ethics midterm reviewer | Schemes and Mind Maps Ethics

ETHICS REVIEWER

MODULE 1

What is morality?

James W. Gray, 2011, stated that morality involves what we ought to do, right and wrong,

good and bad, values, justice, and virtues.

Morality is taken to be important; moral actions are often taken to merit praise and rewards,

and immoral actions are often taken to merit blame and punishment.

Morality is the quality of right and wrong in the human acts. When we say Human acts, it

pertains to acts done with knowledge and consent.

What we ought to do - What we morally ought to do is what’s morally preferable. It’s morally

preferable to give to certain charities and to refrain from hurting people who make us angry; so, we

morally ought to do these things.

Right and wrong - Something is morally right if it’s morally permissible, and morally wrong if it’s

morally impermissible.

Good and bad - “Good” and “bad” refer to a positive and negative value. Something is morally good if

it helps people attain something of positive value, avoid something of negative value, or has a positive

value that merits being a goal.

ETHICAL SCIENCE

Ethical Science is particularly concerned with the study of man and the human conduct, and is,

therefore, especially related to all those sciences dealing with the study of human nature and

human living.

1. Ethics and logic - logic is the science of right thinking. Ethics is the science of right living.

To think right often lead to correct doing.

2. Ethics and psychology - Both deal with the study of man, human nature, and

human behavior. Psychology is not interested in the morality of human behavior, unlike ethics,

but it studies how a man behaves while ethics studies how man ought to behave.

3. Ethics and sociology - Ethics deals with the moral order of the society which is called social order

while Sociology studies how a particular society behaves.

4. Ethics and economics - man is also an economic being because he has to support himself by

earning a living, thus its relation to ethics is on the moral order of earning a living.

5. Ethics and education - Education develops the whole man, his moral, intellectual, and physical

capacities, hence it needs the concept of ethics to make a person whole.

6. Morality and law - Right and wrong, good and bad in human actions presuppose a law or rule of

conduct. The laws of the state are restatements, specifications, or interpretations of an interior

natural moral law as we shall learn on Ethics and Law.

7. Ethics and art - Ethics stands for moral goodness, art, for beauty. But as transcendentals, the

beautiful and the good are one. Evil always implies ugliness or defects and the good is always

beautiful since it is very object of desire and therefore, like beauty, pleases when perceived.

8. Ethics and politics - Man owes allegiance to the State. Politics aims at the good government for

the temporal welfare of the citizens. But between the temporal and the spiritual and eternal

welfare there is no conflict.

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ETHICS REVIEWER

MODULE 1

What is morality?  James W. Gray, 2011, stated that morality involves what we ought to do, right and wrong, good and bad, values, justice, and virtues.  Morality is taken to be important ; moral actions are often taken to merit praise and rewards, and immoral actions are often taken to merit blame and punishment.  Morality is the quality of right and wrong in the human acts. When we say Human acts, it pertains to acts done with knowledge and consent. What we ought to do - What we morally ought to do is what’s morally preferable. It’s morally preferable to give to certain charities and to refrain from hurting people who make us angry; so, we morally ought to do these things. Right and wrong - Something is morally right if it’s morally permissible, and morally wrong if it’s morally impermissible. Good and bad - “Good” and “bad” refer to a positive and negative value. Something is morally good if it helps people attain something of positive value, avoid something of negative value, or has a positive value that merits being a goal. ETHICAL SCIENCE  Ethical Science is particularly concerned with the study of man and the human conduct, and is, therefore, especially related to all those sciences dealing with the study of human nature and human living.

Ethics and logic - logic is the science of right thinking. Ethics is the science of right living. To think right often lead to correct doing.
Ethics and psychology - Both deal with the study of man, human nature, and human behavior. Psychology is not interested in the morality of human behavior, unlike ethics, but it studies how a man behaves while ethics studies how man ought to behave.
Ethics and sociology - Ethics deals with the moral order of the society which is called social order while Sociology studies how a particular society behaves.
Ethics and economics - man is also an economic being because he has to support himself by earning a living, thus its relation to ethics is on the moral order of earning a living.
Ethics and education - Education develops the whole man, his moral, intellectual, and physical capacities, hence it needs the concept of ethics to make a person whole.
Morality and law - Right and wrong, good and bad in human actions presuppose a law or rule of conduct. The laws of the state are restatements, specifications, or interpretations of an interior natural moral law as we shall learn on Ethics and Law.
Ethics and art - Ethics stands for moral goodness, art, for beauty. But as transcendentals, the beautiful and the good are one. Evil always implies ugliness or defects and the good is always beautiful since it is very object of desire and therefore, like beauty, pleases when perceived.
Ethics and politics - Man owes allegiance to the State. Politics aims at the good government for the temporal welfare of the citizens. But between the temporal and the spiritual and eternal welfare there is no conflict.

