QUIRINO STATE UNIVERSITY

Maddela Campus

General Objectives:
At the end of this chapter, the students will be able to:
1. Recall rules they have to follow;
2. Explain why they have to follow rules
3. Explain the difference between moral and non-moral standards;
4. Detect a moral dilemma; and
5. Explain why only human beings can be ethical

LESSON 1: Orientation of the Course

Introduction

It seems that people don't like rules as they represent a kind of restrictions, but in fact life can't be organized
without rules. People always need rules and laws to be able to live and deal together. Can you imagine even a
game without rules; of course it will be a kind of mess. When they are playing a game, they must follow its rules
or it will be unfair. Also everything in our life should be restricted with rules or it becomes a mess and unfair. If
there are no rules and everyone is free to do whatever they want, most people will probably behave selfishly. We
need rules to help us get a long together and show respect to each other.

All the rules and laws have the same purpose. They organized the relations between individuals and the society
to make it clear what is right and wrong and what happens if someone breaks the rules. They are designed to
ensure fairness, safety and respect for other people's right.

Rules and Its Importance

Rules refer to a set of guidelines which have been put in place in different countries and communities and have
been accepted by all. Rules are useful tools in guiding and monitoring the interactions of humans in the society.
A rule is a prescribed guide for conduct or action. Rules help guide actions toward desired results.

When used appropriately, rules provide a sense of predictability and consistency for people, thereby promoting
physical, moral, social, and emotional safety. At the heart of ethics is a concern about something or someone other
than ourselves and our own desires and self-interest

Ethics is concerned with other people's interests, with the interests of society. with God's interests, with "ultimate
goods", and so on.

So when a person 'thinks ethically' they are giving at least some thought to something beyond themselves.

Rules are specific sets of norms of behavior, regulations, and laws established on purpose to regulate the life in
the community. These norms secure the order and allow avoiding total chaos. The sets of rules available nowadays
have undergone a long formation process. There were many variations and transformations applied. Due to that,
nowadays we have a well-established social, governmental and educational mechanisms that work as a clock
accurately, simultaneously and in an organized way. The availability of rules is a crucial criterion allowing to call
nowadays society civilized and well developed.

Why Do We Have Rules?

Rules help people in many aspects of life. They enable people to organize all the processes correctly, starting from
house chores and ending with more complicated issues as the functioning of as whole country. Rules are specific
modes of behavior that secure a regulated flow of all processes.

A well-developed system of rules help humanity to avoid chaos and many problems that may be caused by the
lack of regulations. Laws dictate what is proper and what is wrong. In many spheres of life, we have guidelines
to follow. Norms enable people to interact, to work together and contribute to the global development. Moral rules
assist people in the establishment of shared values and norms in accordance to which an honorable member of
society can be identified.
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Importance of Rules

Rules are important because they tend to protect the weaker class in the society as they might be in a
disadvantageous position if rules are broken. When rules are used in the right way

They provide a stable environment and human co-existence in a society which leads to peace and development.
The process of setting rules aims to craft rules in line with some desired results. For example, rules in schools and
other institutions promote trust, fairness and discipline in a bid to establish desirable relationship among students
and people.

Besides, rules are vital in one's life because peace and order are maintained, an important ingredient for society's
development. As a way of maintaining these rules, many societies have adopted and changed them into law. These
assure that no rules will be broken. If one violates the rule, a corresponding punishment is imposed.

Most of us are basically honest, and knowing the rules means that we usually try to follow them. One reason we
do is to avoid punishment, but the strongest argument for following the rules is to make the world peaceful and
fair.

The Subject: Ethics

Ethics, or moral philosophy, may be defined in a provisional way, as the scientific study of moral judgments.
Ethics is the discipline concerned with what is morally good and bad, right and wrong. The term is also applied
to any system or theory of moral values or principles.

The subject of Ethics consists of the fundamental issues of practical decision making, and its major concerns
include the nature of ultimate value and the standards by which human actions can be judged right or wrong.

At its simplest, ethics is a system of moral principles. They affect how people make decisions and lead their lives.
Ethics is concerned with what is good for individuals and society and is also described as moral philosophy.

The term is derived from the Greek word ethos which can mean custom, habit, character or disposition. Our
concepts of ethics have been derived from religions, philosophies and cultures. They infuse debates on topics like
abortion, human rights and professional conduct.

Ethics is not only about the morality of particular courses of action, but it's also about the goodness of individuals
and what it means to live a good life. Virtue Ethics is particularly concerned with the moral character of human
beings.

Branches of Ethics

One way to try and define morality is through ethics, the philosophical study of morality. In the field of ethics,
morality is often defined in one of two ways.

First is normative, in which actions are judged by their merits, allowing societies to develop codes of conduct for
behavior. The Golden Rule, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, is a classic example of normative
ethics, since you are determining morality through your actions. Other examples could include helping someone
who is lost, or finding a wallet and turning it in to the lost and found. If your actions to another person align with
how you want to be treated, they are moral.

