Republic of the Philippines

President Ramon Magsaysay State University

(formerly Ramon Magsaysay Technological University)
Iba. Zambales, Philippines
Tel/Fax no. (047) 811-1683

MODULE
GEC 8 – ETHICS
General Education

1st Semester A.Y. 2020-2021

 Republic of the Philippines
President Ramon Magsaysay State University
(formerly Ramon Magsaysay Technological University )
Iba. Zambales, Philippines
Tel/Fax no. (047) 811 -1683

College/ Department
Course Code GEC 8
Course Title Ethics
Place of the Course in the Program General Education
Semester and Academic Year 1st Semester A.Y. 2020-2021

Chapter 1 THE ETHICAL DIMESION OF HUMAN EXISTENCE

Intended Learning Outcomes

1. Identify the ethical aspect of human life and the scope of ethical thinking;
2. Define and explain the terms that are relevant to ethical thinking; and
3. Evaluate the difficulties that are involved in maintaining certain commonly-held notions on
ethics.

Introduction

In August 2007, newspapers reported what seemed to be yet another sad incident of fraternity
violence. Cris Anthony Mendez, a twenty-year-old student of the University of the Philippines (UP),
was rushed to the hospital in the early morning hours, unconscious, with large bruises on his chest,
back and legs. He passed away that morning, and the subsequent autopsy report strongly suggests
that his physical injuries were most probably result of hazing. What exactly happened remains an
open question, as none of those who were with him that night came forward to shed light on what
had transpired. Needless to say, none of them came forward to assume responsibility for the death of
Cris.

Even as the leaders of the Sigma Rho fraternity publicly denounced the death of Cris, those
members who had been with him that night vanished, avoiding and refusing to cooperate with legal
authorities. Meanwhile, UP students and the general public clamored for justice. In a move that
surprised the student body, the UP Chancellor called on all fraternities to justify their continued
existence. Meanwhile the case of the tragic death of Cris Anthony Mendez was left unresolved. It
remains that way up to this day.

No one knows just what exactly happened. No charges have been filed, no definitive testimony has
been forthcoming. But there is more to this for us than just a criminal mystery. Pondering on the
death of Cris, we may find ourselves asking questions such as ‗What is the value of one‘s life?‖
―What exactly were the wrongs done to Cris by his so-called fraternity brothers?‖ or perhaps ―is
there any good in fraternities?‖ These questions that concern good and bad, or right or wrong - and
these questions concerning value are the kind of questions that we deal in ethics.
LESSON 1: Value

Definition of Ethics
- The good things that we should do and the bad things that we should avoid; the right ways in
which we could or should act and the wrong ways of acting. It is about what is acceptable
and unacceptable in human behavior. It may involve obligations that we are expected to
fulfill, prohibitions that we are required to respect, or ideals that we are encouraged to
meet.

Clarifications and Terminologies

1. Recognize that there are instances when we make value judgements that are not
considered to be part of ethics.

Kinds of Valuations
a. Aesthetics – derived from the Greek word ―aesthesis‖ (―sense‖ or ―feeling‖) and
refers to the judgements of personal approval or disapproval that we make about
what we see, hear, smell, or taste. e.g.
For instance, I could say that a new movie I had just seen was a good one
because I enjoyed it or a song I heard on the radio was a bad one because it had an
unpleasant tone.

b. Etiquette – certain approval or disapproval of actions which can be relatively more

trivial in nature. It is concerned with right and wrong actions, but those considered
not quite grave enough to belong to the discussion on ethics. e.g.
For instance, I may think that it is right to knock politely on someone’s door,
while it is wrong to barge into someone’s office. Perhaps I may approve of a child
who knows how to ask for something properly by saying please, and otherwise,
disapprove of a woman that I see picking her nose in public.

c. Technical Valuation – derive from the Greek word ―techne‖ the English words
techniques and technical which are often used to refer to a proper way (or right way)
of doing things but may not necessarily be an ethical. e.g.
Learning how to bake, for instance I am told that the right thing to do would
be mix the dry ingredients first, such as flour or sugar before bringing in any
liquids, like milk or cream: this is the right thing to do in baking but does not belong
in the discussion of ethics.

