Ethics and Morality

Morality

Refer to the set of standards a person has about what is right or wrong.

Morality

How we judge whether an act is good or bad, whether someone is virtuous or not, whether we ought to do this or not, depends largely on these standards.

Morality

Pertains not just to a person's standards, but to a particular society's standard of what is right or wrong.

Ethics

Study of Morality

Ethics

when he/she reflects on the moral standards he/she has imbibed from his/her family, church, and friends, and asks: “Are these standards reasonable? “Are these practices morally permissible? Are we justified to do this or that?”

Metaethics
Normative Ethics
Applied Ethics

Branches of Ethics

Metaethics

Also known as analytic ethics, looks into the nature, meaning, scope, and foundations of moral values and discourses.

meta

means after or beyond

Metaethics

Involves an abstract and detached way of thinking philosophically about morality.

Metaethics

Focuses on the more fundamental question of morality itself.

Normative Ethics

Is concerned with the moral standards to determine right from wrong conduct.

Normative Ethics

It involves the formulation of moral norms or rules that can serve as the basis of the kind of actions, institutions, and ways of life that we should pursue.

Applied Ethics

Its thrust is to examine the particular issues in both the personal and social spheres that are matters of moral judgments.  

Applied Ethics

Focusing on the moral practical concerns of ethics, it uses philosophical methods to determine the moral permissibility of specific actions and practices.

Descriptive Ethics

Another study of morality which is not considered an area of moral philosophy.

Descriptive Ethics

It incorporates research from the fields of anthropology, psychology, sociology, and history as part of the process of understanding the moral norms that people follow or believe in.

Descriptive Ethics

• Is not considered a philosophical study of ethics since it does not aim to establish what should be the case—what people ought to do, what moral standards should regulate human acts, how we should view morality. 

• aims to establish what the case is.

• It attempts to describe or explain the world rather than prescribe what the world should be.

Normative Statements

express a value judgment, a kind of judgment that claims something ought to be the case.

Factual Judgement

claims something is the case.

Moral Standard

What is the basis of assessment?
: You ought to return the excess change to the cashier.

Aesthetic Standard

What is the basis of assessment?
: There should be unity, balance, and contrast in your painting.

Grammatical Standard

What is the basis of assessment?
: You ought to use the preposition "in" rather than "on."

Legal Standard

What is the basis of assessment?
: It is illegal to make a U-turn there.

Standard of Etiquette

What is the basis of assessment?
: Cover your mouth when you laugh.

Historical Research

What is the basis of assessment?
: The Philippine Independence day was declared on June 12, 1946.

Observation

What is the basis of assessment?
: Some tribes in India practice cannibalism.

Scientific Research

What is the basis of assessment?
: The cause of the fish kill in the river is pollution from agricultural biotoxins.

Experiment

What is the basis of assessment?
: A blue litmus paper will turn red when dipped in an acid solution.

Moral statement

is a normative statement rather than a factual statement, it cannot be justified by merely appealing to facts, empirical evidence or data. Although providing facts may be significant in justifying a moral claim, this remains insufficient.

1. deal with matters that we think can seriously harm or benefit human beings.

2. have universal validity.

3. generally thought to have a particularly overriding importance, that is, people feel they should prevail over other values.

4. not established by the decisions of authoritarian bodies, nor are they solely determined by appealing to consensus or tradition.

Characteristics of Moral Standards

Moral standards deal with matters that we think can seriously harm or benefit human beings.

• The conventional moral norms against cheating, lying and killing deal with actions that can gravely hurt people.

• Whether human dignity is respected or degraded, work conditions are safe or dangerous, and products are beneficial or detrimental to our health are matters that affect human beings.

Moral standards have universal validity.

• They apply to all who are in the relevant situation.

• Example. If it is morally wrong for a person A to do act X, then it is wrong to do X for anyone relevantly similar to P. This characteristic is exemplified in the moral rule: "Do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you".

Moral standards are generally thought to have a particularly overriding importance, that is, people feel they should prevail over other values.

a violation of the moral rule against killing or stealing is more important than a violation of the rules of etiquette or of grammar.

Etiquette

refers to the set of rules or customs that determine the accepted behaviors in a particular social group.

Etiquette

• Following these rules makes us show respect and courtesy to others.

• It is different from morality in that the former is concerned with proper behavior while the latter with right conduct. 

• is also more arbitrary and culture-based than morality. 

Law

It regulates human conduct.

True

True or False?

• Breaking the law is not always an immoral act, just as following the law is not necessarily doing what is morally right. 

• It can also be said that an action that is legal can be morally wrong.

Religion

generally perceived to be the basis of morality.

pious Euthyphro

Socrates asks the __________, “Do the gods love goodness because it is good, or it is good because the gods love it?”