ETHICS Module 1. Introduction to Philosophy and Ethics

philos

love

sophia

wisdom

philosophia

love of wisdom

philosophy

________ is more than just loving wisdom. It is also an activity in which we ask questions that are fundamental in nature. They are called fundamental because they are the basic questions a human being can ask. Examples of these questions are: “Is there a God?” “Am I free?” “What is reality?” and “What is goodness?”

philosophy

is not just an intellectual work but an activity that involves our actions. Unlike any other disciplines such as mathematics or physics, philosophy is not just something that we define and learn in classrooms; rather, it involves our whole being because it affects our belief systems which, in turn, affects our actions.

philosophy

starts with wonder

Norris Clarke

He calls this element the radical dynamism of the human spirit. He tells us that it is our inherent or inborn desire “to know all that there is to know about all that there is.” It is our nature to ask questions and be inquisitive. Ito ang dahilan kung bakit natural sa tao ang maraming tanong. For example, when parents buy their children toys to play with, because children are naturally curious and inquisitive, they want to know what makes the toy as it is. So they open the toy to see what is inside it and what makes it, perhaps, move or speak. After seeing the “mechanism” behind it, there is a sense of satisfaction of knowing what makes it as a toy. Like children, students of philosophy ask questions until there are no longer questions to be asked.

Alfredo Co

a Filipino philosopher, wrote in his book The Blooming of the Hundred Flowers that there are three major philosophical questions that were asked by the ancient civilizations, namely: “Who am I?,” “What am I?,” and “Where am I?”.

Indus Valley

The question of who we are (“Who am I?”) as human beings was posted by the ancient Indians in the __________. Throughout their writings and various religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, it is evident that they saw human beings as subjected to a particular set of rules and laws and that the following of these precepts is equal to having a well-lived life in one with the Absolute.

who we are (“What am I?”)

The question of ______________ focuses on how a person should live in society.  For instance, much of the literary produce of the ancient Chinese civilization revolves around the education of the young so that they may become good citizens in the society. The religions of Confucianism and Taoism, for instance, that thrived and continue to thrive in China focused on moral education with the purpose of living a life that is in accordance with “nature” or the natural order of the world. What this means for the readers of these ancient schools is that a human being reaches his or her full potential only insofar as s/he becomes a moral person and contributor to society. 

where we are (“Where am I?”)

As to the question of ____________________ and what is our place in this vast and impersonal universe, it was the ancient Greeks, more than any civilizations, that belabored this question. These ancient thinkers asked the question on the origin of all things considering that then, it was ancient μύθος (mythos or mythology) that guided their day to day decisions. It was therefore a revolutionary, and even irreverent, move from this Pre-Socratics, as they had to be known, to seek answers from other than what is already given by fate and the gods. Thinkers such as Thales, Heraclitus, and Anaximander, just to name a few, tried to provide theories on how things came to be.

Betrand Russell

In a 1946 essay Philosophy for Laymen, the British philosopher ____________ (1872-1970) discusses the importance of philosophy. In it, he lists a set of questions that philosophy inquiry asks: “Do we survive death, and if so, do we survive for a time or forever? Can we dominate matter, or does matter completely dominate the mind, or has each, perhaps, a certain limited independence? Does the universe have a purpose? Or is it driven by blind necessity? Or is it a mere chaos and jumble, in which the natural laws that we think we find are only a fantasy generated by our own love of order?” Many would recognize these questions as broadly religious and existential. However, being agnostic as Russell was, he confesses that he cannot answer such questions and does not believe that they can be answered either. Nevertheless, he believes that “human life would be impoverished if they were forgotten”. Because these questions address aspects of our lives that are existential in nature, one important value of philosophy, therefore, is to keep these questions alive in our lives. Another importance of philosophy, Russell tells us, is that it enables us to think more objectively in situations that we would otherwise be emotive. Also where we are demanded to think clear and precise in a chaotic and emotional situation, philosophy seems to be the best antidote to such chaos and disorder. 

Epistemology

is the branch of philosophy that studies theories of knowledge such as its methods, scope, and validity. Epistemology distinguishes truth from opinion. 

Metaphysics

is the branch of philosophy that studies with theories of reality. It deals with principles and abstract concepts such as being, causation, identity, time, and space.

Logic

is the branch of philosophy that studies the validity of an argument using categorical concepts and/or symbolic and mathematical techniques. Logic is traditionally divided into traditional or Aristotelean logic and modern or mathematical logic. 

Ethics

studies moral principles that governs a person’s behavior and distinguishes moral correctness of an action.

Aesthetics

is the branch of philosophy that deals with a set of principles concerned with the nature of beauty found in art.

Social and Political Philosophy

is a branch of applied philosophy that studies political theories such as politics, liberty, justice, rights, and laws.

Philosophy of Religion

is the study of the meaning and nature of religion and religious belief. It analyzes religious concepts, beliefs, terminologies, and arguments of both religious and atheistic adherents. 

Ethics

is the branch of philosophy which studies the moral of an action. It comes from the Greek word ήθος (ethos) which means custom, usage or character. It follows that ethics is defined or understood as the set of rules, manners, habits, and customs of a group or community. These rules and norms define and set the parameters in which a community judges the rightness or wrongness of a human action. In a way, an ethical system of a given community functions as a “rule book” by which every member of the community must follow. The quality of life of the members of the community depends on the intensity of his or her following of this rule book faithfully and committedly. Analogously, an altar server who follows the rules of being an altar server is considered a “good” altar server. 

