1

Nature of Philosophy

Unit Overview

This unit provides an introduction to the study of philosophy and a brief

overview of some of the main branches of philosophical thought about ethics. As well
as introducing the central ideas that relate to ethics and how these how this area of
study can affect their behavior and daily existence, this unit shows why ethics as a
discipline can provide useful tools for clarifying arguments, for understanding a range
of viewpoints in a debate, and for justifying one’s own ethical positions more clearly.
Key conceptual frameworks and some key terms are introduced and explained.

Unit Learning Outcomes

By the end of this unit, students should be able to:

 Explain the intrinsic value of philosophy.

 Describe the fundamental philosophical subfields of inquiry and the methods
of inquiry.
 To explain the rationale for philosophy and to examine how this area of study
can affect their daily existence.

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Unit One

What is ‘philosophy’?

Defining philosophy is as difficult as trying to define love. The word

philosophy is not much help. Philosophy was coined by Pythagoras which is a
combination of two Greek words, philein sophia, meaning lover of wisdom. In ancient
times a lover of wisdom could be related to any area where intelligence was
expressed. This could be in business, politics, human relations, or carpentry and
other skills. Philosophy had a "wholeness" approach to life in antiquity. In contrast to
this, some modern definitions restrict philosophy to what can be known by science or
the analysis of language.

In today's world there is a popular use of the word philosophy. Philosophy is a

term applied to almost any area of life. Some questions may express this general
attitude: what is your philosophy of business? banking? driving a car? or your
philosophy of the use of money? If this popular misuse of the word were to prevail,
one may admit that anyone who thinks seriously about any subject is a philosopher.
If we do this, we are ignoring the academic disciplines, or study of philosophy. If this
very general definition is accepted, everyone becomes a philosopher. It becomes
true, paradoxically, that when everyone is a philosopher, no one is a philosopher.
This becomes so loose a definition that philosophy becomes meaningless as a
definition. If this definition prevailed, it would mean that a philosopher is anyone who
says he is a philosopher. Because of this inadequacy it becomes apparent that we
have to look elsewhere for a definition of philosophy. Because the original meaning
of the word, philosophy, does not give us much for specific content, we will turn to
descriptive definitions. A descriptive definition of philosophy is that it seeks to
describe its functions, goals, and reasons for existence. In the following pages a
number of these definitions will be set forth and examined.

A word of warning is offered to the beginning student of philosophy. The

beginner may despair over diverse definitions. Students who come from a scientific
background frequently expect concise, clear, and universally accepted definitions.
This will not be true in philosophy and it is not universally true concerning all issues
in any science or non-scientific study or discipline. The diversity of opinion in

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philosophy becomes a source of embarrassment for the beginner when asked to

explain to parents or unknowing friends just what a course in philosophy is all about.
It might be expected that one of the oldest disciplines or subjects in academia should
achieve some uniformity or opinion, but this is not the case.

Yet in spite of diversity, philosophy is important. Plato declared that

philosophy is a gift the gods have bestowed on mortals. This may reflect man's
ability to reason about the world as well as man's life within it. Socrates' famous
statement, "Know thyself," reflects this aim of philosophy. Plato also warned against
the neglect of philosophy. He wrote that "land animals came from men who had no
use for philosophy. . . " In light of this it might help to threaten the reader with the
warning: if you don't take philosophy seriously, you will turn into a pumpkin! But more
seriously, men live by philosophies. Which one will it be? We now turn to consider
several definitions of philosophy. These will include the historical approach,
philosophy as criticism, philosophy as the analysis of language, philosophy as a
program of change, philosophy as a set of questions and answers, and philosophy
as a world-view. Along the way we will also analyze the definitions and attempt to
reach some conclusions about this analysis.

Philosophical Approaches

A. The Historical Approach

Remember our question: what is philosophy? According to this approach

philosophy is really the study of historical figures who are considered philosophers.
One may encounter the names of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Thales,
Philo, Plotinus, Aquinas, Kant, Erigena, Hume, Marx, Hegel, Russell, Wittgenstein
and many more. All are considered philosophers. What holds them together since
they are so diverse in many of their views? One answer lies in their common set of
problems and concerns. Many were interested in the problems of the universe, its
origin, what it is in its nature, the issue of man's existence, good and evil, politics,
and other topics. (This may serve as a link to another definition to be considered
later.)

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The argument for the historical approach is that no real understanding of

philosophy can be had unless one understands the past. Philosophy would be
impoverished if it lost any of the names above. Some argue that knowing the history
of philosophy is required for a positive appreciation of philosophy, and necessary if
one is to make creative contributions to the advancement of philosophy. This
definition of philosophy has its problems: (l) it tends to limit philosophy to the great
minds of the past and makes it an elitist movement, (2) it restricts philosophy to an
examination of past questions and answers only, (3) it is not really different from the
study of history of ideas. This would make philosophy a sub-unit of history. (4) This
definition would not describe the work of those philosophers (logical empiricists) who
regard the philosophy of the past as so much rubbage to be rejected. The value of
the historical approach is that it introduces the student to the great minds of the past
and the confrontation one has with philosophic problems that are raised by thinking
people in all ages. This is desirable in itself even though this is not the best definition
of philosophy.

B. Philosophy is the Analysis of Language

This is one of the more extreme definitions of philosophy. This definition

began as an emphasis in philosophy at about the turn of the century. A growing
revolt took place against the metaphysical systems in philosophy. Metaphysical
systems in philosophy explained everything from the standpoint of a great idea like
"mind" or "spirit." The reaction was primarily against the philosophy of idealism which
is a highly developed metaphysical philosophy. More of this will be forthcoming in the
fifth definition. The analysis-of-language-emphasis rejected metaphysics and
accepted the simple, but useful modern standard of scientific verification. Their
central thesis is that only truths of logic and empirically verifiable statements are
meaningful. What does scientific verification mean in this context? If you can validate
or reproduce an experiment or whatever, you can say it is true. If there is no way to
reproduce or validate the experiment in the context of science, there was then no
claim for truth.

How do verification and language work together? Try this example. How do
you know when to take a statement as referring to a fact? We can use three
sentences: (l) God is love, (2) Disneyland is in California, and (3) Rape is wrong.

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These sentences are constructed in a similar manner. But only one is factual, i.e., it
can be scientifically verified. Thousands of people go yearly to Disneyland and
anyone who doubts can go see for himself. But you cannot scientifically verify that
rape is wrong and that God is love. I can say factually that a person was raped and
may even witness the event as a fact, but how can I verify the word "wrong?" God is
not seen and love is not seen scientifically. Are these statements meaningful? The
conclusion reached by analytic philosophers is that anything not verifiable is
nonsense. All of the systems of the past that go beyond verification are to be
rejected as nonsense. This means that the realm of values, religion, aesthetics, and
much of philosophy is regarded only as emotive statements. An emotive statement
reflects only how a person "feels" about a topic. Declaring that rape is wrong is only
to declare that I feel it is wrong. I may seek your agreement on the issue, but again it
is not an objective truth, but two "feelings" combined. Other analytic philosophers
moved beyond the limitations of the verification principle to the understanding of
language itself. Instead of talking about the world and whether things exist in the
world, they talk about the words that are used to describe the world. This exercise in
"semantic ascent" may be seen in contrasting talk about miles, distances, points,
etc., with talk about the word "mile" and how it is used. Language philosophers such
as Quine spend entire treatises on the nature of language, syntax, synonymous
terms, concepts of abstractions, translation of terms, vagueness and other features
of language. This is a philosophy about language rather than being interested in
great issues that have frequently troubled the larger tradition of philosophers.

Language analysis as the definition of philosophy changes philosophy from

being a subject matter into a tool for dealing with other subject matters. It becomes a
method without content. This definition is as one-sided as the definition it rejected.
The analysis of language has been an important part of philosophy from the time of
Socrates and others to the present. But language connected with verification and
restricted by that principle places great limitations on areas that philosophy has often
regarded as important. This limitation is seen particularly in the areas of morals and
ethics. Morality cannot be verified in a scientific way. But it does seem obvious that
we can discuss actions and adopt some means of objective evaluation in terms of
reason. Moreover, it does not seem obvious that some moral distinctions are merely
"emotive feelings." It appears quite reasonable and acceptable to most people that

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there is a big difference between paddling a child by a concerned parent, and the
child-abusing parent whose discipline kills the helpless child. If verification is required
for the statement--it is wrong to kill the child--then all moral standards are at an end,
and philosophy is turned into stupidity.

C. Philosophy is a Program of Change

Karl Marx declared that the role of philosophy is not to think about the world,
but to change it. Philosophy is not to be an ivory tower enterprise without relevance
to the world of human conditions. A contemporary Marxist has asked: What is the
point in subtle epistemological investigation when science and technology, not
unduly worried about the foundations of their knowledge, increase daily their mastery
of nature and man? What is the point of linguistic analysis which steers clear of the
transformation of language (ordinary language!) into an instrument of political
control? What is the point in philosophical reflections on the meaning of good and
evil when Auschwitz, the Indonesian massacres, and the war in Vietnam provides a
definition which suffocates all discussion of ethics? And what is the point in further
philosophical occupation with Reason and Freedom when the resources and the
features of a rational society, and the need for liberation are all too clear, and the
problem is not their concept, but the political practice of their realization.

The criticism of Marx is a stinging one. But the question of change is not one
for philosophy per se. Philosophy has no built-in demand that change be the end
product of one's thinking. It seems natural that one who is thinking seriously about
the problems of man that one seeks good solutions. It seems natural also that one
having good solutions should seek to carry them out. But it is also possible that one
have good solutions and only contemplate them without any action. There is no
inherent mandate in philosophy for a program of action, although it may be tacitly
assumed that some good action will come forth. Philosophy is in contrast generally
to a movement like Christianity which has a built-in motivation for changing the world
by the conversion of people to its cause. Traditional philosophy has concerned itself
more with academic questions. But there is the underlying assumption: if you know
what is right and good, you will proceed to do it.

