we have the capacity to put ourselves
imaginatively in the place of others and recognize how we would be affected if someone were to act
toward us as we are acting toward others.

It is said that reason gives rise to ethical discourse and healthy debate and engagement and if this is true,
the question must be asked: Have we lost all reason that we can resort to insults, that we fail to engage
one another in a constructive and thoughtful way, even as we differ ideologically and politically?

It is said that "reason requires impartiality" and this statement has serious implications for truthfulness
and reason.

Reason and impartiality are not absolute to any particular group of people, while morality is absolute.
Whatever is considered wrong morally within a certain group of people cannot be debated through
reason. Morality decides the outcome first and then employs reason to justify it. For impartiality, fairness
is given more importance where people are supposed to be treated equally before the law. While
morality may apply generally to a particular group of people, the same cannot be said of reason and
impartiality because the two take a more individualized approach. These are however important because
they help in understanding the moral perception, for example impartiality introduces an aspect of
treating people the same, which is a moral issue

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 What is Reason?

Reason is the capacity for consciously making sense of things, establishing and verifying facts, applying
logic, and changing or justifying practices, institutions, and beliefs based on new or existing information
(Kompridis, 2000). It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy,
science, language, mathematics, and art and is normally considered to be a distinguishing ability
possessed by humans. Reason, or an aspect of it, is sometimes referred to as rationality.

Reasoning is associated with thinking, cognition, and intellect. The philosophical field of logic studies
ways in which humans reason formally through argument (Hintikka, 2013). Reason is a declaration made
to explain or justify action, decision, or conviction.

The proper role of ethical reasoning is to highlight acts of two kinds: those , which enhance the well-
being of others— that warrant our praise— and those that harm or diminish the well-being of others—
and thus warrant our criticism. Developing one's ethical reasoning abilities is crucial because there is in
human nature a strong tendency toward egotism, prejudice, self-justification, and self-deception. These
tendencies are exacerbated by powerful sociocentric cultural influences that shape our lives— not least
of which is the mass media. These tendencies can be actively opposed only through the systematic
cultivation of fair-mindedness, honesty, integrity, self-knowledge, and deep concern for the welfare of
others. We can never eliminate our egocentric tendencies absolutely and finally. But we can actively fight
them as we learn to develop as ethical persons.

Reasons have everything to do with ethics: If you have no good reasons for an act or a belief, then you
can't have thought it through very well and maybe you shouldn't be doing it or believing it at all. It's
quite scary to think that there are people out there who are voting, protesting, financing causes, or
running campaigns without any clear idea of why they are doing it. Each and every one of us should be
clear about our reasons for our values, beliefs, and behaviors, and we should each be able to give a
reasoned account of them to others.

If someone asks you why you believe or act as you do, don't just say, "Because I believe (or act) that
way." Give them a reason why. But before you give a reason why, ask yourself why—and keep on asking
yourself why. Only then will your life become meaningful to you.

Giving reasons for our actions is important socially, too. It either connects us to others or divides us from
them. So much of our social life depends on a shared understanding of what's true, right, and
appropriate. When this understanding breaks down, the only way to restore it is by asking the reason
why we disagree with one another.

Reasons and Impartiality as Requirement of Ethics

In the Euthyphro, Socrates expresses astonishment that a young man would prosecute his own father for
murder. The conventional assumption he seems to be making is that filial relationships impose special
constraints that may override other considerations, even in the gravest matter. For Euthyphro, by
contrast, a murder is a murder. The fact that it was committed by his father has no bearing upon what he
is required to do about it. He must prosecute his father just as he would a stranger.

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 In the dialogue, the issue is quickly dropped, unresolved. This brief passage can serve as an emblem of a
perplexing range of problems that bedevil ethical theory — problems now typically grouped together
under the heading of impartiality. In one way or another, all of these problems concern the way in which
modern moral philosophy seems to force detachment from self-interest, privileged personal
relationships, the demands of the moment, and a fully situated first-person point of view, in favor of
aggregate or common good, equal and universal relationships, long-range considerations, and the point
of view of a disinterested, omniscient observer.

There are at least three distinct elements that run through these problems, namely:

1. We grant the powerful and persistent force of self-interest in our lives, and assume that morality
must somehow give us reasons for constraining such motives;

2. We grant that rules and principles of conduct will be useless or counterproductive in purely local
or short-range terms, and assume that morality must give us reasons for acting in principle
inspite of it;
3. We grant that our favorites and friends have special claims on our attention, and assume that
morality must give us reasons for occasionally denying such claims.

In order to provide such reasons, moral theories standardly argue that our selfish, local, and purely
personal interests are morally indistinguishable from many others and that reason requires us to treat
similar cases similarly.

Morality, thus, requires that we should not play favorites, or manipulate rules to our personal advantage,
or make ad hoc exceptions for ourselves. In that sense it requires us to be impartial (Becker, 1991).