Socrates

________, in the dialogue Apology, stated the famous dictum that an “unexamined life is not worth living.” According to tradition, these words were spoken by Socrates at his trial for introducing new gods and corrupting the youth for which he was condemned to death by drinking the poison hemlock. We may all agree along with Socrates that a well-lived life demands that we examine life with seriousness and depth. So we may ask, “what does it mean to live a well-lived life?” or “what does living well mean?” All these questions demand that we examine our day-to-day decisions and actions and the way these actions, in turn, affect our own lives and the lives of those who surround us. Ethics is the branch of philosophy that examines these simple yet complex aspects of our lives in which we are called upon to make moral decisions that define our character as human beings. 

unexamined life is not worth living.

According to tradition, these words were spoken by Socrates at his trial for introducing new gods and corrupting the youth for which he was condemned to death by drinking the poison hemlock

Ethics

is the branch of philosophy that examines these simple yet complex aspects of our lives in which we are called upon to make moral decisions that define our character as human beings. 

ethos

which means custom, usage or character. It follows that ethics is defined or understood as the set of rules, manners, habits, and customs of a group or community.

Ethics

is both practical and normative science. It is practical because it involves what the ancient Greek calls πράξη (praxis) or action. In particular, ethics involves human actions. It is also normative because, unlike the natural sciences that purports to be objective, ethics prescribes what is a moral act and what is not. We can break down these two categories of praxis and normativity into different sub-categories and these are: reason, freedom, responsibility, and human agency. 

praxis

action

reason

Human beings are unique because, as far as we know, we are the only ones in the animal kingdom that are endowed with reason or rationality. Precisely because we are able to perform this capacity of self-awareness and introspection, we are different (not more special) from other creatures. We can apprehend instinctively, though we are not immune to making a wrong judgement, what is beautiful and ugly and what is good or bad. We are also able to examine our choices even before making those choices. In other words, we are able to project ourselves into the future and decide what we can be on the basis of our actions and decisions. 

freedom and responsibility

Throughout the history of philosophy, philosophers are divided as to whether freedom is objective or a subjective creation of the mind. However, what is for certain, is that it is impossible to act without presupposing that we are free. This presupposed freedom, however, is always accompanied by responsibility. If we are to attain the well-lived life of Socrates, then, there must be some level of accountability for our actions. Primarily, accountability is our ability to correct our past mistakes we made in our past decisions. On the other hand, we are also, in more than one way, intertwined or interconnected with our neighbors partly because we live in societies but also because we are creatures that require interaction with one another. We are not islands on our own and our actions affect, in one or the other, the lives of the people around us. Hence, we need to become responsible in our freedom. We cannot just use freedom for our own sake. We need to use it for the sake of others also. We need to use it the right way.

human agency

Ethics involves not just actions but human actions. It involves human agency--our capacity to make a choice and act according to that choice. Hence, the object of ethics is human action or human agency. Like any good science, it analyzes very carefully what makes this object of study important and, in the case of ethics, what makes human actions good or bad, moral or immoral.

value of ethics

The importance or_______________ may be understood in the tripartite study of goodness, happiness, and humanity.

goodness

Christian thinkers have always presented that the human person is created in the image and likeness of God. It follows, then, that we are inherently good. Because of the human person’s nature as created in God’s image, human beings have an innate goodness. Other thinkers affirm this such as the Chinese philosopher Mencius and the modern political thinker Jean Jacques Rousseau. These philosophers argue that human beings are “originally” good only that society and the introduction of property corrupted this inherent goodness. It is only through education that we can reclaim this primordial nature of ours. It is the task, then, of ethics to point the human person in the right direction on how to become a good human being.

hapiness

Thinkers throughout history have suggested that the goal of human beings is to be happy. Luminaries such as Aristotle, Epicurus, Saint Thomas Aquinas and John Stuart Mill are just some of the thinkers who looked at the happiness of the human person as a goal of our human actions. Ethicists teach us, however, that happiness can only be attained through a good and moral life. It follows, then, that to be happy is to live a moral and ethical life. 

humanity

Psychoanalyst Erich Fromm argued that living an ethical life is an important aspect in the preservation of humanity. He tells us that only in the ethical platform that we are able to attain virtues like faith, justice and peace. The choices we make now will have ripple effects to the rest of the people around us. It is imperative, then, that we make wise and ethical decisions if we want to achieve harmony in our society. 

Normative or prescriptive ethics

__________ is defined as a type of ethics which determines what moral standards determine the rightness or wrongness of our actions. It prescribes how a person should act in society. In this approach, the ethical principles serve as our moral standard. Usually, prescriptive ethics have either a religious origin such as the Bible, or a non-religious or purely humanistic ethics.

Descriptive or applied ethics

__________________ involves the factual investigation of moral behavior. In a given society, these standards are identifiable as they are embedded in cultural and religious practices. The task of an ethicist is to examine these existing ethical theories and identify valid or correct ethical systems in an objective manner. For example, a student of ethics may study the morality or the ethical validity of infanticide or child sacrifice in the ancient world and how may look at this ancient practice from the point of view of ethics.

ethics and morality

have always been used interchangeably for different persons

Ethics

is a moral philosophy which studies whether an action is good or bad. It also examines and analyzes moral issues and investigates whether these issues are good or bad.

morality

refers to human actions which are done with knowledge, freedom and voluntariness. The morality of an action is usually judged by the norm or standard of the society.

ethics and morality

To differentiate, ______ is more theoretical and detached as it is a systematic study of the morality of human actions and behaviors while ______ is more personal and subjective as these involve personal choice and volition from first person point of view.