Another view of philosophy with an emphasis on doing, or change, is that of

Alan Watts. Watts describes philosophy from the standpoint of contemplation and

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meditation. He starts with the conclusion of the language philosophers: all language
about philosophy is meaningless. If this is true, then philosophy should be silent and
learn to practice oriental mysticism which is characterized as "idealess
contemplation."4 The aim of meditation is to get to the Ground of Being. What is the
Ground of Being? In a simple way it can be described as the all-pervasive Spirit that
is the only basic reality of the world. Everyone is part of the Great Spirit. The aim of
philosophy is not to think, but to achieve union with the Great Spirit.

The idea of change is different between Marx and Watts. The Marxist idea of
change is to change the material world and man will be better. Watt's view of change
is to forsake social change for all change is futile. The real change is to attain
oneness with the impersonal world-soul. The world of the material is transient and
the visible world is not the real world. Even the Ground of Being, or the Great
Pervasive Spirit is changing and manifesting itself in various forms. There is a subtle
contradiction in Watt's philosophy. The Ground of Being continues to produce human
beings who must continually deny their own being to be able to return to the Ground
of Being. This denial of one's own being reflects the fact that the Ground of Being is
constantly making a bad thing come into being. Another variation on the theme of
mystic contemplation--the attempt to attain oneness with God--is seen in the thought
of men such as Eckhart or Plotinus. Their philosophy encourages a contemplative
role. While Eckhart or Plotinus are motivated from a religious or quasi-religious
motive like Watts, they do not promote the revolutionary social change as advocated
by the Marxists.

D. Philosophy is a Set of Questions and Answers

Philosophy has a long list of topics it has been interested in. Some of these
are more interesting and up-to-date than others. Is the world of one or more
substances? Is it matter, mind, or other? Is man only a body? Is he, or does he have
a soul? Does God exist? Many other questions could be incorporated here. Some
questions have several proposed solutions. This is true in trying to answer what the
nature of man is. Other questions cannot be answered decisively. Does God exist?
can only be answered in terms of a probability situation. No scientific proof can
decide the question either way. Some questions have been answered to the
satisfaction of many philosophers for a long period of time only to be raised again.

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One example of this is the old question of Socrates' day about man being born with
knowledge, called innate knowledge. For centuries this was accepted by a variety of
people. But John Locke seems to have solved the matter for many philosophers that
man is not given innate ideas at birth. Hence, he must gain his knowledge through
experience.

Now in contemporary thought, Noam Chomsky has raised the question again
in proposing what he calls "generative grammar." He rejects the view of Locke that
language is learned empirically. When we learn a language, we are able to
understand and formulate all types of sentences that we have never heard before.
This ability to deal with language is regarded by Chomsky as innate, something we
have inherited genetically. So, the issue comes anew. But other questions have not
met with the same success for such a long period of time. In summary, it can be said
that defining philosophy as a set of questions and answers is not unique by any
means. Other disciplines or studies could also be defined by the questions they seek
to answer. If this definition is accepted as the only definition, one must set forth the
particular kinds of questions that are restricted to philosophy. Obviously, the answers
to the problem of pollution are not the kinds of questions one deals with in
philosophy. But the relation of man's body to his mind is one of the kinds of
questions that philosophers have regarded as their own.

E. Philosophy is a World-View (Weltanschaüung)

Early philosophers attempted to describe the world in its simple make-up.

Thales asserted that water, and Anaximenes asserted that air, were the important
materials of the universe. Many other proposals have come from other philosophers.
But the main issue concerns the nature of the universe. A world-view, or
Weltanschaüung, as the Germans term it, involves more than the questions of the
universe. A world-view is the attempt to come to a total view of the universe as it
relates to the make-up of matter, man, God, the right, the nature of politics, values,
aesthetics, and any other element in the cosmos that is important.

Such a definition was held by William James who said, The principles of
explanation that underlie all things without exception, the elements common to gods
and men and animals and stone, the first whence and the last whither of the whole
cosmic procession, the conditions of all knowing, and the most general rules of

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human action--these furnish the problems commonly deeded philosophic par

excellence; and the philosopher is the man who finds the most to say about them. In
spite of this definition, James is not one of the better examples of a philosopher who
carried on the development of a systematic world-view. If we accept this definition of
philosophy, we are not committed to any pre-arranged conclusions. There are many
world-views that are contrary to one another. Look at the following brief examples: (l)
Lucretius, in his essay on nature, developed a world-view based on the atomic
nature of all things. Everything that is, is atomic. Even the souls of men and gods are
composed of atoms. When atoms disintegrate, things, souls, and gods also
disintegrate. Only atoms are permanent. Lucretius dealt with many other facts of
existence, but they are all related to the atomic nature of things. (2) In contrast to the
simple atomism of Lucretius is the philosophy of Hegel which views all reality from
the standpoint of mind, or Absolute Spirit.8 Spirit is the only reality. What looks like
matter is really a sub-unit of Spirit. Hegel interpreted politics, the world, and man
from the single vantage point of Spirit or Mind. (3) A middle viewpoint or hybrid
example would be the philosophy of realism which asserts that mind and matter are
both equally real. Matter is not mind, nor is mind merely matter in a different form.
Samuel Alexander's book, Space, Time, and Deity, give an example of this third
viewpoint. The three examples above are attempts at world-views. Neither example
is compatible with the other. Neither thinker would accept the other's views. But all
are seeking explanations of human existence that result in world-views.

The modern era of philosophy--since the turn of the century--has seen

considerable rejection of the world-view definition of philosophy. In spite of this
rejection, it has a time-honored tradition behind it. Aristotle has a sentence that is
widely quoted about this emphasis: There is a science which investigates being as
being, and the attributes which belong to this in virtue of its own nature. Now this is
not the same as any of the so-called special sciences, for none of these treats
universally of being as being. They cut off a part of being and investigate the
attribute of this part. Looking at the universe as a whole involves questions which
cannot be ignored. The questions are not to be isolated from one another, but should
be put together to form an integrated whole, or total view of the world. It is this
integration that makes this definition of philosophy better than the previous one or
questions and answers. This definition of philosophy will have an appeal to the

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student who aims for consistency and coherence in his approach to thinking. The
role of education tacitly leads to such a conclusion. If one believes in social planning
as advocated in Walden Two, that belief will call for a corresponding reduction in
claims for human freedom and responsibility. Similarly, if a person believes in God,
and takes God seriously, there should be a concern for human rights, equality,
justice, and a concern for the wholeness of man in both body and spirit. Something is
wrong when a person affirms belief in God as Creator and then regards certain
categories of people as sub-human.

A world-view will include views on man, social responsibilities and politics

consistent with the view of man. Any discipline or study having a bearing on the
meaning of man will have relevance for a world-view. This will include biology,
anthropology, psychology, sociology, theology, and other related disciplines. A
world-view is an attempt to think coherently about the world in its completeness.
Defining philosophy as a world-view sounds good, but it too has problems. One
basic criticism is that the systems of philosophers--Lucretius, Hegel, and others--
have been limited by the basic motif, or guiding principle that is adopted. The
principle is too limited and when applied, it makes a mockery out of some areas of
human existence. For example, Lucretius' materialism or atomism is true to some
extent, but it makes a mockery out of mind and is inconsistent with freedom or
denies it. Other limitations exist in other world-views. To put it positively, a world-
view should be based on the best possible models, principles, or motifs. They should
be set forth tentatively and not dogmatically.

F. Philosophy is Criticism

The idea of philosophy being "criticism" needs explanation. An understanding

may be reached by looking at one of the philosophers who embodied this definition.
Socrates is one of the earliest to engage in philosophic criticism. For Socrates,
criticism referred to critical thinking involving a dialectic in the conversation. A
dialectic, one must keep in mind, is a running debate with claims, counter-claims,
qualifications, corrections, and compromises in the sincere hope of getting to
understand a concept. This may be seen briefly in Plato's Republic (Bk. I). Socrates
asked Cephalus what his greatest blessing of wealth had been. Cephalus replied
that a sense of justice had come from it. Socrates then asked: what is justice? The

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conversation then involved several people including Thrasymachus who claimed that
justice was a mere ploy of the strong to keep the weak in line. Socrates rejected the
tyrant-theory as irrational and the dialectic went on in pursuit of the question: what is
justice? Criticism is the attempt to clear away shabby thinking and establish
concepts with greater precision and meaning. In this sense John Dewey noted that
philosophy is inherently criticism, having its distinctive position among various modes
of criticism in its generality; a criticism of criticism as it were. Criticism is
discriminating judgement, careful appraisal, and judgement is appropriately termed
criticism wherever the subject-matter of discrimination concerns goods or values.

Another example of criticism is the philosophic movement associated with the

name of Edmund Husserl who is the father of phenomenology. Phenomenology is a
method of criticism aiming to investigate the essence of anything. The essence of
love, justice, courage, and any other idea may be dealt with critically, and a tentative
conclusion reached. Such criticism is vital to philosophy as well as to other
disciplines. Criticism must not be confused with skepticism. Criticism is carried on for
the pursuit of purer, or better knowledge. Sometimes skepticism may be viewed as a
stepping stone to knowledge. Unfortunately, skepticism frequently degenerates to
irresponsible negativism. When this happens, skepticism becomes a willful, self-
serving game rather than the pursuit of knowledge. Criticism as the activity of
philosophy has been fairly popular in the contemporary scene. Robert Paul Wolff
describes philosophy as the activity of careful reasoning with clarity and logical rigor
controlling it. Such an activity has strong faith in the power of reason and it is an
activity in which reason leads to truth.

Similarly, Scherer, Facione, Attig, and Miller, in their Introduction to

Philosophy, describe philosophy as beginning with an attitude of wonder.
Philosophical wonder "leads to serious reflection on the more fundamental or more
general questions that emerge in a variety of particular cases."13 This sense of
wonder leads to activities in which one raises questions concerning the meaning of
terms, the attempt to think things through systematically, and comprehensively, to
have good reasoning in the thought process, and then evaluate various options.
Joseph Margolis suggests that doing philosophy is an art and philosophers pursue
their creative work in different ways. Studying master minds of the past is done for
the purpose of analyzing the ways they sought to deal with philosophical problems.

