GROUP 1

MEMBERS:

1. ACEVEDA, NOEL

2. BRUCE, EXUDUS

3. MOJADO, JOHN DENVER

4. DOLOR, ARCHIE

5. SISCAR, IVY ROSE

ORIGIN OF ETHICS

 In all varied activities we see that not just any way of behaving will do, that there
is a right and a wrong way to conduct ourselves. Early in human history people
must have seen that this question could be asked of life as a whole: Is there a right
and a wrong way of living, of gathering all these activities into the spending of
one’s life? Is there a pattern, a model, an ideal of a good human life? If so, where
can people find it and how ought they follow it?
ORIGIN OF ETHICS
CUSTOMARY MORALITY
The standard and rules of conduct embedded in the tribal custom and usage.
Here the individual behaves in accordance with social custom and usage.
Offers us definite rules and percepts to guide our conduct.
REFLECTIVE MORALITY
Emerges when a person attempts to find general principle by which to direct and justify his or her personal
behavior.
Leads us to search for a constant and universal principles whereby we can decide for ourselves, from inner
conviction, what the good life is and how we ought to live it.
CUSTOMARY VS REFLECTIVE
RELATIVE rather than ABSOLUTE
ORIGIN OF ETHICS
The transition from customary to reflective morality began in our Western culture,
with the Greeks. By the Six century before Christ they had reduced primitive
speculations about the universe and our place in it to some sort of order or system
and integrated this speculation into the general body of wisdom called
PHILOSOPHY.
After a brilliant period of speculation on the structure of the universe, they began in
days of the SOPHISTS and SOCTARTES to turn their insatiable curiosity on
themselves, on human life and society.
In time their study led to an examination of all human conduct. This part of
philosophy they called ETHICS; we call it by the same name and also use the terms
moral philosophy and moral theory as well.
 PROBLEMS
Human have engaged themselves throughout history in asking questions about the good life.
We have not only asked question about the good life, we have also made judgments about what is
wrong and what right thing to do. This part and parcel of our collective human experience, the
fact that we make judgements about right and wrong. From this fact of human experience ethics
takes its start.
Philosophy means “love of wisdom”, the love that drives us to seek out answers to our
questions about life and its meaning. Philosophy would not be what it is if it merely took for
granted that life has a meaning or purpose and that there is a kind of life that can be called the
good life. All philosophy begins as skeptical in the sense that it asks question; it remains skeptical
only if, after investigation, it decides no answer can be found.
PROBLEMS
The first order of business for us is to look at the commonly held
view of ethics, its nature as a scientifically objective study of the
moral life, and its function and use in a pluralistic society.
The following questions will guide our discussion:
1. What is ethics as commonly understood?
2. Is ethics a scientifically objective discipline in its own right?
3. How does ethics function in a pluralistic society?
 Relation to Other Studies

• Anthropology
• Psychology
• Sociology, Economics and Political Science
• Law
ANTHROPOLOGY

Anthropology and ethics both deal with human customs on various

levels of culture and civilization. Studies the origin and development of
human customs without passing an judgment on their moral rightness
or wrongness, but it is this rightness or wrongness alone that interest
ethics. Anthropology testifies to the existence or moral notions among
primitive peoples; ethics borrows such data from anthropology but
goes on to examine the moral value of these concepts and customs.
Psychology
Psychology and ethics both deal with human behavior, with the
abilities people have and the acts they perform. Psychology
studies how humans actually do behave, ethics how they ought to
behave. Sanity and sanctity. A well-adjusted personality and
morally good character, despite the relationship between them,
are essentially different things; so too are their opposites,
madness and sin, psychic eccentricity and moral depravity. What
psychology for much information on how the human mind works,
but it always passes on from how people do act to how they
ought to act.
Sociology, Economics and Political Science

Sociology, Economics and Political Science study human social life,

and so also does ethics but with the same difference of viewpoint.
These three sciences deal with actual social economic, and political
institutions what they are and how they function; ethics determine what
they ought to be and how they ought to function. A hard and fast line
between these three sciences and between them and ethics, would
render all four studies impractical. The endeavor to remedy the social,
economic and political ills of mankind involves an application of ethics
to these three fields. Such a combination is sometimes called social,
economic or political philosophy. But ethics, precisely as ethics, always
preserves its distinctive point of view, the ought.
Law
The study of law is closely to ethics. Yet though both deal with the
ought, the civil law and the moral law do not always perfectly
correspond. The study of civil law deals only with those acts
permitted or prohibited by civil law, ethics with tribunal of
conscience judging all of our acts. There is a difference between
crime and sin, legal rectitude and moral worth, being law-abiding
and having true virtue of soul. A mingling of ethics and the civil
law on a wider field gives us the philosophy of law, the study of
how laws ought to be framed and interpreted, a study some
writers call jurisprudence.
Ethics: A Practical
Science
 Ethics: A Practical Science