Reasons and Feelings

Broadly stated ethics is "concerned with making sense of intuitions" (Light, et. al, 2003) about what is
right and good. We do this by reasoning about our feelings. Biologists verify that "Emotion is never truly
divorced from decision making, even when it is channeled aside by an effort of will" (Blakeslee, et. al,
2007). Physicists now confirm that seeing the world with complete objectivity is not possible, as our
observations affect what we perceive (Werner, 2002).

Moral philosopher Mary Midgley (1983) writes "Sensitivity requires rationality to complete it, and vice
versa. There is no siding onto which emotions can be shunted so as not to impinge on thought." We rely
on our reason to guard against feelings that may reflect a bias, or a sense of inadequacy, or a desire
simply to win an argument, and also to .refine and explain a felt conviction that passes the test of critical
reflection and discussion. We rely on feelings to move us to act morally, and to ensure that our reasoning
is not only logical but also humane.

Scientific evidence supports this approach to ethics. As children, we manifest empathy before developing
our rational abilities, and there is evidence for the same order of development in the evolution of the
human brain (Carey, 2007). "Empathy is a unique form of intentionality in which we are directed toward
the other's experience" This involves feeling, at least to some extent, what another person is feeling. "In
empathy we experience another human being directly as a person— that is, as an intentional being

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 whose bodily gestures and actions are expressive of his or her experiences or states of mind"
(Thompson, 2007).

Empathy enables us to identify with others, and may generate a "perception of the other as a being who
deserves concern and respect." This does not ethical conduct, but it makes morality possible. "Aid to
others in need would never be internalized as a duty without the fellow-feeling that drives people to
take an interest in one another. Moral sentiments came first; moral principles second. (Waal, 2007).

Conscience, at its best, reflects our integration of moral sentiments and principles. We should test our
conscience, however, by explaining to others the reasons for our moral presumptions, and we should
listen carefully to concerns they may have. This is especially important when dealing with ethical issues
among family members or friends, but applies as well to concerns about the environment.

Moreover, both our feelings and our reason reflect our participation in a moral community, or more
likely several moral communities. As children, our moral community is our family, which soon broadens
to include our friends and then is defined by the rules of our school. As adults, our moral community
extends from our family to our friends (at work, in our neighborhood or a support group, and perhaps in
our religious community), to our city, our country, the people of the world whose moral and legal rights
are defined by international law, and perhaps also to a moral community that includes non-human
organisms and ecosystems.

Ethics vs Feelings

Many times, there's a conflict between what we naturally feel and what is considered to be ethical. Our
subconscious reaction to a news event might be hatred, jealousy or other negative feelings, but we
might not be able to morally argue why we feel that way.

My guess is that the human race developed those subconscious reactions as an evolutionary mechanism
to survive. Our ancestors wouldn't have been able tQ find and obtain food if they hadn't fought for it.
Arguing about ethics would've meant that you'll have to stay hungry and die.

The problem is most of our feelings in today's world are unethical, politically incorrect or even outright
harmful. It takes a great deal of effort to retrospect and self-analyze our feelings to judge whether they
are ethical or not.

Let us take a few common examples and see how to tackle those feelings: Groupism, Patriotism,
Dunbar's number, Negative feelings to content on social Networks.

1. Groupism

a. Natural feeling: I am part of a group. I am supposed to help this group become better. I am also
supposed to compete with other groups.

b. Reasoning: Being part of a herd made it easier for us ancestors to survive in the wild. There were
so many survival benefits that belonging to a group brought. Naturally, our ancestors started
developing good feelings about belonging to a group.

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 c. Ethical viewpoint: Help the group. Help other groups too. There is no compelling reason to
compete in today's times of peace.

2. Patriotism

a. Natural feeling: I was born in a place. I am supposed to help people in the geographical vicinity
around me. There are human-decided borders that define my country. Those outside the border
don't deserve that much attention as those inside the border do.

b. Reasoning: Patriotism is Groupism in a higher scale. Most borders were drawn for political
benefits by a small group of individual running that country. There have been countless stories of
propaganda by governments to motivate people to join their wars to fight people over borders.
We humans tend to justify these efforts as noble.

c. Ethical viewpoint: Wars are always bad. There is no reason to be proud of your country just
because you were born in it. It is okay to be in your country and help your country because you
are used to it. But it is also okay to move to other countries and help those countries.

3. Dunbar's number

a. Natural feeling: I cannot maintain more than 150 stable relationships.

b. Reasoning: Our brains have limited capacity and it becomes mentally hard to maintain more
relationships.

c. Ethical viewpoint: Acceding to the Dunbar's number promotes Groupism. Just as we push
ourselves to become better humans, we should also try to push the Dunbar number limit
further. Accepting that all life forms in this world (and outside the world if life exists) are part of
the same group counters the negative effects of Groupism.