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Consequently, there is no prevailing way of working, to which professionals

everywhere are more or less committed.

Milton K. Munitz suggests that "philosophy is a quest for a view of the world
and of man's place in it, which is arrived at and supported in a critical and logical
way."

A final example of this definition is found in the following:

“. . . philosophy is a radical critical inquiry into the fundamental assumptions of any

field of inquiry, including itself. We are not only able to have a philosophy of religion,
but also a philosophy of education, a philosophy of art (aesthetics), of psychology, of
mathematics, of language, and so forth. We can also apply the critical focus of
philosophy to any human concern. There can be a philosophy of power, of sexuality,
freedom, community, revolution--even a philosophy of sports. Finally, philosophy can
reflect upon itself; that is, we can do a philosophy of philosophy. Philosophy can,
then, examine its own presuppositions, its own commitments. Criticism as a
definition of philosophy also may be criticized. Philosophy must be critical, but it
seems to turn philosophy into a method of going about thinking rather than the
content of the subject. Criticism will help one acquire a philosophy of life, but
criticism is not the philosophy itself. Generally, when one asks about philosophy the
intention relates to a subject matter rather than a method of approach. This would
make it possible for all critical thinkers in any critical topic to regard themselves as
doing philosophy”.

Concluding Observations

The thoughtful reader has now probably come to the conclusion: a definition
of philosophy is impossible. Another may say: why can't all of these be used for a
definition? The idea of pooling the best element of each definition--known as
eclecticism--has a certain appeal to the novice, but not much appeal to the
philosophers. There is, however, some truth in an eclectic approach to defining
philosophy. Philosophy would not be the same without criticism. No philosopher
worth his salt would consider an important discussion without resorting to an analysis
of the language. Neither is it strange to see a philosopher attempting to put his
beliefs in practice either in the classroom or outside of it. What philosopher does not

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feel good with a few converts to his platform? Even though a world-view definition
has been rejected by some philosophers, still others seek to understand the whole of
the universe.

Main Branches of Philosophy

Philosophy covers many subjects and emphases. The following divisions are
important in an over-view of the subject of philosophy.

A. Epistemology. Epistemology is a Greek word translated as the theory of

knowledge. Epistemology is a foundational area for other areas of philosophy.
Epistemology involves three main areas: (1) the source or ways to knowledge. How
do we know what we claim to know? How do we know certain kinds of things? (2)
The nature of knowledge. What do we mean when we say we know something? If I
declare I know a pin oak tree, do I know this directly or indirectly? (3) The validity of
knowledge. In this the matter of truth or falsity is considered. How do I claim to know
that something is true? Why is one statement regarded as true or false? These three
issues will be considered in the next four chapters.

B. Metaphysics. Metaphysics is another Greek word which refers to the attempt to

describe the nature of reality. It involves many questions such as the nature and
makeup of the universe, whether the world is purposive or not, whether man is free,
whether the world is eternal or created, and many other issues.

C. Logic. Logic is a term used to describe the various types of reasoning structures,
the relationship of ideas, deduction and inference, and in modern times. symbolic
logic which becomes quite mathematical. Logic is too technical to consider in the
confines of a general introduction to philosophy. There are many excellent texts that
may be consulted for a general look at logic.

D. Axiology. Axios, the Greek word of worth, is related to two different areas of
worth. There is, first, moral worth, or ethics. Ethics is a discipline concerning human
moral behavior and raises the questions of right or wrong. Ethics has generally been
the science or discipline of what human behavior ought to be in contrast to a
discipline like sociology which is the study of what human behavior is. The second
area, aesthetics, is concerned with the beautiful. What is a beautiful work of art?

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music? sculpture? What makes a beautiful woman? a handsome man? an ugly one?
Aesthetics seeks to give some answers to these questions.

E. "Philosophies of". Another category of philosophy is called "philosophies of"

because of the term being related to various other subjects or disciplines. For
example: philosophy of art, philosophy of biology, philosophy of history, philosophy
of law, philosophy of philosophy, philosophy of physics, philosophy of the natural
sciences, philosophy of religion, philosophy of sociology, philosophy of science. The
"philosophy of" is basically the application of metaphysical and epistemological
questions to a certain subject area. It is concerned with the basic structures of the
discipline and the presuppositions needed for the study. If the philosophy of a
discipline is changed, it changes the outcome of the discipline. As an example, how
should one write history? If it is written around the theme of conflict, one gets a
certain emphasis; if it is written around a "great man" theme, it will give a different
emphasis and interpretation. If history is written from a Marxist view it will come out
differently than from a capitalist view. Look at science as another example. Biological
science is today based on the idea of uniformitarianism--the idea that change has
been slow and gradual in nature. Science used to have catastrophism as its basic
philosophy. Catastrophism means that changes in nature came abruptly and are
related to Creation and a massive flood. Uniformitarianism leads to the conclusion
that the cosmos is very old. Catastrophism can lead to the conclusion that the world
is very young. The point is this: if you change the philosophy or structure of a
discipline you can change the outcome, but in both cases you use the same facts.

These two examples, history and biology, indicate the importance of the
philosophy behind the discipline. One may well ask the question: how should one do
psychology or sociology? These are consequential questions for any study. If the
student knows the philosophy of the discipline, i.e., how it works, its method and
presuppositions, he is in a better position to evaluate and criticize the discipline. It is
obvious that the "philosophies of" each discipline is too technical for inclusion in a
general introduction.

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Assessment

Vocabularies

Philosophy Logic Sophia Epistemology

Metaphysics Epistemology Marxism Ethics
Axiology Philein Skepticism Phenomenology

Test yourself

1. What is your philosophy of life?

2. Is the study of philosophy still relevant to a student like you in this modern
society?
3. If you would define Philosophy, what would be your definition and Why?

Reflection

Choose only one on the suggestive topics and write a philosophical reflection based
on the topic that you have chosen.

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1. Does a person’s name influence the person they become?

2. Is suffering a necessary part of the human condition? What would people who
never suffered be like?
3. Is it possible to live a normal life and not ever tell a lie?

Unit Two

Unit Overview

This unit provides an attempt to introduce the students to the philosophical

understanding of morality and ethical concepts such as the right and wrong, the
universal standard to do good and to avoid evil, etc. It will tackle also the different
ethical school of thoughts and their influence to the modern society and ways of
living. Lastly, this unit will serve as the springboard to better understand and
appreciate the importance of philosophical ethics in our existence.

Unit Learning Outcomes

By the end of this unit, students should be able to:

 Explain the different ethical concepts and definitions.

 Describe the various ethical school of thoughts.
 To help students to be acquainted to the realm of ethical and moral realities.

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Ethics (ἠθικός)

Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that involves

systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and
wrong conduct. The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns matters of value,
and thus comprises the branch of philosophy called axiology. Ethics seeks to
resolve questions of human morality by defining concepts such as good and evil,
right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime. As a field of intellectual inquiry,
moral philosophy also is related to the fields of moral psychology, descriptive ethics,
and value theory.

Three major areas of study within ethics recognized today are:

1. Meta-ethics, concerning the theoretical meaning and reference of moral

propositions, and how their truth values (if any) can be determined
2. Normative ethics, concerning the practical means of determining a moral
course of action
3. Applied ethics, concerning what a person is obligated (or permitted) to do in a
specific situation or a particular domain of action

Defining ethics

The English word "ethics" is derived from the Ancient

Greek word ēthikós (ἠθικός), meaning "relating to one's character", which itself
comes from the root word êthos (ἦθος) meaning "character, moral nature". This word

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was transferred into Latin as ethica and then into French as éthique, from which it

was transferred into English.

Rushworth Kidder states that "standard definitions of ethics have typically

included such phrases as 'the science of the ideal human character' or 'the science
of moral duty'". Richard William Paul and Linda Elder define ethics as “a set of
concepts and principles that guide us in determining what behavior helps or harms
sentient creatures”. The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy states that the word
“ethics” is “commonly used interchangeably with ‘morality’ … and sometimes it is
used more narrowly to mean the moral principles of a particular tradition, group or
individual.” Paul and Elder state that most people confuse ethics with behaving in
accordance with social conventions, religious beliefs and the law and don’t treat
ethics as a stand-alone concept.

Ethics and Morality

The terms ‘ethics’ and ‘morality’ are not always used consistently and
precisely in everyday contexts, and their ordinary meanings do not always
correspond with philosophers’ use of the terms. Ethics is often used in connection
with the activities of organizations and with professional codes of conduct: for
instance, medical and business ethics, which are often formalized in terms of
exhaustive sets of rules or guidelines stating how employees are expected to behave
in their workplaces (such as in respect of a duty of care or confidentiality that health-
care workers owe to their patients; or the medical ethical principles of beneficence,
non-maleficence, respect for autonomy, and justice). Morality, on the other hand, is
more often used in connection with the ways in which individuals conduct their
personal, private lives, often in relation to personal financial probity, lawful conduct
and acceptable standards of interpersonal behaviour (including truthfulness,
honesty, and sexual propriety). These ‘everyday’ uses of the terms ‘ethics’ and
‘morality’ are not so much incorrect by philosophical standards, as too limited. The
philosopher’s interest in the theoretical study of ethics is with the idea of conduct that
is right, fair and just, does not cause harm, and that can be applied to a wide variety
of cases. For our purposes, each of the terms ‘ethics’ and ‘morality’ captures the
essence of that idea sufficiently well. In what follows, then, it is not really necessary
to over-emphasise the distinction between ethics and morality; here, those terms
may be used interchangeably to refer to ideas about how humans ought to act.

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Branches of ethics.