2. Ethics and Morals

• Morals – used to refer specific beliefs or attitudes that people have or to describe
acts that people perform.
• Ethics- the discipline of studying and understanding ideal human behavior and ideal
ways of thinking
 3. Descriptive and Normative
• Descriptive Ethics – reports how people, particularly groups, make their moral
valuations without making any judgement either for or against these valuations.
• Normative Ethics – often done in philosophy or moral theology, engages questions
―What could or should be the right way of acting? In other words, a normative
discussion prescribes what we ought to maintain as our standards or bases for moral
valuations.

4. Issue Decision Judgement and Dilemma

• Moral issue – used to refer to those particular situations that are often the source of
considerable ad inclusive debates (thus we would often hear topics such as capital
punishment and euthanasia as moral issue)
• Moral Decision – when one is faced in a situation and confronted by the choice of
what act to perform.
e.g. For instance, I choose not to take something I did not pay for.
• Moral Judgment – when one is an observer who makes an assessment on the actions
or behavior.
e.g. For instance, a friend of mine stole from a store and I find it wrong to do so.
• Moral Dilemma – Going beyond the matter of choosing right over wrong, or good
over bad, and considering instead the more complicated situation wherein one is torn
between choosing one of two goods or choosing between the lesser of two evils;
When an individual can choose only one from a number of possible actions and
there are compelling ethical reasons for the various choices.
e.g. A mother may be conflicted between wanting to feed her hungry child, but then
recognizing that it would be wrong for her to steal.

Reasoning
Why do we suppose that a certain way of acting is right and its opposite is wrong? The study
of ethics in interested in questions like these: Why do we decide to consider this way of acting as
acceptable while that way of acting is unacceptable? To put it in another way, what reasons do we
give to decide or to judge that a certain way of acting is either right or wrong?
A person‘s fear of punishment or desire for reward can provide him a reason for acting in a
certain way. It is common to hear someone say ―I did not cheat on the exam because I was afraid
that I might get caught‖. The promise of rewards and the fear of punishment can certainly motivate us
to act, but are not in themselves determinants of the rightness or wrongness of a certain way of acting
or of the good or bad in particular pursuit. Is it possible to find better reasons for finding a certain
way of acting either acceptable or unacceptable?
Going beyond whatever motivations or incentive is present in an instance of cheating (or not
doing so), our thinking may take on a level of abstraction, that is ―Cheating is wrong‖ by
recognizing proper reasons for not acting in this way. Beyond rewards and punishments, it is possible
for our moral valuations, decisions and judgment to be based on a principle or a moral framework.

Principle
- Rationally established grounds by which one justifies and maintains her moral decisions
and judgement.

Moral Theory/Framework
- A systematic attempt to establish the validity of maintaining certain moral principles. It is a
structure which can evaluate our reasons for valuing a certain decision or judgement. This
can make us reflect on the principles that we maintain and thus, the decisions and
 judgments we make. By studying these, we can reconsider, clarify, modify, and ultimately
strengthen our principles, thereby informing better both our moral judgments and moral
decisions.

LESSON 2: Sources of Authority

Several common ways of thinking about ethics are based on the idea that the standards of
valuations are imposed by a higher authority that commands our obedience. In the following section
we will explore three of such ideas: law, religion and culture.

AUTHORITY OF THE LAW

• It is a system of rules that are created and enforced through social and governmental
institutions to regulate behavior. It has been defined as the science of Justice or the Art of
Justice. Law is a system that regulates and ensures that individuals or a community adhere to
the will of the state. Furthermore, the law is enforced by way of a systems of sanctions
administered through persons and institutions, which all help in compelling us to obey.
Provides us with an objective standard that is obligatory and applicable to all.
• One point to be raised is the prohibitive nature of the law. The law does not tell us what we
should do; it works by constraining us from performing acts that we should not do. To put it
slightly differently, the law cannot tell us what to pursue, only what to avoid. Would we be
satisfied thinking about ethics solely from the negative perspective of that which we should
not do, disregarding the important aspect of a good which we could and should do, even if
the law does not require us to do so?
• To make this point concrete, recall the story of a toddler who had been run over by a couple
of vehicles. While there were many passers-by who witnessed what had happened for quite a
long while, no one did anything to help. The child later died in the hospital. The law does not
oblige people to help others in need, so none of these passers –by were guilty of breaking
any law. However, many people reacting to this sad news report share a sense that those
passers-by were somewhat ethically culpable in their negligence. In view, of all this, perhaps
one should think of ethics in a way that does not simply identify it with obedience of the law.