4. Negative feelings to content on Social Networks

a. Natural feeling: I hate what's being posted on Facebook. They are just stupid selfies, people
gloating their achievements or just distracting, unproductive content.

b. Reasoning: Many of us have been taught to compete with others since our childhood. We tend
to compare ourselves with others.
We don't like selfies because they are attention-seeking and we look down
Distracting, unproductive content is noise to us and we cannot handle too much noise in our
daily life.
c. Ethical viewpoint: we don't have to compete with our friends. We can applaud their life
achievements without comparing our lives with theirs. We don't have to look down upon those
who seek attention. Comedians, actors and other entertainers are attention-seeking, But we
don't look down upon them.

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 It is up to us to filter out noise in our lives. Social networks aren't thrusted into our face. We can choose
to stay away from them if they are noisy. Or even better, adjust the content shown in our feed and tailor
it to our comfort.

Conclusion

It is easy to give in to our feelings. An analogy would be with unhealthy foods. It is easy to choose
unhealthy foods because they are tasty and easy to prepare. But we hit the gym, avoid those foods and
exercise because we want to become better individuals. Similarly, we can take the ethical route, avoid
negative feelings and exercise those reactions because we want to become better individuals.

The Importance of Being Fair as a Juror

Steps in Moral Reasoning Model

Ethical reasoning is how to think about issues of right or wrong. Processes of reasoning can be taught,
and the college or university is an appropriate place to teach these processes because so often it is
taught no place else, and because it is essential for a successful adulthood. Although parents and
especially religious institutions may teach ethics, they do not always teach ethical reasoning. Academic
courses are the logical place to teach the cognitive process of reasoning especially as ethical issues relate
to the content of a particular discipline. No matter how knowledgeable one is about his/her profession,
if the knowledge is not backed by ethical reasoning, long-term success in the career is likely to be
severely compromised.

Ethical reasoning is hard because there are so many ways to fail. Ethical behavior is far harder to display
than one would expect simply on the basis of what we learn from our parents, from school, and from
our religious training (Sternberg, 2009). To intervene, individuals must go through a series of steps, and
unless all of the steps are completed, they are not likely to behave in an ethical way, regardless of the
amount of training they have received in ethics, and regardless of their levels of other types of skills.

Given the fact that ethical dilemmas may not always be readily resolved through the use of codes of
ethics, it might be useful to have a framework in which to analyze and make ethical decisions. The
following ethical decision-making model comes from the work of Corey et. al. (1998).

Step 1: Identify the problem. What facts make this an ethical situation?

Step 2: Identify the potential issues involved. What level of ethical issues are we dealing with: systemic,
corporate, or individual?

Step 3: Review relevant ethical guidelines. Given the facts and the ethical issues, what alternative
actions are possible in this situation?

Step 4: Know relevant laws and regulations. Who will be affected by the alternatives and to what
degree?

Step 5: Obtain Consultation. Use ethical principles to decide on the best alternative. The ethics of each
of the most plausible alternatives is assessed using ethical principles or rules.

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 Step 6: Consider possible and probable courses of action. Can the best alternative be put into effect?
Having decided on one alternative, we need to see whether there are any practical constraints
which might prevent that alternative from being acted upon.

Step 7: List the consequences of the probable courses of action.

Step 8: Decide on what appears to be the best course of action. Implementing the best alternative.
Having selected the best alternative which is not ruled out by practical constraints, we need to
decide on the steps necessary to carry it out.

It is extremely important that you keep your immediate supervisor and all involved parties informed
during this process. After you have made your decision, take some time to reflect on the process and to
review what you have learned with a trusted supervisor or colleague.

The Difference Between Reason and Will

Will, generally, is that faculty of the mind which selects, at the moment of decision, the strongest desire
from among the various desires present. Will does not refer to any particular desire, but rather to the
mechanism for choosing from among one's desires. Within philosophy the will is important as one of the
distinct parts Of the mind - along with reason and understanding. It is considered central to the field of
ethics because of its role in enabling deliberate action.

When we become conscious of ourselves, we realize that our essential qualities are endless urging,
craving, striving, wanting, and desiring. These are characteristics of that which we call our will.
Schopenhauer affirmed that we can legitimately think that all other phenomena are also essentially and
basically will. According to him, will "is the innermost essence, the core, of every particular thing and
also of the whole. It Appears in every blindly acting force of nature, and also in the deliberate conduct of
man." Schopenhauer (1998) said that his predecessors mistakenly thought that the will depends on
knowledge. According to him, though, the will is primary and uses knowledge in order to find an object
that will satisfy its craving. That which, in us, we call will is Kant's "thing in itself" according to
Schopenhauer.

Schopenhauer's philosophy holds that all nature, including man, is the expression of an insatiable will to
life. It is through the will that mankind finds all their suffering. Desire for more is what causes this
suffering. He argues that only aesthetic pleasure creates momentary escape from the will.

Since the derivation of actions from laws requires reason, the will is nothing but practical reason. To
explain, the will is guided by reason, where, as determined by reason, action is performed according to
rational requirements, or laws of reason. Reason directs action by "determination of the Will• " — as
long as the will is guided by reason. Where the will is determined by reason in accordance with which
action is performed, reason is practical, i.e. action-directing. Reason has, in other words, the capacity to
direct action. Further, where the will is guided by reason, it is free.

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