The other side of this is descriptive ethics. If normative ethics try and define how people should act, descriptive
ethics ask what do people think is moral? This branch of ethics does not actually claim that things are right or
wrong, but simply studies how individuals or societies define their morals. What makes something right or wrong
in a specific culture?

While normative ethics actually defines what is right and wrong, descriptive ethics defines morals in terms of
their cultural or personal significance. Morals are seen as part of a greater system that is not objective or unbiased
but is created by a culture, like language. So, while in normative ethics we may say that it is moral to turn in a
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lost wallet, in descriptive ethics, we simply define that a certain society sees this as moral. We don't actually judge
it as right or wrong.

These two branches of ethics are just a few of the ways we try and define morality. While there are many more,
most of them can be broken into the same divisions as these two. Some theories define what is right and wrong
as objective truth, others see morals as entirely subjective, only definable through their respective societies.

Why Study Ethics?

Nevertheless, the serious student of Ethics will find this work both profitable and interesting to the highest degree.

His understanding of moral problems will be widened, as he becomes acquainted with the thoughts of other men
upon problems of good and evil, justice and injustice, virtue and vice, the rights and duties of the individual and
of society.

His critical faculties will be trained. He will know the reasons for his moral convictions, and also the reasons for
the moral convictions of others. His reverence for duty will be deepened. On the whole, he will become more
tolerant, but his moral judgments in becoming more discriminating will not become laxer. He will not confuse
charity with condonation of vice and wrong. Far from finding that "to comprehend all is to forgive all" is a
universal principle, he will learn that while sometimes to comprehend is to forgive, at other times it is to condemn
with severity, though never with ignorance or injustice.

The study of Ethics will enable a person to understand better what his conscience is, how he acquired it, how far
he is likely to be able to trust to its deliverances with safety, and how he can improve it and make it more
intelligent. He will gain a clearer insight into his claims upon society, and the duties that he owes to society. He
will learn to discriminate between the respects in which all individuals are mutually interdependent and those in
which each is responsible for his own life, and ought to insist upon freedom of initiative.

Finally, while a book on Ethics can by no means prescribe for anyone what should be his vocation in life, or his
avocations, it can at least proffer some considerations, from the standpoints of self-realization, self-sacrifice, and
service, that ought to help anyone in making such decisions.

LESSON 2: THE MORAL AGENT

Introduction

Philosophers often disagree about which of these and other conditions are vital; the term moral agency is used
with different degrees of stringency depending upon what one regards as its qualifying conditions. The Kantian
sense is the most stringent. Since there are different senses of moral agency, answers to questions like 'Are
collectives moral agents?' depend upon which sense is being used. From the Kantian standpoint, agents such as
psychopaths, rational egoists, collectives and robots are at best only quasi-moral, for they do not fulfill some of
the essential conditions of moral agency.

It is well, however, that reason should know its limits, and we are not to seek for the origin of moral obligation in
any of what are merely results of its exercise. The constitution of moral agents, and the grounds and conditions
of moral action are matters open to the investigation of reason; but the sense of obligation can result only from
Divine authority apprehended or believed to be somehow, manifested or revealed.

Morality

Morality can be defined as the standards that an individual or a group has about what is right and wrong, or good
and evil. Morality is not imposed from outside, but innate and can even be unconscious. We have a fundamental
urge to connect. Ultimately, it's our moral qualities that force us to live in harmony with the unconscious; doing
so is the highest form of morality.

Morality is an informal public system applying to all rational persons, governing behavior that affects others, and
has the lessening of evil or harm as its goal.

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Morality is a complex of concepts and philosophical beliefs by which an individual determines whether his or her
actions are right or wrong. Often, these concepts and beliefs are generalized and codified in a culture or group,
and thus serve to regulate the behavior of its members. Conformity to such codification is called morality, and the
group may depend on widespread conformity to such codes for its continued existence. A "moral" may refer to a
particular principle, usually as informal and general summary of a moral principle, as applied in a given human
situation (Darwall, 2005).

There does not seem to be much reason to think that a single definition of morality will be applicable to all moral
discussions. One reason for this is that morality seems to be used in two distinct broad senses: a descriptive sense
and a normative sense. More particularly, the term "morality" can be used either
1. descriptively to refer to certain codes of conduct put forward by a society or a group (such as a religion), or
accepted by an individual for his/her own behavior, or
2. normatively to refer to a code of conduct that, given specified conditions, would be put forward by all rational
persons.

Key Features of Morality

To understand morality in its true sense, let us identify the six (6) features:

1. People experience a sense of moral obligation and accountability. One cannot doubt successfully a phenomenon
of his own existence namely, his moral experience. Even secularists like Kai Nielsen recommend that one "ought
to" act or follow some rules, policies, practices, or principles. (Nielsen, 1973)
Even atheist Richard Dawkins declares that there are "moral instructions on how we ought to behave." (Dawkins,
2006).

2. Moral values and moral absolutes exist. It's hard to deny the objective reality of moral values actions like rape,
torture, and child abuse are not just socially unacceptable behavior but are moral abominations. (Craig, 1994).