ETHICS can never be a Science

Science – prediction based on hypothesis and experimental
verification

Scientific Method - the exact mathematical measurement

-unsuitable for evaluating virtue and vice
Ethics: A Practical Science

 Science deals with facts and

Personal Conduct is the laws governing them
too unpredictable  19th century mode of
thinking
Ethics only deals with
 Auguste Comte - positivism
opinions about what which eliminates all
ought to be and never speculations from
wholly is. philosophers and restricts
scientific knowledge to facts
Ethics: A Practical Science

“Science is the certain knowledge of

things in their causes.”- Philosophers

Ethics preeminently fulfills

Ethics: A Practical Science

Ethics is a Science
Has own method of procedure and proper object
It is a body of systematized knowledge
GOAL: COMPLETENESS AND OBJECTIVITY
Objectivity and Precision are ideals we strive for but
never completely achieved
Ethics: A Practical Science

Ethics is a science of the OUGHT

Ought itself is a fact demanding

explanation
Ethics: A Practical Science

SCIENCE
THEORETICAL - mere contemplation of the
truth
PRACTICAL – does not only contemplate but
also directed into action
Ethics: A Practical Science

ETHICS aims to enable the person

to act and live right
Ethics: A Practical Science
NORMATIVE – gives rules or norms for acting; inner
goodness and perfection
- science of the moral ought

ETHICS is both practical and normative

Ethics: A Practical Science

ETHICS IS LIKE AN ART

ETHICS AND METAETHICS
ETHICS AND METAETHICS

NORMATIVE ETHICS – study of what humans ought and ought

not to do.

METAETHICS OR ANALYTIC ETHICS - inquiry into the

presuppositions of normative ethics
- study of ethical theory
- ethics’ own reflection on itself judging the success or failure of
itself as moral theory
ETHICS AND METAETHICS

AIMS OF METAETHICS
1. To analyze the meaning of the terms used in moral
argumentation
2. To examine the rules of reasoning and methods of
knowing by which moral beliefs can be shown to be true or
false
ETHICS AND METAETHICS

TASK OF METAETHICS- to make a careful and

thorough analysis of the meaning of the words and
statements
ETHICS AND METAETHICS

TWO FOLD OF THE SECOND AIM OF

METAETHICS
: To determine whether there is any such thing as moral truth
or knowledge
: To discover the methods for attaining it.
ETHICS AND METAETHICS

TOO ARTIFICIAL TO MAINTAIN A

CONSISTENT SEPARATION BETWEEN TWO
PHASES
ETHICS IN A PLURALISTIC
SOCIETY
ETHICS IN A PLURALISTIC SOCIETY

PLURALISTIC SOCIETY
Comprised of many subgroups or
subcommunities
Have own view of the morally good life
ETHICS IN A PLURALISTIC SOCIETY

“ DIFFERENCES IN OPINIONS ARE EXPECTED IN

LIFE; CANNOT BE AVOIDED, IGNORED, AND
DISSIPATED.”
ETHICS IN A PLURALISTIC SOCIETY

“ AS LONG AS THEY DO NO HARM TO ANY

OTHER PEOPLE”
ETHICS IN A PLURALISTIC SOCIETY

ARE THEY MORAL BECAUSE OF THE GENERAL

AGREEMENT AND SHARED GENERAL DESIRE OR
CONDEMNATION OR DO WE AGREE ON AND
DESIRE OR CONDEMN THEM BECAUSE THEY ARE
‘RIGHT OR GOOD’ AND OR ‘WRONG AND
EVIL’?
ETHICS IN A PLURALISTIC SOCIETY

TWO LEVELS OF THE PERSON LIVE

1. National level as citizen
2. Subgroup or subcommunity as a member
ETHICS IN A PLURALISTIC SOCIETY

FREEDOM IN SOCIETY = ALL OR NOTHING

PUBLIC POLICIES THE FINAL ARBITER?

ETHICS IN A PLURALISTIC SOCIETY

CONTROVERTED ISSUES= REFLECT

A PURELY PHILOSOPHICAL
ETHICS
 A PURELY PHILOSOPHICAL ETHICS

The Judeo-Christian religious tradition which is too conspicuous a fact of

our society to be overlooked, is specially reach in moral teaching and has
developed an elaborated code of morality. Does the religious person need
a double study of morals, one from a purely philosophical standpoint and
other from that divine revelation? Does a religious faith add material
content to what is in principle knowledge by human reason? These
question may seem academic, touching only the periphery of real life, but
the answer we give to them affects not only philosophical ethics but public
policy as well, because public policy even though not identical with sound
morality, then the formulation of public policy is even more complex than
it seems.
 A PURELY PHILOSOPHICAL ETHICS

For example, if Catholics precisely as Catholics know

something about abortion that others cannot know unless they
believe it as Catholics, then in our pluralistic society we shall
have problems with discussion of abortion issue in public
forum. The very methods we use or do not use to judge the
moral rightness or wrongness of issues like apartheid, artificial
insemination, warfare, and poverty programs can be affected
by the way we answer these seemingly academic questions.