Republic of the Philippines

NORTHERN ILOILO STATE UNIVERSITY

ESTANCIA, ILOILO

SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

SOCIAL SCIENCE DEPARTMENT

MODULES IN
ETHICS (GE8)

MODULE 1
ASSESSMENT
1. Point out the similarities and differences between lover of wisdom
(philosopher) and keepers of knowledge in one to two paragraphs.
Substantial or correct explanation will be given a maximum score of 10 pts.
ANSWER:
Their differences are that lovers of wisdom they are effective
decision-makers as they comprehend clearly what is expected at the
time. a person who is more connected to God than to the rest of the
world. While keepers of knowledge have possession of knowledge,
the reality of availablabiliy on demand.It is the act of being prehensile
is often at odds with fact, and how best to apply it.
And their similarities is, they both have feelings of awareness,
confidence and power.Lovers of wisdom and keepers of knowledge
are linked. Wisdom is enhanced by knowledge and the ability to
acquire knowledge effectively.

2. What is human freedom (ethical imperative) and whyis it important in

man's day to day interaction with others and decision making? (10 pts.)
ANSWER:
Human freedom refers to a person's intrinsic ability to act or not act,
which makes them accountable for their actions. In the absence of
human liberty, ethics in this sense will be irrelevant. It is man's
mission to bring out in his life the philosophical union of authority
and freedom, of man's natural rights and those of society. Man is the
only moral being because he is capable of action, intellect, and free
will. Man can use his bodily processes to perform acts since he is
capable of action. Man's ability enables him to judge the goodness or
evilness of his actions while also evaluating the consequences of
those actions when asked to justify them. They have the option of
performing or not performing the action at stake. Man may choose
what is best for him, while having the same desires as beasts, such
as hunger, thirst, pain, and sensual needs; man acts based on logic,
whilst their lower counterparts rely solely on instinct.

3. Which of the major disciplines of philosophy are closely related to the

issues and concerns of ethics and why? (10 pts.).

ANSWER:
Ethics as the science of the morality of human acts. Ethics is a part of
philosophy that explores morals as among the most significant
aspects of human life, as a historical phenomena, and as a type of
social consciousness. What is convenient at the time is usually how
these are related. Ethics is the differentiation of feelings into right and
wrong. Philosophy is a feeling of knowledge that comes from within
the heart. It is a personal factor. Ethics sets the boundaries, whereas
philosophy obscures them. They opposes each other.
Ethics is concerned with issues on all levels. The fundamental issues
of practical decision-making are the focus of this topic. The nature of
ultimate value and the standards by which human activities can be
deemed right or wrong are among its major concerns. The terms
ethics and morality are often used similarly. Ethics is philosophy
because it examines the ultimate cause and principle of reality (the
morality of a human act) solely through the use of human reason.
Because it explores into the morality of a human act in its ultimate
cause and principle alone by human reason, ethics is also known as
Moral Philosophy.

To Do:
What sort of thing am l?
- I am who I am, I am a human being living in this world who has goals
and missions in life. A person that is always eager and curious to
learn new things.

Where do I come from?

- I was created by God who loves and care for me.

Where am I going?
- I am going to live out my purpose and achieve my every goals and
mission in my life. As long as I can , I am still going through it.

What is my future and destiny?

- My future and destiny are in my power, and they are in my hands. In
our lives, we each write our own story. My destiny and future are
brimming with possibilities. I made the conscious decision to be
incredibly special at everything I do. I walk with confidence and
intelligence, but not selfishness. I strive extremely hard to improve
myself while maintaining a pleasant mindset. Because I am the master
of my own destiny, I cherish everything that happens to me at every
stage of my life, including what will happen in the future.

What must I do to live well and happy?

-We all want to be happy with our lives. "If only things were different,
I'd be happy," we could perhaps tell ourselves. Happiness is up to us;
happiness is dependent on things that are actually within our control.
I am a happy human being living in this world because I have good
mental health and a positive mindset. Positive emotions are essential
for living a healthy and happy life; aside from making us feel good,
they also benefit our minds and bodies. They reduce stress
hormones, alleviate anxiety and depression, and boost our immune
system. Feeling positive emotions on a daily basis has a significant
impact on our happiness and well-being. That is why it is essential to
engage in activities that make us feel good. Let's be happy for the rest
of our lives.

