Intro to Ethics – Lecture 1 (Attendance, Foundations, Judgement Types)

Administrative Reminders

  • Attendance

    • Microsoft Teams automatically logs:

    • Time joined, time left, and total duration.

    • Instructor will no longer call names manually.

    • Future videos posted to the class channel will also track attendance via the People tab.

  • Profile Pictures

    • Required: clear, ID-type photos (passport, school ID style).

    • Avoid informal Instagram-style or non-personal images.

  • Recorded Sessions

    • Previous lecture recording available until Sunday morning; then it will be deleted.

    • Contains orientation, grading system, course structure, and preliminaries on ethics.

  • Class Flow (for this meeting)

    • Rough total duration: 30\text{–}35\ \text{minutes} lecture.

    • Remainder of period allotted for reading (Perusall) + watching the film “Silence” (religion & morality link posted in chat).

Quick Recap of Last Meeting

  • Covered the relevance of ethics and the opening chapters of Russ Shafer-Landau’s “Doing Ethics” (or Vaughn—both referenced).

  • Introduced debate on CHED’s plan to move or merge General Education (GE) subjects (ethics with GMRC).

  • Clarified that GMRC (Good Manners & Right Conduct):

    • Imposes ready-made value sets & behaviors.

    • Students passively absorb rules.

  • Ethics instead:

    • Encourages autonomous reasoning.

    • Culminates in each student’s positionality (ethical stance) on landmark issues: same-sex unions, abortion, euthanasia, animal & environmental rights, gender equality, etc.

    • Requires justification (arguments) rather than mere preference.

Drawbacks of Avoiding Ethical Inquiry

  1. Limits Personal Freedom – blindly adopting rules removes choice.

  2. Intellectual Narrowness – no dialogic testing = potentially wrong or partial views.

  3. Moral Stagnation – without reflection, moral & intellectual growth deteriorates; one risks becoming an "ethical robot."

Filipino Lens: “Gawì / Gawiían”

  • Filipino scholars search for a native term akin to ethos / habitus.

  • Gawì = habitual, dynamic orientation toward good (never toward evil).

  • Emphasises continuous moral formation rather than static rule following.

Proper Starting Point: Rightness Before Happiness

  • Widespread error: taking “happiness” as the first ethical criterion.

  • Problems with naive happiness:

    • Often temporary, shallow, appetite-driven.

    • Can mask oppression (e.g., a 3-year-old wanting unlimited candy; a person deriving joy from exploitative acts).

  • Ethics proposes:

    • Begin with what is right/required → authentic, lasting eudaimonia (Aristotle’s flourishing) follows.

Ethics & Morality: Conceptual Map

  • Ethics = philosophical study of morality; a branch of philosophy.

  • Morality = actual beliefs & practices about right/wrong held by individuals, groups, or cultures.

  • As adjectives: “moral” and “ethical” can be used synonymously (moral issue = ethical issue).

Three Major Divisions of Ethics

  1. Normative Ethics

    • Goal: establish or critique moral norms and complete moral systems/theories.

    • Asks: What ought we to do?
      Example: evaluating an "extremely homophobic" social system.

  2. Meta-Ethics

    • Stands back to analyze meaning, reference, and logical structure of moral language/beliefs.

    • Questions about objectivity, relativism, theological grounding, etc.

  3. Applied Ethics

    • Applies principles to real-world cases or professional codes.

    • Instructor argues it must cover everyone’s work/life, not just professions like medicine or engineering.

Illustrative Applied-Ethics Cases

  • Medicine: black-market kidneys priced at 100,000–200,000; informed consent & exploitation.

  • Nursing: understaffing at NKTI during pandemic.

  • Engineering: budgeting shortcuts that compromise safety.

  • Transport/Driving: unwritten honesty code (e.g., correct fare: \text{\textpeso}25, \text{\textpeso}50, \text{\textpeso}350).

Four Types of Practical Judgement

  1. Legal Judgement

    • Reference point: law / rules.

    • Example: traffic regulations; vice permits.

  2. Aesthetic Judgement

    • Reference point: artistic standards & expression.

    • Example: film, photography, visual art.

  3. Prudential (Self-Interest) Judgement

    • Reference point: agent’s interests/preferences.

    • Example: land conversion for profit; choosing food during inflation.

  4. Moral/Ethical Judgement

    • Steps in when other judgements allow harm, oppression, or injustice.

When Ethical Judgement Must Interfere

  • Legal BUT Immoral: a city grants a strip-club permit yet hires dancers aged 5–9 ⇒ violates dignity; ethics overrides legality.

  • Aesthetic BUT Immoral: media that objectifies women under the guise of “artistic expression” ⇒ ethical critique of manipulation & sexism.

  • Prudential BUT Immoral: personal profit via land grabs during a pandemic ⇒ ignores communal good.

  • Key principle: “Legal / artistic / self-interested ≠ automatically good.”

Ethical Action & Civic Courage

  • Doing ethics = willingness to speak up for truth, stand with/for oppressed, and engage public discourse.

  • Links to virtues of integrity, justice, and responsibility.

Upcoming Assignments & Resources

  • Watch Martin Scorsese’s film “Silence”; reflect on religion & morality for next session.

  • Reading material uploaded to Perusall—annotate before next meeting.

  • Next lecture topic: “Morality and Religion” (scenarios & guiding questions will follow).

End-of-Class Logistics

  • Remaining classroom time dedicated to film/reading.

  • Lecturer thanks students for patience; class adjourned.