AUTHORITY OF THE RELIGION

“Love the Lord, Your God, therefore and always heed his charge: his statutes, decrees,
and commandments.” Deuteronomy 1:11
(New American Bible)

Divine Command Theory

• The divinity called God, Allah, or Supreme Being commands and one is obliged to obey her
Creator. There are persons and texts that one believes are linked to the Divine. By listening
to this figures and reading these writings, an individual discovers how the Divine wants her
to act. Further, someone maintaining more radical form of this theory might go beyond this
instruments of Divine Revelation and claim that God -spoke to her directly to instruct her
what to do.
 We are presented with a more or less clear code of prohibitions and many of these
prohibitions given by religion Thou shall not kill, Thou shall not steal, Thou shall not
commit adultery‖ - seem to intuitively coincide with our sense of what ethics should
rightly demand.
  Religion is not simply prohibitive but it also provides us ideals to pursue.
 Provides us with not just a set of commands but also Supreme Authority that can inspire
and compel our obedience in a way that nothing else can.

• On the practical level, we realize the presence of a multiplicity of religions. Each faith
demands differently from its adherents, which would apparently result in conflicting ethical
standards.

• On conceptual level, we can see a further problem where one requires the believer to clarify
her understanding of the connection between ethics and the Divine.

• We maintain that generally speaking it is a good thing for a person of faith to abide by the
teachings of her particular religion. But the divine command theory demands more than this
as it requires us to identify the entire sense of right and wrong with what religion dictates.
The conceptual problem we have seen and the practical difficulties of simply basing ethics
on the divine command theory are reasons enough to wonder whether we have to set this
thinking aside. Now let us clarify one point: Our calling into question of the divine command
theory is not calling to question of one‘s belief in God; it is not intended to be a challenge to
one‘s faith. Instead, it is an invitation to consider whether there may be more creative and
less problematic ways of seeing the connection between faith and ethics, rather than simply
equating what is ethical with whatever one takes to be commanded by God.

AUTHORITY OF CULTURE

Culture is the integrated pattern of human knowledge belief and behavior that depends upon the
capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations.

Cultural Relativism – From the reality of diversity, it is possible for someone to jump to the further
claim that sheer variety at work in the different ways of valuation means there is no single universal
standard for such valuations, and that this holds true as well in the realm of ethics. Therefore, what is
ethically acceptable or unacceptable is relative to, or that is to say, dependent on one‘s culture.

1.
Cultural relativism seems to conform to what we experience which is the reality of the
differences in how cultures make their ethical valuations.
2.
By taking one’s culture as standard, we are provided a basis for our valuations.
3.
It teaches us to be tolerant of others from different cultures, as we realize that we are in
no position to judge whether the ethical thought or practice of another culture is
acceptable or unacceptable. In turn our own cultural moral codes is neither superior or
inferior to any other, but they would provide us the standards that are appropriate and
applicable to us.

James Rachels’ Criticism

1. The argument of criticism is premised on the reality of difference. Different cultures have
moral codes. We cannot say that any moral code is the right one. But the disagreement may
 mean that the question of who is right or wrong is not immediately evident, but it does not
mean that there is no correct resolution to the disagreement.
2. We realize that we are in no position to render any kind of judgement on the practices of
another culture. This seems to be a generous and an open minded way of respecting others
but what if the practice seems to call for a comment. Such as when a particular African tribe
thought it is advantageous and therefore right for them to wipeout a neighboring people
through a terrible practice of genocide? Are we in no position to judge if this is wrong?
Would we be satisfied with concluding that we cannot judge another culture?
3. We realize that we are in no position to render any kind of judgement on the practices of
even our own culture. If our culture was the basis of determining what is right or wrong, we
would be unable to say that something within our cultural practice was problematic,
precisely because we take our culture to be the standard for making such judgments.
4. We can maintain it only by following presumption of our culture as a single clearly defined
substance or as something fixed and already determined. Now, it is always possible to fid
examples of a certain culture having unique practice or way of life and to distinguish it from
other culture‘s practices, but it is also becoming increasingly difficult to determine what
exactly defines one‘s culture.

*Positive Points

Promotes sense of humility, that is, urging us not to imagine that our own culture is superior to
another. Such humility, however, should go hand in hand with a capacity for a rational, critical
discernment that is truly appreciative of human values.