What is the cause and remedy to my present plight and problems? (You
may share your experience during these pandemic)
-Many people, including me, are experiencing challenges and
problems as a result of the pandemic. I'm having a hard time
adjusting to the situation when the pandemic strikes. One of the most
significant changes in my experience as a student is that many
lectures, classes, and seminars have moved online. Anxiety and
stress arise, and they can drown me at times. The best way to solve
this problem is to stop overthinking and instead focus on the positive
aspects of our lives, making each day productive. Give ourselves a bit
of a break and start thinking positive thoughts. The pandemic has had
a variety of effects on my life, but it has taught me to be more
productive and self-sufficient.

END OF MODULE 1

MODULE 2
ASSESSMENT
Answer the following:
1. State the moral principle involving each of the following:

ANSWER:
a. vincible ignorance - Vincible ignorance does not destroy, but it
does lessen the voluntariness and responsibility of an act. It is the
ability of the person to overcome it, if he only exercises as effort and
diligence, he can acquire the knowledge. His awareness makes him
responsible, therefore, he is accountable for the consequence of the
act. But the fact of ignorance is still here. So, there must be a
corresponding reduction of the accountability.
b. acts done owing to violence - The ethical principles an act owing
to violence to which due resistance is made, is not voluntary, and the
agent is not responsible for it. It is an external force applied by a free
cause that is, by human beings to compel a person to do something
contrary to his will. Under certain conditions it is morally right to use
force or violence in defense of certain basic rights, even if the
employment of such force or violence certain evil effects or effects
may follow, such as the death of the aggressor.
c. resort to violence - This are the people in the world that are just
‘evil’. For some reason they victimize the weak, from others for their
own personal gain, or perhaps just have zero empathy so they act
solely in their own best interest despite the effect this has on others.
They feel no guilt from any pain or loss that they inflict on others. So
in the other world they are just evil. This are the people that trying to
dissuade them with nonviolent methods that will always the first
choice, but if they are truly evil that will not last. Because it has a
possible that the people can control or avoid the violence to become
a better person

2.) On what moral grounds is the employment of violence justified?

ANSWER:
Moral grounds is the employment of violence justified, it is the most
plausible justification of violence when it is perpetrated in return of
other violence. For example, a person can be a criminal, dishonest,
abusive, and everything awful while also being nonviolent. And a
person may be quite willing to protect himself brutally; this is not to
suggest that violence is always justified, but it also does not deserve
to be considered a major crime depending on the circumstances.
Specifically, self-defense, even if it appears disproportionate, may
well be justified of any other sort, given that the violence used in self-
defense is used in a reasonably fair manner.

3.) Give an example of an act having two effects, one good one bad.
ANSWER:
In the act of saving someone’s life

BAD- the person may end up being a mass murderer, or something

less serious.
GOOD- such as if you discover a safety hazard at a store and report
it to someone in charge, you may save someone's life.

In the act of electronics

GOOD- it moves society forward

BAD- but it’s extremely polluting with heavy metals

4.) Is a drug addict still morally responsible for his acts over which he
has no more control? Explain your answer.
ANSWER:
Yes, in my opinion, drug addicts do a lot of things they can't help
themselves from doing, whether it's due to strong desires or
extremely twisted thinking. Nonetheless, they are morally responsible
for doing those things. However, they must also recognize that an
addict requires qualified and compassionate help in order to heal and
learn to accept responsibility, provided that he or she is willing to
accept that help.
5. Is one morally responsible for inflicting damages which he never
intended to cause another? Justify your answer.
ANSWER:
Only if a person has the freedom to choose and behave differently
they can be considered morally responsible for their actions. Even if
that person does the damage unintentionally, he or she is
nonetheless liable. You have already caused the harm and are morally
responsible for it. What grounds a person's liability to defensive harm
is her moral responsibility for an objectively unjustified threat of
harm.

