ETHICS

Course Description

Ethics is a course that deals

with the nature of ethical
behavior in contemporary
society at various
dimensions of human
existence: personal, social,
environmental, and cultural.
The course starts with the foundation of
ethics and the analysis of human
experience in its moral perspective
which allows students to translate
human experiences to ethical cases. The
course also explores classical and
contemporary ethical frameworks which
they can use as a basis in articulating,
analyzing, and creating ethical cases.
The students will examine the strength
and weaknesses of ethical theories,
thereby producing outputs that
showcase their 21st century skills.
 Topics
• Week 1- INTRODUCTION
• Week 2- KEY CONCEPTS OF ETHICS
• Week 3- MORAL REASONING
• Week 4- MORALITY, CULTURE, RELIGION
• Week 5- MORAL AGENT
• Week 6- VIRTUE ETHICS
• Week 7- MIDTERM EXAMINATION
 Topics
Week 8- DUTY ETHICS
Week 9- UTILITARIANISM
Week 10- SOCIAL CONTRACT THEORY AND DISTRIBUTIVE
JUSTICE
Week 11- FEMINIST ETHICS
Week 12- ETHICS AND GLOBALIZATION
Week 13- FINAL EXAMINATION
PHILOSOPHY
ETHICS
Definition Philosophy is
(1) the science
(2) of all things
(3) through their ultimate reasons, principles,
and causes
(4) under the light of
human reason alone.
Branches of Philosophy
•Pure Philosophy •Applied Philosophy
-Logic -Philosophy of Religion
-Epistemology -Philosophy of Science
-Metaphysics -Philosophy of Language
-Ethics and Aesthetics -Political Philosophy
-Applied Ethics
 ETHICS
•Greek ‘ethos’
•– ‘a characteristic way of doing
things, or a body of customs’
 ETHICS
-deals with
systematizing, defending,
and recommending
concepts of
right and wrong behavior.
 >META- ETHICS
• Metaphysical Issues • Psychological Issues
>Objectivism >Egoism and Altruism
>Relativism >Emotion and Reason
>Male and Female
Morality
 >NORMATIVE ETHICS
•Deontological/ Non- Consequentialist
•Teleological/ Consequentialist
•Virtue
•Care/ Feminist
 >APPLIED ETHICS
• Environmental Ethics
• Business Ethics
• Social Morality
• Sexual Morality
• Biomedical Ethics
 ETHICS AND MORALITY
•Ethics- deals with moral principles that
govern behavior; science of the morality of
human acts

•Morality- principles concerning the

distinction between right and wrong, good
and bad behavior; quality of goodness or
badness of human acts
 Human Acts and Acts of Man

• Human Acts- done with full knowledge,

willingness, consent, deliberation

• Acts of Man- done without full

knowledge, deliberation, willingness,
consent
• Helping an old woman cross the street

• Circulation of one’s blood

• A two- year old child stoning her sister

 Moral
and
Non- Moral Standards
• Aesthetics- approval, disapproval
• Etiquette
• Technical
Descriptive and Normative
• Descriptive- description of ‘how people
make their moral valuations without
making any judgment either for or
against these valuations’

• Normative- prescription of ‘what we

ought to maintain as our standards or
bases for moral valuation’
•Ex.
•‘Studying how Confucian ethics enjoins us to
obey our parents and to show filial piety’

•‘Noting how filial piety and obedience are

pervasive characteristics of Chinese culture’
 General and Special Ethics

• General- what an individual must do

to live a good life

• Special- ‘the individual as a member

of society’
 Imperatives of Ethics
1. The existence of God or a Supreme Being
-notion of retribution
2. Existence of Human Freedom
-responsibility
3. The existence of an afterlife (immortality of
the soul)
-notion of justice
Freedom- Foundation of Morality

• Ethics is impossible without freedom

• Responsibility is a necessary factor in
Ethics
• Responsibility is based on freedom
 VALUES
• Sense of Value- primary; early age; concept of right
and wrong
• Scale of Value- secondary; later; basis of choices

• FILIPINO VALUES
 “For it is not enough
to have a good mind,
the main thing
is to apply it well.”
-Rene Descartes
 SOURCES
• Bulaong Jr., Oscar G., Calano, Mark Joseph T., Lagliva, Albert M., Mariano,
Michael Ner E., Principe, Jesus Deogracias, Z. Ethics, Foundations of Moral
Valuation. Manila: Rex Book Store, 2018.
• Fieser James, and Stumpf, Samuel Enoch. Socrates to Sartre and Beyond. A
History of Philosophy. New York: McGraw- Hill, 2008.
• Quito, Emerita S. Fundamentals of Ethics. Quezon City: C and E Publishing,
Inc. 1993.
• Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Lecture Notes: UST Faculty of Arts and Letters and UP Diliman College of
Social Sciences and Philosophy
• NU Ethics Syllabus
• Stanford Encylopedia of Philosophy