EVANGELICAL THEOLOGICAL COLLEGE

OF THE PHILIPPINES- LUZON, INC.

Lot 1 Block 1 Valley Hills Subd., Valley Golf, Cainta Rizal 1900

SESSION 7
INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS, MORALITY AND CHRISTIAN ETHICS

I. LESSON OBJECTIVES

Knowledge: By the end of this session, students will be able to:

1. Know why it is important to be morally good.
2. Define ethics and morality.
3. Identify what makes Christian Ethics distinct from other ethical systems.
Character: By the end of this session, students will be able to:
1. Demonstrate appreciation for Christian Ethics over against other ethical theories.
2. Desire to be morally good.
Skill: By the end of this session, students will be able to:
Differentiate between moral and non-moral standards.

II. ETHICS AND MORALITY?

• What is Ethics?
▪ It is a particular branch of Philosophy
▪ "Ethics" originates from a Greek word, "ethica," whose root is "ethos." "Ethos"
eventually came to mean a person’s "interior dwelling place," the "basic orientation
or disposition of a person toward life."
▪ Ancient Greek philosophers, especially beginning with Socrates, became interested
in this question about how we should fashion our "ethos" in order to best succeed at
life.
▪ It is a philosophical discipline basically deals with humanity’s inquiries about right
conduct, the good life, moral values, and other related issues.
▪ a set of moral principles : a theory or system of moral values (Mirriam Webster)

• What is Morality?
▪ Morality refers to the set of standards a person has about what is right and wrong.
▪ How we judge whether as act is good or bad, whether someone is virtuous or not,
whether we ought to do this or not, depends largely on these standards.
▪ It is for this reason we can say that people can have different morality that is, we can
have different standards, views or perspectives by which we understand what is right
and wrong.
▪ Such differences can be attributed to how our moral standards originate. (e.g.
Parents to their children, friends and elders in the community.)
▪ Morality, however, pertains not just to a person’s standards, but to a particular
society’s standards of what is right and wrong.
 EVANGELICAL THEOLOGICAL COLLEGE
OF THE PHILIPPINES- LUZON, INC.
Lot 1 Block 1 Valley Hills Subd., Valley Golf, Cainta Rizal 1900

▪As a social cultural, or religious group, people share certain standards of actions or
behaviors that guides them in what they accept or practice. (e.g Islamic societies,
Tribal groups, and Christianity.)
▪ There are social norms that pervade in every society that serves as the basis of its
members to decide what is right or wrong.

• The relationship of Ethics and Morality.

▪ Ethics and Morality even though sometimes used interchangeably is still differ from
one another.
▪ Their relationship is that, ethics is the discipline that examines the moral standards
of an individual or a society.
▪ Ethics is a study of Morality.
▪ It looks into the soundness, reasonableness, and appropriateness of the moral
standards of a person or a society espouses.

III. THE BRANCHES OF ETHICS

• As a branch of Philosophy that examines and reflects about morality, ethics is usually
categorized into three general subject areas:

2. _________________
o It is about the theoretical meaning and reference of moral propositions and
how their truth values (if any) may be determined;
o It is also known as Analytic ethics.
o It looks into the nature, meaning, scope, and foundational of moral values
and discourse.
o The term “meta” in Greek means “after or beyond” and thus metaethics
involves an abstract and detached way of thinking philosophically about
moral.
o While normative ethics addresses such questions as "Which things are
(morally or ethically) good and bad?" and "What should we do?," thus
endorsing some ethical evaluations and rejecting others, metaethics
addresses such questions as: "What is (moral or ethical) goodness?" "What
does it mean to say that something is good?" "What are the characteristics or
qualities of an acceptable or defensible ethical theory?" "What is justice?"
"How, if at all, can an ethical theory be justified?" "How do we know or
recognize that something is or is not ethically good?"
o Metaethics seeks to understand the nature of ethical properties and
evaluations as such, and not just the content of particular norms or
evaluations.
 EVANGELICAL THEOLOGICAL COLLEGE
OF THE PHILIPPINES- LUZON, INC.
Lot 1 Block 1 Valley Hills Subd., Valley Golf, Cainta Rizal 1900

3. __________________
o It is about the practical means of determining a moral course of action;
o Concerned with the moral standards to determine right from wrong conduct.
o It involves the formulation of moral norms or rules that can serve basis of the
kind of actions, institutions, and ways of life that we should pursue.
o Theories proposed to answer what moral standards should govern human
action usually fall into three broad categories, namely
1) _________________
▪ Consequentialism is an ethical theory that judges whether or not
something is right by what its consequences are. For instance, most
people would agree that lying is wrong. But if telling a lie would help
save a person’s life, consequentialism says it’s the right thing to do.
2) _________________
▪ Deontology is an ethical theory that uses rules to distinguish right
from wrong. Deontology is often associated with philosopher
Immanuel Kant. Kant believed that ethical actions follow universal
moral laws, such as “Don’t lie. Don’t steal. Don’t cheat.”
3) _________________
▪ Virtue ethics is a philosophy developed by Aristotle and other ancient
Greeks. It is the quest to understand and live a life of moral character.
▪ This character-based approach to morality assumes that we acquire
virtue through practice.
▪ By practicing being honest, brave, just, generous, and so on, a person
develops an honorable and moral character. According to Aristotle, by
honing virtuous habits, people will likely make the right choice when
faced with ethical challenges.

4. _________________
o Its thrust is to examine the particular issues in both the personal and social
spheres that are matters of moral judgment.
o Focusing on the more practical concerns of ethics, it uses philosophical
methods to determine the moral permissibility of specific actions and
practices.
o Applied ethics, also called practical ethics, is the application of ethics to real-
world problems. Practical ethics attempts to answer the question of how
people should act in specific situations. For example, is it ethical for a
business owner to bluff during negotiations with another company? Or, is it
morally permissible for a doctor to engage in mercy killing when a terminal
cancer patient begs to be put out of her misery?
 EVANGELICAL THEOLOGICAL COLLEGE
OF THE PHILIPPINES- LUZON, INC.
Lot 1 Block 1 Valley Hills Subd., Valley Golf, Cainta Rizal 1900

IV. CHRISTIAN ETHICS

• Christian ethics is any study that answers the question, “What does the whole Bible
teach us about which acts, attitudes, and personal character traits receive God’s
approval, and which do not?”
• Christian ethics is any study that answers the question, ‘What does God require us to do
and what attitudes does he require us to have today?’ with regard to any given situation.
• The emphasis from what God requires to what he approves, because there are countless
specific actions in life (such as enjoying a beautiful sunset or spontaneously singing a
hymn of praise) that God does not actually require of us at that moment, but which he
certainly approves.
• But what is Christian ethics? Before any attempt is made to define its principles, an
important prior question must be settled. What are we talking about?
• There are at least six frames of reference within which the term has been used. These
overlap and meet at the edges, but much confusion has come about from failure to see
clearly that they are different frames of reference. Christian ethics may mean
1) The best in the __________________ of all ages and places.
2) The moral standards of ____________________.
3) The ethics of the ___________________ and its many churches.
4) The ethics of the ___________________.
5) The ethics of the ___________________.
6) The ethical insights of _______________.

Sources:

https://ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu/

Ethics: Theories and Applications by Francis Evagelista and Napoleon M. Mabaquiqo Jr.

Christian Ethics by Wayne Grudem