TO DO:
In the light of the principle of the twofold effect, answer whether or
not each of the following is morally allowable:
1.) War on drugs by the present administration
-It is morally allowable, because according to moral principles, it is
morally right to conduct an act that has both good and bad
consequences, but only if the act itself is good or at least morally
irrelevant. And there should be a compelling reason for carrying out
the act.
2.) Sex changes
-It is morally allowable , As for me see nothing morally wrong with
gender change. So long as the act itself is good or at least morally
indifferent.
3.) Same sex marriage
-It is morally allowable, It is stated in the moral principle that man as a
person possesses certain fundamental rights. If we are aware in our
actions, we have control over it and are responsible for it.
4.) Testing on human to develop vaccines
-It is not morally allowable, it is unethical to use human for testing.
According to the moral principle, "the first condition requires that the
act be good in itself." In the first place, the act is not good itself. There
should be a justification for
performing the act.

END OF MODULE 2

MODULE 3
ASSESSMENT

Answer the following questions:

1. According to Hedonism, what is a morally good action?
ANSWER:
According to hedonism, all and only pleasure is intrinsically
valuable, while all and only pain is not. Hedonists describe
pleasure and pain widely, including both physical and mental
phenomena. As a result, morality is founded on the pleasure or
satisfaction that an act brings. The pleasant action is the good
action. The bad action is one that causes pain.

2. According to Utilitarianism what is the norm of morality?

ANSWER:
According to utilitarianism, an action is morally right if it
produces at least as much good (value) for all individuals
 affected by the action as any alternative action that could be
done instead. Utilitarians believe that the goal of morality is to
improve life by raising the amount of good things that happen ,
such as pleasure and happiness in the world and decreasing the
amount of bad things like as pain and unhappiness.

3. What is common to both hedonism and utilitarianism?

ANSWER:
The perspective on the pain-pleasure continuum is shared by
both hedonism and utilitarianism. Both are definitions of
pleasure-seeking and populations. Both see pleasure and pain
as immediate and believable, and recognize that pleasure, or at
least the desire, can evolve into a fully-developed, mature habit.
Hedonism focuses on the individual, whereas utilitarianism
focuses on populations as a whole.

4. Explain one defect of Utilitarianism as an ethical theory.

ANSWER:
Utilitarianism undervalues the importance of personal
relationships by treating everyone equally. Following
Utilitarianism may require us to disregard those close to us in
some cases. Perhaps the most serious problem with
utilitarianism is that it ignores concerns about justice. People
can imagine situations in which a particular course of action
would have significant societal benefits but would be clearly
unjust.

5. According to Herbert Spencer, what is life?

ANSWER:
Herbert Spencer saw human life as both a continuum and a
culmination of a long process of evolution, and he believed that
human society reflects the same evolutionary principles that
biological organisms do in their development.

6. What does Kant mean by the Categorical Imperative?

 ANSWER:
Categorical imperatives, according to Kant, are commands or
moral laws that all people must follow despite of their desires or
mitigating circumstances. These moral imperatives connect
everyone. Kant argues that the categorical imperative is an
ultimate moral principle that should be followed by all rational
beings and that following it should be seen as a goal in itself.

7. According to Kant, on what is morality grounded?

ANSWER:
Kant's venture in the grounding is to demonstrate moral
objectivity on entirely new, a priori, non-empirical grounds,
independent of any empirical knowledge of human nature and
happiness. Kant's moral theory is grounded on an intrinsic value
theory. Whereas utilitarians consider happiness, defined as
pleasure and the absence of pain, to be the only thing with
intrinsic value, Kant considers good will to be the only thing
with moral worth for its own sake.

8. What did Kant mean by “universalization without contradiction” as a

test for the morality of an action? What example does he give to
illustrate this morality of an action?
ANSWER:
According to Korsgaard, Kant's response to this question is to
seek universalization without contradiction. Korsgaard
interprets Kant's vision of a world in which a maxim is
universalized as a world in which the maxim is envisioned as a
natural law. Korsgaard summarizes Kant's arguments for why
our maxims must be tested for universalizability as follows14:
we must act with the idea of freedom or with the idea that we
have free will. This means we act as if we are not governed by
any external (to our will) forces or laws. However, Kant defines
free will as rational causality, which means something that is a
cause but is not determined by anything external to it.
 9. What is moral positivism?
ANSWER:
Moral positivism is a theory that holds that there is no natural
law, thus no natural right. It claims that all human rights are
derived from the state, contracts, each person's freedom, or
custom. Moral positivism is more than just the rejection of
universal, objective, and unchanging moral norms. There is
always some change in standards whenever the good is reduced
to definable norms and not left in a state of general exclusion of
the bad.