*Weak Points

It basically renders us incapable of discerning about what values we may wish to maintain as we are
forced to simply accept whatever culture gives us. It keeps us from exploring whether there are
values that are shared between cultures; keeps us from comparing and judging- either positively or
negatively – the valuations that are made by different cultures.

Reflection
Returning to the case of Cris:
Can one claim that fraternities have their own culture that deserves respect? What would
be the strong and weak points of this claim?

LESSON 3: Senses of The Self

It is sometimes thought that one should not rely on any external authority to tell oneself what
the standards of moral valuation are, but should instead turn inwards. In this section we will look into
three theories about ethics that center on the self.

SUBJECTIVISM
- Recognize that the individual thinking person (the subject) is at the heart of all moral
valuation. She is the one who is confronted with the situation and is burdened with the need
to make a decision or judgement.
- The individual is the sole determinant of what is morally good or bad, right or wrong.
 ―No one can tell me what is right or wrong‖
 ―No one knows my situation better than myself‖
  ―I am entitled to my own opinion‖
 ―It is good, if I say it is good‖

PSYCHOLOGICAL EGOISM
―Human beings are naturally self-centered, so all our actions are always already motivated by self-
interest‖. The theory describes the underlying dynamic behind all human actions. As a descriptive
theory, it does not direct one to act in any particular way. Instead, it points out that there is already an
underlying basis for how one‘s act. The ego or self has its desires and interests, and all our actions
are geared toward satisfying these interests.

Strong Points
1. Simplicity – when an idea is marked by simplicity, it has unique appeal to it; a theory that
conveniently identifies a single basis that will somehow account for all actions is a good
example of this.
2. Plausibility- It is plausible that self-interest is behind a person‘s actions. It is clearly the
motivation behind many of the actions one perform which are obviously self-serving; it
could very well also be the motivation behind an individual‘s seemingly other-directed
actions.
3. Irrefutable – there is no way to try to answer it without being confronted by the challenge
that, whatever one might say, there is the self-serving motive at the root of everything.
Thus, if we cannot refute it, shall we consider it as true? And ―Do we accept the
consequences of this theory?‖

ETHICAL EGOISM
- It does not suppose all actions are already inevitably self-serving. Instead, ethical egoism
prescribes that we should make our own ends, our own interests, as the single overriding
concern. We may act in a way that is beneficial to others, but we should do that only if it
ultimately benefits us.
- It is not just some pleasant pursuit of one‘s own desires, but the imposition of a will to power
that is potentially destructive of both the self and the others. One can take on this view, if
one wishes, but it is also possible to wonder whether there is a way of recognizing our being
in the world with others, of thinking of our own wellbeing concomitantly with the wellbeing
of others.

Reflection
Returning to the case of Cris:
Do you think it is acceptable that those responsible for the death of Cris got away with murder?
Do you think it is right for someone to look after his/her own welfare over any other concern
such as justice?

SUMMARY
In this chapter, we have established the scope and the rationale for a discussion of ethics. We
explored various domains of valuation in order to distinguish what makes a particularly grave type of
valuation a moral or ethical one. We clarified some of the terms that will be used in the study of
ethics. We have also explored a number of problematic ways of thinking of ethics: some give a too
simplistic answer to the question of our grounds or foundations for moral valuations, while others
seem to dismiss the possibility of ethics altogether.
Additional Activities
Provide additional activity/activities here.
Reflection/Valuing

Suggested Readings
Frankfurt Harry. ―Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person. ―The Importance of What
We Care About: Philosophical Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.pp 11-25

Nagel, Thomas ―The Fragmentation of Value. ―Moral Questions. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1979, pp. 128-41

Rachels, James ―Can ethics Provide Answers? ―The Hastings Center Report, Vol.10, No. 3, June
1980, pp.32-40.

Reyes, Ramon Castillo. ―The Relation between Ethics and Religious Belief.‖ The Moral
Dimension: Essays in Honor of Ramon Castillo Reyes, edited by Nemesio S. Que, Jr., Oscar G.
Bulaong, Jr., and Michael Ner E. Mariano, Queson City: Office of Research and Publications,
Ateneo de Manila University, 2003, pp.107-112.

References/Additional Resources:

Bulaong O.G. et. al., 2018, ―Ethics: Foundations of Moral Valuations‖ distributed by Rex
Bookstore, Inc.