Meta-ethics

Is the branch of philosophical ethics that asks how we understand, know

about, and what we mean when we talk about what is right and what is wrong. An
ethical question pertaining to a particular practical situation—such as, "Should I eat
this particular piece of chocolate cake?"—cannot be a meta-ethical question (rather,
this is an applied ethical question). A meta-ethical question is abstract and relates to
a wide range of more specific practical questions. For example, "Is it ever possible to
have secure knowledge of what is right and wrong?" is a meta-ethical question.
Meta-ethics has always accompanied philosophical ethics. For example, Aristotle
implies that less precise knowledge is possible in ethics than in other spheres of
inquiry, and he regards ethical knowledge as depending upon habit
and acculturation in a way that makes it distinctive from other kinds of knowledge.
Meta-ethics is also important in G.E. Moore's Principia Ethica from 1903. In it he first
wrote about what he called the naturalistic fallacy. Moore was seen to
reject naturalism in ethics, in his Open Question Argument. This made thinkers look
again at second order questions about ethics. Earlier, the Scottish philosopher David
Hume had put forward a similar view on the difference between facts and values.
Studies of how we know in ethics divide into cognitivism and non-cognitivism; this is
quite akin to the thing called descriptive and non-descriptive. Non-cognitivism is the
view that when we judge something as morally right or wrong, this is neither true nor
false. We may, for example, be only expressing our emotional feelings about these
things. Cognitivism can then be seen as the claim that when we talk about right and
wrong, we are talking about matters of fact.

The ontology of ethics is about value-bearing things or properties, i.e. the kind

of things or stuff referred to by ethical propositions. Non-descriptivist’s and non-
cognitivists believe that ethics does not need a specific ontology since ethical
propositions do not refer. This is known as an anti-realist position. Realists, on the
other hand, must explain what kind of entities, properties or states are relevant for
ethics, how they have value, and why they guide and motivate our actions.
Normative ethics

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Normative ethics

Is the study of ethical action. It is the branch of ethics that investigates the set
of questions that arise when considering how one ought to act, morally speaking.
Normative ethics is distinct from meta-ethics because normative ethics examines
standards for the rightness and wrongness of actions, while meta-ethics studies the
meaning of moral language and the metaphysics of moral facts. Normative ethics is
also distinct from descriptive ethics, as the latter is an empirical investigation of
people's moral beliefs. To put it another way, descriptive ethics would be concerned
with determining what proportion of people believe that killing is always wrong, while
normative ethics is concerned with whether it is correct to hold such a belief. Hence,
normative ethics is sometimes called prescriptive, rather than descriptive. However,
on certain versions of the meta-ethical view called moral realism, moral facts are
both descriptive and prescriptive at the same time.

Traditionally, normative ethics (also known as moral theory) was the study of
what makes actions right and wrong. These theories offered an overarching moral
principle one could appeal to in resolving difficult moral decisions. At the turn of the
20th century, moral theories became more complex and were no longer concerned
solely with rightness and wrongness, but were interested in many different kinds of
moral status. During the middle of the century, the study of normative ethics declined
as meta-ethics grew in prominence. This focus on meta-ethics was in part caused by
an intense linguistic focus in analytic philosophy and by the popularity of logical
positivism.

Applied ethics

Applied ethics is a discipline of philosophy that attempts to apply ethical

theory to real-life situations. The discipline has many specialized fields, such
as engineering ethics, bioethics, geoethics, public service ethics and business
ethics. Applied ethics is used in some aspects of determining public policy, as well
as by individuals facing difficult decisions. The sort of questions addressed by
applied ethics include: "Is getting an abortion immoral?" "Is euthanasia immoral?" "Is
affirmative action right or wrong?" "What are human rights, and how do we
determine them?" "Do animals have rights as well?" and "Do individuals have the
right of self-determination?"

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A more specific question could be: "If someone else can make better out of
his/her life than I can, is it then moral to sacrifice myself for them if needed?" Without
these questions, there is no clear fulcrum on which to balance law, politics, and the
practice of arbitration—in fact, no common assumptions of all participants—so the
ability to formulate the questions are prior to rights balancing. But not all questions
studied in applied ethics concern public policy. For example, making ethical
judgments regarding questions such as, "Is lying always wrong?" and, "If not, when
is it permissible?" is prior to any etiquette.

People, in general, are more comfortable with dichotomies (two opposites).

However, in ethics, the issues are most often multifaceted and the best-proposed
actions address many different areas concurrently. In ethical decisions, the answer is
almost never a "yes or no", "right or wrong" statement. Many buttons are pushed so
that the overall condition is improved and not to the benefit of any particular faction.
And it has not only been shown that people consider the character of the moral
agent (i.e. a principle implied in virtue ethics), the deed of the action (i.e. a principle
implied in deontology), and the consequences of the action (i.e. a principle implied in
utilitarianism) affect moral judgments, but moreover that the effect of each of these
three components depends on the value of each other component.

Descriptive ethics

Descriptive ethics is on the less philosophical end of the spectrum since it

seeks to gather particular information about how people live and draw general
conclusions based on observed patterns. Abstract and theoretical questions that are
more clearly philosophical—such as, "Is ethical knowledge possible?"—are not
central to descriptive ethics. Descriptive ethics offers a value-free approach to ethics,
which defines it as a social science rather than a humanity. Its examination of ethics
doesn't start with a preconceived theory but rather investigates observations of
actual choices made by moral agents in practice. Some philosophers rely on
descriptive ethics and choices made and unchallenged by a society or culture to
derive categories, which typically vary by context. This can lead to situational
ethics and situated ethics. These philosophers often view aesthetics, etiquette,
and arbitration as more fundamental, percolating "bottom up" to imply the existence
of, rather than explicitly prescribe, theories of value or of conduct.

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Ethical school of thoughts

Hedonism

The name derives from the Greek word for "delight" (ἡδονισμός hēdonismos
from ἡδονή hēdonē "pleasure", cognate via Proto-Indo-European swéh₂dus through
Ancient Greek ἡδύς with English sweet + suffix -ισμός -ismos "ism"). An extremely
strong aversion to hedonism is hedonophobia. The condition of being unable to
experience pleasure is anhedonia. Hedonism is a school of thought that argues that
the pursuit of pleasure and intrinsic goods are the primary or most important goals of
human life. A hedonist strives to maximize net pleasure (pleasure minus pain).
However, upon finally gaining said pleasure, happiness may remain stationary.

Ethical hedonism is the idea that all people have the right to do everything in
their power to achieve the greatest amount of pleasure possible to them. It is also
the idea that every person's pleasure should far surpass their amount of pain. Ethical
hedonism is said to have been started by Aristippus of Cyrene, a student of
Socrates. He held the idea that pleasure is the highest good.

Epicureanism

Is a system of philosophy based upon the teachings of the ancient Greek

philosopher Epicurus, founded around 307 B.C. Epicurus was an atomic materialist,
following in the steps of Democritus. His materialism led him to a general attack on
superstition and divine intervention. Following Aristippus—about whom very little is
known—Epicurus believed that what he called "pleasure" (ἡδονή) was the greatest
good, but that the way to attain such pleasure was to live modestly, to gain
knowledge of the workings of the world, and to limit one's desires. This would lead
one to attain a state of tranquility (ataraxia) and freedom from fear as well as an
absence of bodily pain (aponia). The combination of these two states constitutes
happiness in its highest form. Although Epicureanism is a form of hedonism insofar
as it declares pleasure to be its sole intrinsic goal, the concept that the absence of
pain and fear constitutes the greatest pleasure, and its advocacy of a simple life,
make it very different from "hedonism" as colloquially understood.

Stoicism

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Is a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded by Zeno of Citium in Athens in

the early 3rd century B.C. Stoicism is a philosophy of personal ethics informed by its
system of logic and its views on the natural world. According to its teachings, as
social beings, the path to eudaimonia (happiness) for humans is found in accepting
the moment as it presents itself, by not allowing oneself to be controlled by the
desire for pleasure or fear of pain, by using one's mind to understand the world and
to do one's part in nature's plan, and by working together and treating others fairly
and justly. The Stoics are especially known for teaching that "virtue is the only good"
for human beings, and that external things—such as health, wealth, and pleasure—
are not good or bad in themselves (adiaphora), but have value as "material for virtue
to act upon". Alongside Aristotelian ethics, the Stoic tradition forms one of the major
founding approaches to Western virtue ethics. The Stoics also held that certain
destructive emotions resulted from errors of judgment, and they believed people
should aim to maintain a will (called prohairesis) that is "in accord with nature".
Because of this, the Stoics thought the best indication of an individual's philosophy
was not what a person said, but how a person behaved. To live a good life, one had
to understand the rules of the natural order since they thought everything was rooted
in nature. Many Stoics—such as Seneca and Epictetus—emphasized that because
"virtue is sufficient for happiness", a sage would be emotionally resilient to
misfortune. This belief is similar to the meaning of the phrase "stoic calm", though
the phrase does not include the "radical ethical" Stoic views that only a sage can be
considered truly free, and that all moral corruptions are equally vicious. Stoicism
flourished throughout the Roman and Greek world until the 3rd century AD, and
among its adherents was Emperor Marcus Aurelius. It experienced a decline after
Christianity became the state religion in the 4th century AD. Since then it has seen
revivals, notably in the Renaissance (Neo-stoicism) and in the contemporary era
(modern Stoicism)

Consequentialism

Is the class of normative ethical theories holding that the consequences of

one's conduct are the ultimate basis for any judgment about the rightness or
wrongness of that conduct. Thus, from a consequentialist standpoint, a morally right
act (or omission from acting) is one that will produce a good outcome, or
consequence. Consequentialism is primarily non-prescriptive, meaning the moral

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worth of an action is determined by its potential consequence, not by whether it

follows a set of written edicts or laws. One example would entail lying under the
threat of government punishment to save an innocent person's life, even though it is
illegal to lie under oath. Consequentialism is usually contrasted with deontological
ethics (or deontology), in that deontology, in which rules and moral duty are central,
derives the rightness or wrongness of one's conduct from the character of the
behaviour itself rather than the outcomes of the conduct. It is also contrasted with
virtue ethics, which focuses on the character of the agent rather than on the nature
or consequences of the act (or omission) itself, and pragmatic ethics which treats
morality like science: advancing socially over the course of many lifetimes, such that
any moral criterion is subject to revision. Consequentialist theories differ in how they
define moral goods.