10. Give the points of differences between Christian and

Communist ethics.
ANSWER:
Communist ethics is an economic/political orientation, while
Christianity is a religion. As a result, they are not the same.
Christian morality is the practice of living one's life in
accordance with the Christian bible and belief systems.
Christian also wonders what the entire Bible teaches us about
which acts, attitudes, and personal character traits are approved
by God. Communist ethics is naturalistic, rejecting any
supernatural connections. The finite concept of dialectical
materialism is absolutized and thus becomes the deity who will
bring about social redemption. Communists assert that there is
no God outside of this movement.

TO DO:

Explain the following in an essay form:

1. Is a classless society actually attainable in this life? (200 words)

ANSWER:
 In reality, there are classless society. A classless society,
however, is not possible at the level of a modern nation state.
The failing of communism, which tends to bring a classless
society, is hard proof of this. Because the economy drives
politics and vice versa, communist nations either failed or
turned into dictatorial states or reformed their political economy,
implying that it is not possible to develop a classless society.
The main reason why a classless society is impossible in this
life is that people today are competing to be more classy than
others. They spent every penny on classy things just to show off
that thing, even if that thing was useless to them. Nowadays,
people prefer only high-quality classy things at a high price.
Everyone is preoccupied with trying to prove that they are top
tier and fair skinned even if they come from a poor family. This
demonstrates that things like classless society will fade away
with time.
To truly have a classless society, we must see ourselves in
anybody. That most likely entails seeing ourselves as part of the
planet rather than as objects on it. This would necessitate not
only empathy, but a shift in the concept of self and a new way of
connecting to our minds, everyone else, and the world.

2. A man eats in order to live, what ethical fallacy is involved if a man

lives only in order to eat? (200 words)
ANSWER:
The ethical fallacy involved, is FALLACY OF INVERSION. Every
act that confuses the means for the end involves fallacy
inversion. So, in the case of man eating, which is simply a
means to an end, has become the end of life. In this theory,
satisfaction, which is the natural result or effect of moral
goodness, is made the very reason due to its comprehensive of
this goodness. This order is exemplified in man by the various
scales of values ranging from the volitional and rational to the
simply physical and vegetative, all centralized into whatever we
call human life. According to this fallacy, natural law is a
 representation of this universal moral order that necessitates
that the natural order of things be maintained and forbids its
disruption. If a man only lives to eat, he is definitely engaging in
an act that confuses the means for the end, and this fallacy is
evident in the hedonistic principle of life. This is a fallacy of
misproportion of values because the hedonist prioritizes the
less important aspects of life. The misproportion is when a
greater proportion of value is assigned to one piece of an
argument, which can lead to an incorrect conclusion (hence the
fallacy). The man who only eats to live is a statement that leads
to no coherent conclusion because it appears to contradict
itself.

3. Are moral laws derived from the laws of the state? (200 words)
ANSWER:
No, in actuality, the state may be the source of immorality
through corruption, carelessness, or even intentionality.
Morality is founded on truth, which, despite popular opinion, is
universal. Ethical laws are based from, or perhaps compiled by,
state laws. Internal moral laws emerge from a conception of
social customs. teachings and personal experience As a result,
the two may clash, which almost always stinks. A fully
constructed mind is capable of recognizing truth and it serves
as our first line of defense against immorality. For centuries,
man has recognized the most obvious immoralities as
Commandments from God, which were given to us through
Moses. For such simplicity of some, these were implemented
into laws, some of which have already been scrapped or
replaced. Some few disreputable laws that appear reasonable
are especially harmful to society because they conflict truth.
However, I believe that the both facts and representations of
facts adhere to the same set of rules. They exist as the physics
and its offspring, such as psychology and imagination. It is still
the responsibility of the state to enact laws that will raise the
moral standard of the people. Thus, a state's laws correspond to
the dominant moral standard.

END OF MODULE 3