Religion and ethics - Religion is the root of morality without it, morality will die. They are inseparable because both have the same end – the attainment of man’s supreme purpose or man’s ultimate end. DIVISION OF ETHICS General Ethics  It consists of basic notions and fundamental principles and norms of morality.  Includes a brief study of Philosophy of man. Applied Ethics  Consists of special concerns, whether individual or institutional, to which moral norms and principles are applied.  Individual ethics and social ethics are two subheadings of applied ethics.

ISSUE, DECISION, JUDGMENT, AND DILEMMA

Moral issue – it may be helpful to distinguish a situation that calls for moral valuation. Moral decision – when one is placed in a situation and confronted by the choice of what action to perform. Moral judgment - when a person is an observer who assesses the actions or behavior of someone. Principles – rationally established grounds by which one justifies and maintains her moral decision and judgments. Moral dilemma is a situation where…

There are two or more actions that you can do.
There is moral reason for doing such actions.
You cannot do all the possible actions presented to you. You only need to choose one.  Moral dilemma is a moral conflict, where the decision must be made between two or more equipollent obligations. Moral dilemmas can be:
Individual - personal factors about an individual that may influence their sensitivity to ethical issues, their judgment about such issues, and their related behavior.
Organizational or situational – contextual factors that affect decision- making that include the work group.
Systemic or Macro level – factors such as political pressures, economic conditions, societal attitudes and even business regulations can influence operating standards and policies. THE IMPORTANCE OF ETHICS  The importance of the study of ethics follows immediately from the importance of ethics itself. Ethics means right living and good moral character, and it is in good moral character that man finds his true worth and perfection.

LESSON 3: ETHICAL AND CULTURAL/MORAL RELATIVISM

ETHICAL RELATIVISM

 refers to a view or doctrine that ethical values and beliefs (as to what is right/good and wrong/bad) are relative to the time, place, persons, situations and societies that hold them. William Graham Sumner  Sumner became convinced that there is no single and absolute standard of conduct, but that all patterns of approved behavior are relative to the particular culture in which they are practiced.  Those patterns of conduct that are sanctioned by the community, because they have been found by experience to promote group survival, Sumner called Folkways.  In other words, ethical relativism is a theory that holds that there are no universally valid moral principles; that all moral values are valid relative to culture or individual choice. ARGUMENTS FOR ETHICAL RELATIVISM  The Cultural Differences Argument  The Argument from Respect  The Psychological Argument  The Conformity Argument  The Provability Argument CRITICAL EVALUATION OF ETHICAL RELATIVISM (On Cultural Diversity)  Cultural diversity as a sociological and anthropological fact is in itself neutral to making any value or moral judgment. It does not necessarily deny the objectivity of moral values.

LESSON 4: ETHICAL EGOISM

 egoism comes from the word “ego” which means self.  Ethical egoism is a normative theory- that is a theory about how we ought to behave. Regardless of how we do behave, Ethical Egoism says that our only duty is to do what is best for ourselves (Rachel, 2004).  Holds that we should act only in our own interest, where such interest is viewed from an overall and long-term perspective.  Ethical egoism is the radical view that one’s only duty is to promote one’s own interests. Two subtypes of egoism: a. Descriptive egoism – also known as psychological egoism. Asserts that people always act in their own interests, and cannot but act in their own interests, even though they may disguise their motivation with reference to helping others or doing their duty. b. Normative egoism – proposes that people should be so motivated, regardless of what presently motivates their behavior. B.1 Rational Egoism - claims that the promotion of one’s own interests is always in accordance with reason. According to Ayn Rand, “selfishness is a proper virtue to pursue. Because it is irrational not to pursue”. B.2 Ethical Egoism - claims that the promotion of one’s own good is in accordance with morality. In the strong version, it is held that it is always moral to promote one’s own good, and it is never moral not to promote it. B.3 Conditional Egoism - holds that it is morally acceptable or right if it leads to morally acceptable ends.