Utilitarianism

Is an ethical theory that argues the proper course of action is one that
maximizes a positive effect, such as "happiness", "welfare", or the ability to live
according to personal preferences. Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill are
influential proponents of this school of thought. In A Fragment on Government
Bentham says 'it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the
measure of right and wrong' and describes this as a fundamental axiom. In An
Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation he talks of 'the principle of
utility' but later prefers "the greatest happiness principle". Utilitarianism is the
paradigmatic example of a consequentialist moral theory. This form of utilitarianism
holds that the morally correct action is the one that produces the best outcome for all
people affected by the action. John Stuart Mill, in his exposition of utilitarianism,
proposed a hierarchy of pleasures, meaning that the pursuit of certain kinds of
pleasure is more highly valued than the pursuit of other pleasures. Other noteworthy
proponents of utilitarianism are neuroscientist Sam Harris, author of The Moral
Landscape, and moral philosopher Peter Singer, author of, amongst other works,
Practical Ethics. The major division within utilitarianism is between act utilitarianism
and rule utilitarianism. In act utilitarianism, the principle of utility applies directly to
each alternative act in a situation of choice. The right act is the one that brings about
the best results (or the least amount of bad results). In rule utilitarianism, the
principle of utility determines the validity of rules of conduct (moral principles). A rule

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like promise-keeping is established by looking at the consequences of a world in

which people break promises at will and a world in which promises are binding. Right
and wrong are the following or breaking of rules that are sanctioned by their
utilitarian value. A proposed "middle ground" between these two types is Two-level
utilitarianism, where rules are applied in ordinary circumstances, but with an
allowance to choose actions outside of such rules when unusual situations call for it.

Deontological ethics or deontology

(from Greek δέον, deon, "obligation, duty"; and -λογία, -logia) Is an approach
to ethics that determines goodness or rightness from examining acts, or the rules
and duties that the person doing the act strove to fulfill. This is in contrast to
consequentialism, in which rightness is based on the consequences of an act, and
not the act by itself. Under deontology, an act may be considered right even if the act
produces a bad consequence, if it follows the rule or moral law. According to the
deontological view, people have a duty to act in a way that does those things that are
inherently good as acts ("truth-telling" for example), or follow an objectively
obligatory rule (as in rule utilitarianism).

Immanuel Kant's theory of ethics is considered deontological for several

different reasons. First, Kant argues that to act in the morally right way, people must
act from duty (deon). Second, Kant argued that it was not the consequences of
actions that make them right or wrong but the motives (expressed as maxims) of the
person who carries out the action. Kant's argument that to act in the morally right
way, one must act from duty, begins with an argument that the highest good must be
both good in itself, and good without qualification. Something is 'good in itself' when
it is intrinsically good, and 'good without qualification' when the addition of that thing
never makes a situation ethically worse. Kant then argues that those things that are
usually thought to be good, such as intelligence, perseverance and pleasure, fail to
be either intrinsically good or good without qualification. Pleasure, for example,
appears to not be good without qualification, because when people take pleasure in
watching someone suffer, they make the situation ethically worse. He concludes that
there is only one thing that is truly good: Kant then argues that the consequences of
an act of willing cannot be used to determine that the person has a good will; good
consequences could arise by accident from an action that was motivated by a desire

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to cause harm to an innocent person, and bad consequences could arise from an
action that was well-motivated. Instead, he claims, a person has a good will when he
'acts out of respect for the moral law'. People 'act out of respect for the moral law'
when they act in some way because they have a duty to do so. So, the only thing
that is truly good in itself is a good will, and a good will is only good when the willer
chooses to do something because it is that person's duty, i.e. out of "respect" for the
law. He defines respect as "the concept of a worth which thwarts my self-love".

Kant's three significant formulations of the categorical imperative are: 1. Act

only according to that maxim by which you can also will that it would become a
universal law. 2. Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your
own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at
the same time as an end. 3. Every rational being must so act as if he were through
his maxim always a legislating member in a universal kingdom of ends.

Ethics and religion

Ethics and religious faith

There is another important argument that people use when making ethical
arguments: religious faith. For many people, ’morality and religious faith go hand in
hand’ (Traer 2009 p. 8). Rather than relying on rational arguments, some people
view actions as being right or wrong in terms of whether they are commanded by a
god. Some moral philosophers do not view arguments based on religious faith as
being rationally defensible. They believe that we can determine through rational
reflection what is right and wrong. If a god commands only what is right then,
logically, this makes divine commands unnecessary; we are able to know what is
right or wrong without relying on any divine commandments, as we can use rational
reflection. However, Traer (2009) argues that a discussion of faith-based arguments
is relevant to moral philosophy for several reasons. For a start, people do not always
agree on what is right or wrong. It is not therefore clear that we can determine what
is right and wrong simply through rational reflection. Additionally, given that so many
people in the world do look to religion for moral guidance, we should not
underestimate the ability of ‘the moral teachings of a religious tradition […] to
persuade the public to embrace a higher moral standard’ (Traer 2009 p. 9). While we
may insist that moral principles and decisions should be justified by rational

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arguments, Traer (2009) argues that consideration of religious arguments should not
be excluded from the study of ethics. Whether or not one personally chooses to
accept faith-based arguments as valid within ethical discussions is a decision that
requires careful consideration.

Often, religion and ethics are treated as the same thing, with various religions
making claims about their belief systems being the best way for people to live,
actively proselytizing and trying to convert unbelievers, trying to legislate public
behaviors based around isolated religious passages, etc. Of course, not all religions
are the same, some are more liberal than others and some more conservative, but in
general, all religious traditions believe that their faith represents a path to
enlightenment and salvation. By contrast, ethics are universal decision-making tools
that may be used by a person of any religious persuasion, including atheists. While
religion makes claims about cosmology, social behavior, and the “proper” treatment
of others, etc. Ethics are based on logic and reason rather than tradition or
injunction. As Burke suggests of the “hortatory Negative” of the “Thou Shalt Not”s
found in many religious traditions that tell people how to behave by “moralizing,"
ethics include no such moralizing. If something is bad, ethics tells us we should not
do it, if something is good, obviously there is no harm in doing it. The tricky part of
life, and the reason that we need ethics, is that what is good and bad in life are often
complicated by our personal circumstances, culture, finances, ethnicity, gender, age,
time, experience, personal beliefs, and other variables. Often the path that looks
most desirable will have negative consequences, while the path that looks the most
perilous for an individual or organization will often result in doing the most good for
others. Doing what is “right” is a lot harder than doing what is expedient or
convenient.

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Assessment

Vocabularies

Ethics Ontology Categorical Imperative

Hedonism Utilitarianism Religion
Stoicism Kantianism Morality
Epicureanism Deontology

Test yourself

1. Enumerate the three levels of Kant’s categorical imperatives and explain each
briefly.
2. Is an approach to ethics that determines goodness or rightness from
examining acts, or the rules and duties that the person doing the act strove to
fulfill.
3. Is a discipline of philosophy that attempts to apply ethical theory to real-life
situations.
4. Is a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded by Zeno of Citium in Athens in
the early 3rd century BC., a philosophy of personal ethics informed by its
system of logic and its views on the natural world.
5. Is the branch of philosophical ethics that asks how we understand, know
about, and what we mean when we talk about what is right and what is wrong.
6. Is a school of thought that argues that the pursuit of pleasure and intrinsic
goods are the primary or most important goals of human life.

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7. Is the study of ethical action. It is the branch of ethics that investigates the set
of questions that arise when considering how one ought to act, morally
speaking.
8. Is an ethical theory that argues the proper course of action is one that
maximizes a positive effect, such as "happiness", "welfare", or the ability to
live according to personal preferences.

9/10. The two major proponents of utilitarianism.

Reflection
Choose only one on the suggestive topics and write a philosophical reflection based on the
topic that you have chosen.
1. Can we be ethical without being religious?
2. Is suffering a necessary part of the human condition? What would people who
never suffered be like?
3. What is the best way for a person to attain happiness?

Unit Three

Unit Overview

This unit provides a closer glimpse to the realm of morality, what is right and
wrong and the immediate consequences of our actions. This unit will discuss the
different moral standards sets within our society that guides our actions. Lastly this
unit will provide the readers to be acquitted to the different dilemmas that we could
encounter in our daily interaction with our fellow people and members of our core
group or the society at large, this unit will help us in our decision making.

Unit Aims

 To provide a concrete understanding on how morality is vital in our social

interaction.
 To help readers to be guided to the different moral standards.
 To elucidate our cognition to the various ethical dilemmas.

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Unit Learning Outcomes

By the end of this unit, students should be able to:

 Explain morality and ethics.

 Differentiate the various moral standards and the dilemmas of our moral
actions.

Ethical key concepts

Moral vs. Non moral standards

Morality may refer to the standards that a person or a group has about what
is right and wrong, or good and evil. Accordingly, moral standards are those
concerned with or relating to human behavior, especially the distinction between
good and bad (or right and wrong) behavior. Moral standards involve the rules
people have about the kinds of actions they believe are morally right and wrong,
as well as the values they place on the kinds of objects they believe are morally
good and morally bad. Some ethicists equate moral standards with moral values
and moral principles.

Non-moral standards refer to rules that are unrelated to moral or ethical

considerations. Either these standards are not necessarily linked to morality or by
nature lack ethical sense. Basic examples of non-moral standards include rules
of etiquette, fashion standards, rules in games, and various house rules.
Technically, religious rules, some traditions, and legal statutes (i.e. laws and
ordinances) are non-moral principles, though they can be ethically relevant
depending on some factors and contexts.