Some actions are really wrong in the same way that some things like love and respect are truly good. There are
moral absolutes-truths that exist and apply to everyone.

3. Moral law does exist. When we accept the existence of goodness, we must affirm a moral law on the basis of
which to differentiate between good and evil.

C.S. Lewis demonstrates the existence of a moral law by pointing to men who quarrel - the man who makes
remarks is not just saying that the other man's behavior does not happen to please him but is rather appealing to
some kind of standard of behavior that he expects the other man to know about. (Lewis, 2003).

4. Moral law is known to humans. Moral law is also called Law of Nature because early philosophers thought
that generally speaking, everybody knows it by nature. Different civilizations and different ages only have
"slightly different moralities and not a radically or "quite different moralities". One cannot present a country
where a man feels proud for double-crossing all the people who had been kindest to him.

Men may have differed as to whether one should have one wife or four wives but people have always agreed that
one must not simply have any woman he likes. Will and Ariel Durant: "A little knowledge of history stresses the
variability of moral codes, and concludes that they are negligible because they differ in time and place, and
sometimes contradict each other. A larger knowledge stresses the universality of moral codes, and concludes to
their necessity." (Durant, 1968).

5. Morality is objective. Morality is absolute there is a real right and real wrong that is universally and immutably
true, independent of whether anyone believes it or not.

Since almost all people assume certain things to be wrong-such as genocide, murder of babies for feast, and rape
the best explanation is that such things really are wrong and morality is objective. (Kleiman, ).

6. Moral judgments must be supported by reasons. Moral judgments are different from mere expressions of
personal preference they require backing by reasons, and in the absence of such reasons, they are merely arbitrary.
(James, 1999)
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Man as a Moral Agent

A moral agent is a being that is "capable of acting with reference to right and wrong". A moral agent is anything
that can be held responsible for behavior or decisions. "It is moral agents who have rights and responsibilities,
because it is moral agents whom we take to have choices and the power to choose". If you do not believe that
anything or anyone should ever be blamed or deemed responsible, then you are going against the idea of moral
agency and denying the concept of responsibilities and rights.
A moral agent is an intelligent being who has the power of choosing, and scope to act according to his choice;
one to whom the Supreme Governor has given a cognizable law, with its proper sanction, by which to regulate
his volitions and actions, and who is placed in circumstances which present no physical obstruction, either to
obedience or disobedience. Moral action, therefore, is action which springs from choice, and is not necessitated
either by mental propulsions or external circumstances: intelligent, free, and account able, it is distinguished on
the one hand from instinctive action, which is the result of an undeviating and unfailing but blind propulsion, and
on the other from Divine action, which though certain as instinct, is yet in the fullest sense intelligent and free.

When something or someone is deemed a moral agent, it does not necessarily mean that they are successfully
making moral decisions. It means that they are in a category that enables them to be blamed. If someone is unable
to be blamed, then they do not have rights. Being a moral agent means that they can be held responsible for their
decisions and behaviors, whether they are good or bad.

A moral agent must be a living creature, as they must be able to comprehend abstract moral principles and apply
them to decision making. They must have "self-consciousness, memory, moral principles, other values, and the
reasoning faculty, which allows him to devise plans for achieving his objectives, to weigh alternatives, and so
on". Also, in order to weigh the options in decision making, a moral agent must "attach a positive value to acts
that conform to his moral principles and a positive value to some of the results that he can achieve by violating
his moral principles". This means that in order to be a moral agent "you must live in a world of scarcity rather
than paradise". If all of your values could be easily and immediately be achieved, you wouldn't have to pick
between your moral and non-moral goals, and you couldn't practice moral agency.

In order to be a moral agent who makes decisions about justice and takes action based on those decisions, one
must live in a society with others who they consider to have moral rights. If one lives alone or with others who
do not have moral rights, then they are unable to make decisions regarding other's rights. In order to act morally,
one must be free to act. If one is unable to act, then they do not have moral responsibility. As long as each person
does not violate the rights of other moral agent, then each moral agent has the right to make decisions and take
action on these decisions.

A being capable of moral agency is one who possesses the means of judging rightly, and power to act; accordingly,
but whether he will do so or not, depends on the voluntary exercise of his faculties.

Aristotle and Moral Responsibility

Aristotle was the first to discuss moral responsibility. He stated that it is "sometimes appropriate to respond to an
agent with praise or blame on the basis of his/her actions and/or dispositional traits of character". He discusses
that "only a certain kind of agent qualifies as a moral agent and is thus properly subject to ascriptions of
responsibility, namely, one who possesses a capacity for decision". From Aristotle's perspective, "a decision is a
particular kind of desire resulting from deliberation, one that expresses the agent's conception of what is good".

In reference to modern ethical theories, which separate actions and questions about them, Aristotle would not
agree. "Praiseworthy and blameworthy actions are not those which match up to a particular template of rules or
principles. Rather, they are ones which flow from, and reveal a certain type of character". Moral agency is not
just about which rules to follow, it comes from a way of life which Aristotle called the virtuous life, which
necessitates a unison of thought and feeling.

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