PHILOSOPHICAL ARGUMENTS IN FAVOR OF ETHICAL EGOISM

1. The Argument that Altruism is Self-Defeating  Each of us intimately familiar with our own individual wants and needs.  At the same time, the policy of “looking out for others” is an offensive intrusion into other people’s privacy; it is essentially a policy of minding other people’s business.  Making other people the object of one’s “charity” is degrading to them; it robs them of their individual dignity and self-respect.  If we want to do what is best for people, we should not adopt so-called altruistic policies of behavior. 2. Ayn Rand’s Argument  Ayn Rand regarded the ethics of “altruism” as a totally destructive idea, both in society as a whole and in the lives of individuals taken in by it.  Altruism, to her way of thinking, leads to a denial of the value of the individual.  A person has only one life to live.  The ethics of altruism regards the life of the individual as something one must be ready to sacrifice for the good of others.  Ethical Egoism, which allows each person to view his or her own life as being of ultimate value, does take the human individual seriously- it is , in fact, the only philosophy does so.  Ethical egoism is the philosophy that we ought to accept. 3. Ethical Egoism as Compatible with Common Sense Morality  Another argument for ethical egoism connects self-interest to the notion of good reasons.  The argument runs: “If you are morally required to do something, then you have a good reason to do it. If there is a good reason to do something, then doing it must advance your interests.  Ethical Egoism, then, would be the theory that all these duties are ultimately derived from the one fundamental principle of self-interest. It does not challenge a commonsense morality; it only tries to explain and systematize it. The following are plausible explanations of the duties mentioned:

The duty to not harm others.
The duty to not lie.
The duty to keep promises. Three arguments against ethical egoism
The argument that ethical egoism cannot handle conflicts of interest.
The argument that ethical egoism is logically inconsistent.
The argument that ethical egoism is unacceptably arbitrary.
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Purity – the purer the pleasure, the better.
Extent – the greater the number of people who can experience pleasure, the better. One is morally bound to do only those actions that will make a lot of people happy. ACT UTILITARIANISM VS. RULE UTILITARIANISM  Mill and Bentham are generally in agreement that the principle of utility should be the ultimate practical norm in assessing the proper course of action to take in any given situation, but they both differ about how to apply it in concrete cases.  For Mill “the principle of utility gets applied to rules, not to particular actions” (Wall 2003:30). His is what has come to be known in ethical circle as rule utilitarianism.  Rules are essential to ethics for they give us an easy and time-tested principle of conduct that can readily apply whenever we need to decide what we ought to do or not do in certain situations. We need rules to tell us which way to go in terms of the way we behave. QUANTITATIVE VS. QUALITATIVE PLEASURES  Bentham’s formulation of the hedonic calculus to provide a quantitative calculation of the value of different pleasures where decisions are made into a simple exercise of addition and deduction at arriving at the final balance put him (rightly or wrongly) under the level of a psychological hedonist.  Bentham insist that we should not only pursue our own self-interest but also that of the group or majority.  On the other hand, Mill introduces a way of determining pleasure that is not just confined to quantity or amount but more on its quality. Thus, he claims that pleasure are of two types: quantity and quality. SYNTHESIS  Utilitarianism is a form of consequentialism. For consequentialism, the moral rightness or wrongness of an act depends on the consequences it produces.  Utilitarians’ concern is how to increase net utility. Their moral theory is based on the principle of utility which states that “the morally right action is the action that produces the most good” (Driver 2014). The morally wrong action is the one that leads to the reduction of the maximum good.  Utilitarianism became so influential from the time of its inception until today due to its admirable emphasis on the social dimension of morality.

ethics midterm reviewer, Schemes and Mind Maps of Ethics

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Partial preview of the text

Download ethics midterm reviewer and more Schemes and Mind Maps Ethics in PDF only on Docsity!

ETHICS REVIEWER

MODULE 1

ISSUE, DECISION, JUDGMENT, AND DILEMMA

LESSON 3: ETHICAL AND CULTURAL/MORAL RELATIVISM

ETHICAL RELATIVISM

LESSON 4: ETHICAL EGOISM

PHILOSOPHICAL ARGUMENTS IN FAVOR OF ETHICAL EGOISM