The following six (6) characteristics of moral standards further differentiate

them from non-moral standards:

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a. Moral standards involve serious wrongs or significant benefits.

Moral standards deal with matters which can seriously impact, that is, injure or
benefit human beings. It is not the case with many non-moral standards. For
instance, following or violating some basketball rules may matter in basketball
games but does not necessarily affect one’s life or wellbeing.

b. Moral standards ought to be preferred to other values.

Moral standards have overriding character or hegemonic authority. If a moral

standard states that a person has the moral obligation to do something, then
he/she is supposed to do that even if it conflicts with other non-moral standards,
and even with self-interest. Moral standards are not the only rules or principles in
society, but they take precedence over other considerations, including aesthetic,
prudential, and even legal ones. A person may be aesthetically justified in leaving
behind his family in order to devote his life to painting, but morally, all things
considered, he/she probably was not justified. It may be prudent to lie to save
one’s dignity, but it probably is morally wrong to do so. When a particular law
becomes seriously immoral, it may be people’s moral duty to exercise civil
disobedience.

There is a general moral duty to obey the law, but there may come a time
when the injustice of an evil law is unbearable and thus calls for illegal but moral
noncooperation (such as the antebellum laws calling for citizens to return slaves
to their owners).

c. Moral standards are not established by authority figures.

Moral standards are not invented, formed, or generated by authoritative

bodies or persons such as nations’ legislative bodies. Ideally instead, these
values ought to be considered in the process of making laws. In principle
therefore, moral standards cannot be changed nor nullified by the decisions of
particular authoritative body. One thing about these standards, nonetheless, is
that its validity lies on the soundness or adequacy of the reasons that are
considered to support and justify them.

d. Moral standards have the trait of universalizability.

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Simply put, it means that everyone should live up to moral standards. To be

more accurate, however, it entails that moral principles must apply to all who are
in the relevantly similar situation. If one judges that act A is morally right for a
certain person P, then it is morally right for anybody relevantly similar to P.

This characteristic is exemplified in the Gold Rule, “Do unto others what you
would them do unto you (if you were in their shoes)” and in the formal Principle of
Justice, “It cannot be right for A to treat B in a manner in which it would be wrong
for B to treat A, merely on the ground that they are two different individuals, and
without there being any difference between the natures or circumstances of the
two which can be stated as a reasonable ground for difference of treatment.”
Universalizability is an extension of the principle of consistency, that is, one ought
to be consistent about one’s value judgments.

e. Moral standards are based on impartial considerations.

Moral standard does not evaluate standards on the basis of the interests of a
certain person or group, but one that goes beyond personal interests to a
universal standpoint in which each person’s interests are impartially counted as
equal. Impartiality is usually depicted as being free of bias or prejudice.
Impartiality in morality requires that we give equal and/or adequate consideration
to the interests of all concerned parties.

f. Moral standards are associated with special emotions and vocabulary.

Prescriptivity indicates the practical or action-guiding nature of moral

standards. These moral standards are generally put forth as injunction or
imperatives (such as, ‘Do not kill,’ ‘Do no unnecessary harm,’ and ‘Love your
neighbor’). These principles are proposed for use, to advise, and to influence to
action. Retroactively, this feature is used to evaluate behavior, to assign praise
and blame, and to produce feelings of satisfaction or of guilt.

If a person violates a moral standard by telling a lie even to fulfill a special

purpose, it is not surprising if he/she starts feeling guilty or being ashamed of his
behavior afterwards. On the contrary, no much guilt is felt if one goes against the
current fashion trend (e.g. refusing to wear tattered jeans).

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Ethical dilemmas’

An ethical dilemma or ethical paradox is a decision-making problem between

two possible moral imperatives, neither of which is unambiguously acceptable or
preferable. The complexity arises out of the situational conflict in which obeying one
would result in transgressing another. Sometimes called ethical paradoxes in moral
philosophy, ethical dilemmas may be invoked to refute an ethical system or moral
code, or to improve it so as to resolve the paradox.

An ethical dilemma is a decision-making problem between two possible moral

imperatives, neither of which is unambiguously acceptable or preferable. It's
sometimes called an ethical paradox in moral philosophy. Examples: Abortion
debate, Graded absolutism, Samaritan's dilemma, Suicide, Marriage, Euthanasia
etc.

Ethical dilemmas can be solved in various ways, for example by showing that
the claimed situation is only apparent and does not really exist (thus is not a paradox
logically), or that the solution to the ethical dilemma involves choosing the greater
good and lesser evil (as discussed in value theory), or that the whole framing of the
problem omits creative alternatives (such as peacemaking), or (more recently) that
situational ethics or situated ethics must apply because the case cannot be removed
from context and still be understood. See also case-based reasoning on this
process. An alternative to situational ethics is graded absolutism.

A popular ethical conflict is that between an imperative or injunction not to

steal and one to care for a family that you cannot afford to feed without stolen
money. Debates on this often revolve around the availability of alternate means of
income or support such as a social safety net, charity, etc. The debate is in its
starkest form when framed as stealing food. Under an ethical system in which
stealing is always wrong and letting one's family die from starvation is always wrong,
a person in such a situation would be forced to commit one wrong to avoid
committing another, and be in constant conflict with those whose view of the acts
varied. However, there are no legitimate ethical systems in which stealing is more
wrong than letting one's family die. Ethical systems do in fact allow for, and
sometimes outline, tradeoffs or priorities in decisions. Resolving ethical dilemmas is

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rarely simple or clear-cut and very often involves revisiting similar dilemmas that
recur within societies.

According to some philosophers and sociologists, e.g. Karl Marx and Marxist
ethics, it is the different life experience of people and the different exposure of them
and their families in these roles (the rich constantly robbing the poor, the poor in a
position of constant begging and subordination) that creates social class differences.
In other words, ethical dilemmas can become political and economic factions that
engage in long-term recurring struggles.

Moral dilemma

H.E. Mason (1996), expounds that moral conflicts is a fact of moral life. It is
something that we can never do away with it. It is embedded in the crucial decisions
that we make, particularly in moments that we are faced with is and what should be.

As moral as we want to be, our convictions are oftentimes challenged, and if not
strong enough, are dejectedly compromised. These challenges are products of the
evolving values and moral systems of our society. It is thus necessary that we are in
tough with the norms in our society as it mirrors the moral consciousness of the
people. Moral dilemmas due to inconsistencies in our principles. In understanding
the morality of an individual, we need to emphasize that the majority of the human
persons are those who are sturdily exposed to stand fast by their reflective chosen
principles and ideals when tempted by consideration chosen that are morally
irrelevant. As Mason explains, we will experience a moral dilemmas if we are faced
with two actions, each of which, it would be correct to say in the appropriate sense of
ought that is ought to be done, and both of which we cannot do. This means that we
either straight or do it the other way. We, then, ought to make moral choices, with
our own moral actions.

The three levels of moral Dilemmas

Ethical dilemmas also arise in our workplace. The stress in the workplace is not only
a result of beating deadlines and what not, but also of the ethical issues surrounding
the workplace. As it is very important that employees live up to certain standards

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prescribed by the companies and organizations, it is likewise significant for the latter
to uphold ethical standards in an for the company. Smith (n.d), explains the three
levesl of ethical standards in a business organization where we might find ourselves
having ethical dilemmas:

1. Individual. The dilemma here is when the employee’s ethical standards are in
opposition to that of his or her employer, which could lead to tensions in the
workplace.
2. Organizational. Ethical standards are seen in company policies. Still and all,
there might be a gap between those who run the business whose ethical
standards deviate from that of the organization. This might cause ethical
challenges and conflicts for those who are working in the company.
3. Systematic. Also called as the systematic level, here, ethics is predisposed by
the larger operating environment of the company. Political pressures, economic
conditions, cosietal attitudes and others, can affects the operating standards and
policies of the organization where it might face moral dilemmas outside of the
organization but within the macro-society where it belongs.

Individual moral dilemmas are far more challenging as we are tasked to decide the
morality of our actions. In order for us to manage ethical challenges, there is always
that need to make sure that our actions have been well thought out.

Freedom as the foundation of moral act

Freedom, generally, is having the ability to act or change without constraint.

Something is "free" if it can change easily and is not constrained in its present state.
In philosophy and religion, it is associated with having free will and being without
undue or unjust constraints, or enslavement, and is an idea closely related to the
concept of liberty. A person has the freedom to do things that will not, in theory or in
practice, be prevented by other forces. Outside of the human realm, freedom
generally does not have this political or psychological dimension. A rusty lock might
be oiled so that the key has freedom to turn, undergrowth may be hacked away to
give a newly planted sapling freedom to grow, or a mathematician may study an
equation having many degrees of freedom. In mechanical engineering, "freedom"
describes the number of independent motions that are allowed to a body or system,
which is generally referred to as degrees of freedom.

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In philosophical discourse, freedom is discussed in the context of free will and

self-determination, balanced by moral responsibility. Advocates of free will regard
freedom of thought as innate to the human mind, while opponents regard the mind
as thinking only the thoughts that a purely deterministic brain happens to be
engaged in at the time.

Moral act

A human act. One performed with knowledge and free will. It is called a moral
act because it is always either morally good or bad. Every consciously deliberate
action is therefore a moral act.

Three conditions of the Human (Moral) Act

Human (moral) acts are acts which are chosen by exercising one’s free will as
a consequence of a judgment of conscience. Human acts are moral acts because
they express the good or evil when someone is performing them. The morality of
acts is defined by the choices that one makes in accordance with the authentic good,
which is based on the eternal law that has a desire for God as our end goal. This
external law is the “natural law” based on God’s Divine Wisdom, made known to us
through His supernatural revelation. A human act is thus morally good when we
make choices coherent to our true good and brings us closer to God.

The goodness of a moral act is assessed based on three conditions: object

(and its goodness), intention (or end as expressed by Saint Thomas Aquinas), and
circumstances. For a moral act to be considered good, all three conditions must be
met. A defect in any of these three conditions causes the act to be deemed morally
evil.

Difference between Human Act and Act of Man

A human act involves a person deliberately exercising their intellect and will.
The person is able to discern the choice by having the knowledge, freedom, and
voluntariness to do so.

Acts of man, however, are acts which do not take place because of one’s
deliberation and does not involve fully utilizing one’s intellect. It is undertaken without
knowledge or consent and without advertence. Examples of acts of man which are

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not under the control of one’s will include acts of sensation (the use of senses), acts
of appetition (bodily tendencies such as digestion), acts of delirium, and acts when
one is asleep. The presence of these factors (ignorance, passion, fear, violence, and
habits) causes an act to be classified as acts of man.

Since a human act arises from knowledge and free will, acts of man do not have a
moral quality as they do not possess a conscious nature. If either intellect or will is
lacking in the act, then the act is not fully human and therefore not fully moral.

Human Act: Object

Saint Thomas believes that the morality of the human act depends primarily
on the object, rationally chosen by someone who deliberately exercises their will and
intellect. The object is the primary indicator — other than intention and circumstance
— for someone to judge whether an action is good or evil.

Pope John Paul the Second offers that it is not enough to possess good
intentions. Since a human act depends on its object, one needs to exercise
prudence in assessing whether that object is capable or not of being ordered to God
— who in His goodness — brings about the perfection of the person that God
intended for him through the object. The object encompasses the desire for the good
that is perceived. There exist objects which are ‘intrinsically evil (and) incapable of
being ordered’ to God, as they contradict the goodness of a person’s nature. The
Second Vatican Council provides the following examples: “homicide, genocide,
abortion, euthanasia and suicide; mutilation, physical and mental torture; subhuman
living and working conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery,
prostitution, and trafficking.”

Human Act: Intention

In any human act, “the end is the first goal of the intention and indicates the
purpose pursued in the action. The intention is a movement of the will towards the
end, concerned with the goal of the activity. The intention is essential to the moral
evaluation of an action.” Since God is our final end, we evaluate that our acts are
good when they bring us closer to God. Our intention to please God will make our
acts good and perfect. We employ the terms ‘proximate end’ and ‘remote end’ to
further understand the concept of an intention. For instance, a person gives alms to

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the poor. The proximate end is the almsgiving, and the remote end is what a person
hopes to achieve by means of the proximate end. The remote end could either be
praise and vainglory, or love and charity.

A good intention does not make a disordered action (such as lying), good.
The ends do not justify the means.” Conversely, an ill intention (vainglory) changes
an act which was good (almsgiving), to an evil act.” Saint Thomas observes that
“often, man acts with good intentions, but without spiritual gain because he lacks a
good will. (If) someone robs to feed the poor: even though the intention is good, the
uprightness of the will is lacking.”

Human Act: Circumstance

Circumstances “are secondary elements of a moral act. They increase or

diminish the moral goodness or evil of human acts. They also diminish or increase a
person’s responsibility”. Circumstances mitigates a bad act by making it more
acceptable or less bad, or it aggravates an act by heightening the consequences.
For instance, the consequences of stealing are aggravated or mitigated depending
on what is stolen, the parties involved, and the location. Circumstances, however, do
not diminish the moral quality of acts; they make neither good nor right an action that
is evil. Stealing is morally wrong regardless of the circumstances.

Conversely, circumstances can make an otherwise good action, evil. For

instance, when a firefighter does not respond to an emergency because he is
loafing. Circumstances can increase one’s guilt when a husband lies to his wife
about his extramarital affairs, or minimize one’s guilt when someone tells a white lie
to save a colleague from being fired. Therefore, we need to understand the
circumstances to understand the moral quality of human acts.

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Assessment

Vocabularies

Moral Act Proximate End Natural Law

Human Act Remote End Moral Dilemmas
Acts of Man Freewill Moral Standards
Moral Development Evil Supernatural End

Test yourself

1-6. Identify the six stages of moral development by Kohlberg and explain each
briefly.

7. Refer to the standards that a person or a group has about what is right and wrong,
or good and evil.

8. Is a decision-making problem between two possible moral imperatives, neither of

which is unambiguously acceptable or preferable.

9. Generally, is having the ability to act or change without constraint.

10. Involves a person deliberately exercising their intellect and will.

Reflection

Choose only one on the suggestive topics and write a philosophical reflection based
on the topic that you have chosen.

A Man Tells You His Terminally Ill Father's Insurance Policy Will Expire At Midnight.
If He Dies After Midnight, He Gets No Money. He Asks You To Kill His Father With A
Pillow. Do You...

Would You Rather Be Forever Poor And Honest, Or Get Rich By Doing Illegal
Things?

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A Powerful Alien Visits Earth, With The Promise To Eradicate War, Disease, And All
Suffering. In Return, He Demands A Small Child. What Do You Do?

Unit 4

Unit Overview

This unit provides a closer glimpse to the realm of morality, what is right and
wrong and the immediate consequences of our actions. This unit will discuss the
different moral standards sets within our society that guides our actions. Lastly this
unit will provide the readers to be acquitted to the different dilemmas that we could
encounter in our daily interaction with our fellow people and members of our core
group or the society at large, this unit will help us in our decision making.

Unit Aims

 To provide a concrete understanding on how morality is vital in our social

interaction.
 To help readers to be guided to the different moral standards.
 To elucidate our cognition to the various ethical dilemmas.

HermosaJherwinPFundamentalsOfEthics2019
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Unit Learning Outcomes

By the end of this unit, students should be able to:

 Explain morality and ethics.

 Differentiate the various moral standards and the dilemmas of our moral
actions.

The moral agent

Moral Agent

A moral agent is a person who has the ability to discern right from wrong and to be
held accountable for his or her own actions. Moral agents have a moral responsibility
not to cause unjustified harm. Traditionally, moral agency is assigned only to those
who can be held responsible for their actions. Children, and adults with certain
mental disabilities, may have little or no capacity to be moral agents. Adults with full
mental capacity relinquish their moral agency only in extreme situations, like being
held hostage. By expecting people to act as moral agents, we hold people
accountable for the harm they cause others.

General understanding of Culture

Culture generally refers to the patterned ways of thinking, feeling and acting that
people share and communicate to one another. Marcus Tullius Cicero, one of rome’s
greates orator in his Tusculanae Disputationes 945 b.C.) equated culture as a
cultivation of the soul or cultura animi, his understanding of culture was prevalent
until the 17th century until German jurist, Samuel Pufendorf (1632-1694), in his two
books on the duty of man and citizen according the the natural law, used culture as

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all the ways in which human beings overcome their original barbarism and through
artifice, become truly human. In the 19 th century, English anthropologist Edward
taylor (1832-1917), first coin the term culture, he was considered as the founder of
cultural anthropology. He believed that the study of society becomes incomplete
without propwer understanding of culture of that society since culture and society go
together. Culture is unique possession of man. Taylor’s understanding of culture is
that a complex whole which includes knowledge, beliefs, arts, morals, laws, customs
and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.

Culture and moral behavior

Each of us has a set of values and beliefs that differs somewhat from anyone else.
This difference in individuals beliefs spring from the core values of our culture. Some
philosophers and social scientists believed that these core values affects a particular
culture orientation. To five aspect of human conditions: human nature, environment,
time, activity and human relationships. Our worldviews towards these phenomena
affect the type of interaction with people, organizations and society as a whole.

Taking as an example the view on human nature, we can clearly see that the culture
of each social group is based on expressed and implied positions about human
nature. Based on the prevailing philosophical beliefs, all cultures develop answers to
questions such as; is human nature basically good, evil, or neutral? A person who
agrees with the teachings of Mencius (c. 371-289 B.C.) that man is fundamentally
good and moral would behave differently in treating people that someone who would
advocate another. Chinese philosopher, Li Si (c. 280-208 B.C.), would taught that
human nature is essentially evil, not moral; championing the ideas of legalism which
proposed strict laws to produce an ordered state. We can also mention the
philosopher from Geneve, Switerland Jean Jacques Rousseau 91712-1778) who
climed that man is good by nature, and that is is civilization which ruins him. In his
book, discourse on the Sciences and the Arts (1750), he denied that the sciences
and arts had contributued toward the purification f manners, and he even argued that
the arts and sciences corrupt human morality.

Cultural relativism

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Cultural Relativism is the view that moral or ethical systems, which vary from culture
to culture, are all equally valid and no one system is really “better” than any other.
This is based on the idea that there is no ultimate standard of good or evil, so every
judgment about right and wrong is a product of society. Therefore, any opinion on
morality or ethics is subject to the cultural perspective of each person. Ultimately,
this means that no moral or ethical system can be considered the “best,” or “worst,”
and no particular moral or ethical position can actually be considered “right” or
“wrong.”

Cultural relativism is a widely held position in the modern world. Words like
“pluralism,” “tolerance,” and “acceptance” have taken on new meanings, as the
boundaries of “culture” have expanded. The loose way in which modern society
defines these ideas has made it possible for almost anything to be justified on the
grounds of “relativism.” The umbrella of “relativism” includes a fairly wide range of
ideas, all of which introduce instability and uncertainty into areas that were
previously considered settled.

The concept of cultural relativism as we know and use it in contemporary times wa

established as an analytic tool by german American anthropologist Franz Boas
(1848-1942), in the early 20th century. In his study on geography, he stated that
civilization is not something absolute but is relative… and our ideas and conceptions
are true only in so far as our civilization goes.

Basic concepts relating to cultural relativism

1. Cultural relativism. Is the view that all beliefs, customs and ethics are relative
to the individual within his own social context. This concepts view right and
wrong as culture specifics, i.e. what is considered moral in one society may
be considered immoral in another, and since no universal norm of morality
exists, no one has the right to judge another societies customs.
2. Cultural relativism. Is the idea that the persons beliefs, virtues and practices
should be understood based on that person’s own culture, rather than judged
against the criteria of another.
3. Cultural relativism. Refers to the ideas that the values, knowledge and
behavior of people must be understood within their own cultural context.

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Ethnocentrism is the practice of viewing and judging someone else’s cultural

based on the values and beliefs of one’s own.

Cultural relativists believed that all cultures are worthy in their own right and are
equal value. Diversity of culture, even, those with conflicting beliefs is not to be
considered in terms of right and wrong or good or evil. We must consider all cultures
to be equally legitimate expressions of human existence, to be studied from a purely
neutral perspective.

Assessment
Vocabularies

Test yourself

Reflection

HermosaJherwinPFundamentalsOfEthics2019
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Unit 5

Unit Overview

This unit provides a closer glimpse to the realm of morality, what is right and wrong
and the immediate consequences of our actions. This unit will discuss the different
moral standards sets within our society that guides our actions. Lastly this unit will
provide the readers to be acquitted to the different dilemmas that we could encounter
in our daily interaction with our fellow people and members of our core group or the
society at large, this unit will help us in our decision making.

Unit Aims

• To provide a concrete understanding on how morality is vital in our social

interaction.

• To help readers to be guided to the different moral standards.

HermosaJherwinPFundamentalsOfEthics2019
 46

• To elucidate our cognition to the various ethical dilemmas.

Unit Learning Outcomes

By the end of this unit, students should be able to:

• Explain morality and ethics.

• Differentiate the various moral standards and the dilemmas of our moral
actions.

Asian and Filipino Morality

Asian values, set of values promoted since the late 20th century by some
Asian political leaders and intellectuals as a conscious alternative to Western
political values such as human rights, democracy, and capitalism. Advocates of
Asian values typically claimed that the rapid development of many East Asian
economies in the post-World War II period was due to the shared culture of their
societies, especially those of Confucian heritage. They also asserted that Western
political values were unsuited to East Asia because they fostered excessive
individualism and legalism, which threatened to undermine the social order and
destroy economic dynamism. Among Asian values that were frequently cited were
discipline, hard work, frugality, educational achievement, balancing individual and
societal needs, and deference to authority. Critics of Asian values disputed their role
in economic growth and argued that they were being used to protect the interests of
East Asia’s authoritarian elites.

Asian Values and Modernity

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Claims about the benefits of Asian values garnered particular attention in the
early 1990s, when they were articulated by prominent political figures such as former
Singaporean prime minister Lee Kuan Yew. Such claims conflicted with
contemporary Western assertions that the collapse of European communism and the
success of China’s market socialism had demonstrated the superiority of human
rights, democracy, and capitalism over competing forms of organizing society. The
Asian values debate was also internal to Asian societies. At a time of rapid economic
and social change in East Asia, growing individualism and democratization and
human rights movements challenged established socioeconomic orders and
authoritarian regimes. The debate was an element within a larger struggle over
competing visions of modernity and of how Asian societies should be organized.

Proponents of Asian values made several related claims. They asserted that
Asian values were responsible for the region’s significant economic growth; that
economic development must be prioritized in societies that are climbing out of
poverty; and, more generally, that civil and political rights should be subordinate to
economic and social rights. In addition, because the state embodies the collective
identity and interests of its citizens, its needs should take precedence over the rights
of the individual. Accordingly, Asian-values proponents were strong defenders of
state sovereignty, including the right to noninterference by outsiders. Those ideas
were expressed in the 1993 Bangkok Declaration on human rights, which was
signed by many Asian governments but criticized by Asian human rights
organizations.

Criticism Of Asian Values

Critics of Asian values have dismissed claims on their behalf as attempts to

shore up authoritarian and illiberal rule against domestic and external opponents and
to obscure the weaknesses of the Asian economic development model. The Asian
financial crisis of 1997–98 appeared to vindicate some of their arguments. Some
critics have charged that the discourse of Asian values trades on simplistic
stereotypes of Asian cultures and in that respect is similar to the Orientalism that had
long characterized Western scholarship on Asian and Arabic societies. Others
pointed to the apparent contradiction between the antiliberalism espoused by
proponents of Asian values and their promotion of market-oriented development,

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which has challenged and disrupted the established social order. Finally, feminist
theorists viewed the Asian-values discourse as an attempt to legitimate gender,
class, ethnic, and racial hierarchies embedded in Asian cultures, in the Asian
development model, and in wider capitalist social relations.

The Asian values debate is relevant to arguments in political theory over

whether commitments to global justice and equality can be grounded in human
rights. Taking issue with the Western assumption that liberal political structures are
the starting point for advancing human well-being, communitarians such as Charles
Taylor have reflected on Asian cultural experiences to examine the potential and
challenges of establishing a more inclusive, unforced, but robust global consensus
on human rights. A growing literature, including that associated with Confucian
communitarianism and reformist Islam, has examined whether particular values and
institutions in Asian societies are consistent with human rights. Daniel A. Bell, a
Canadian philosopher specializing in Confucian thought, argued that many “values in
Asia,” as opposed to “Asian values,” can both enrich global human rights theory and
practice and be deployed to improve the dignity and well-being of contemporary
Asians.

Values are integral part of every culture. With worldview and personality, they
generate behavior. Being part of a culture that shares a common core set of values
creates expectations and predictability without which a culture would disintegrate
and its member would lose their personal identity and sense of worth. Values tell
people what is good, beneficial important, useful, beautiful, desirable, constructive,
etc. They answer the question of why people do what they do. Values help people
solve common problems for survival. Over time, they become the roots of traditions
that groups of people find important in their day-to-day lives. Filipino values may be
attributed into many influences. These can be from its ancestors or influenced from
its colonizers. Some values are bipolar, meaning it can be positive or negative.

3. Positive Filipino Values

1. Bayanihan system or spirit of kinship and camaraderie- A Filipino community spirit

and cooperation wherein a group of individuals extends a helping hand without
expecting any remuneration. It is characterized by communal work towards one goal
exemplified in carrying a nipa house or pushing a passenger jeepney.

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2. Damayan system- sympathy for people who lost their love ones. In case of death
of a certain member of the community, the whole community sympathizes with the
bereaved family. Neighbors, friends, and relatives of the deceased usually give
certain amount of money as their way of showing sympathy.

3. Familism or close family relations- a Filipino trait of giving highest importance to

family above other thing. A trait wherein family members should be taken care and
supported regardless of whether he/she did something wrong, a family member must
given attention and should not be abandoned.

4. Fun-loving trait- a trait found in most Filipinos, a trait that makes them unique that
even in time of calamities and other challenges in life, they always have something
to be happy about, a reason to celebrate.

5. Hospitality- a Filipino trait of being receptive and generous to guests.

6. Compassionate- a Filipino trait of being sympathetic to others even if the person is

a stranger. An example of this is giving alms to beggar. This is observed when we
hear Filipinos saying “kawawa naman or nakakaawanaman.

7. Regionalism- a Filipino trait of giving more priority or preference in giving favors to

his province mate before others.

8. Friendly- a trait found in most Filipinos. They are sincere, loyal, kind and sociable
person.

9. Flexible or magaling makabagay- the ability of Filipinos to ride on or adjust to the

norms of other group jut to attain smooth and harmonious relationship. Example:
OFW

10. Religious- most Filipinos possess strong conformance of their religious belief in
action and in words.

11. Respect to elders- a Filipino trait of being courteous both in words and in actions
to the people of older people.

12. Remedyo attitude- a Filipino trait of being creative and resourceful. The ability to
do things that are next to impossible. Example in fixing appliances that look
impossible to repair.

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13. Matiyaga- Filipinos re known for their tenacity and strong determination inevery
undertaking.

14. Utang na loob- a feeling of obligation to repay someone who extended

assistanceto another which may take place in undetermined time and inwhatever
way.

Negative Filipino Values

1. Bahala na atitude- a Filipino trait characterized by retreating or withdrawal from

certain undertaking and leaving everything to God to interfere and determine the
outcome of his deeds.

2. Colonial complex or blue-seal mentality- a Filipino value of showing high

admiration and preference to foreign produced goods over local ones.

3. Crab mentality- a Filipino attitude characterized by an attempt to “pull down”

someone who has achieved success beyond the others. This is done out of jealousy
and insecurity.

4. Euphemism- a Filipino way of substituting a word or phrase that is thought to be

offensive or harsh with a mild and acceptable one in order to not offend or hurt
another person.

[Link] time- in reality, it means “always late”, a Filipino attitude of impreciseness

towards time.

[Link]-gaya attitude- a Filipino attitude of imitating or copying other culture

specifically in mode of dressing, language, fashion or even haircut.

7. Jackpot mentality- a “get rich quick” mentality of some Filipinos who would rather
engage in fast ways of acquiring money than through hardwork and sacrifice by
getting in lottery, joining raffle draws and other.

8. Kapalaran values- a Filipino trait of accepting his fate by believing that everything
is written in his palm. Such traits contributes to lack initiative and perseverance
among Filipinos.

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9. Mañana habit- delaying or setting aside a certain task assigned on the next day
although it can be done today.

10. Ningas-cogon- being enthusiastic only during the start of new undertaking but
ends dismally in accomplishing nothing. A common practice observed in some
politicians who are visible only during the start of certain endeavor.

11. Oversensitive- Filipinos have the tendency to be irritated easily or hurt upon
hearing some criticisms or comment.

12. Lack of sport manship- not accepting defeat in competitions but rather putting the
blame either to their opponents or to the sport officials.

13. Pakikisama- submitting oneself to the will of the group for the sake of
camaraderie and unity. Failure to comply with the group demand, the person will be
called “walang pakikisama or selfish”. The adherence to group demand shave taught
our young to engage in bad habits likes moking, alcoholism and even drug addiction.

14. Tsamba lang attitude- simplicity by declaring that his/her accomplishments are
results of luck and not from perseverance and ability.

Universal value

A value is a universal value if it has the same value or worth for all, or almost all,
people. Spheres of human value encompass morality, aesthetic preference, human
traits, human endeavour, and social order. Whether universal values exist is an
unproven conjecture of moral philosophy and cultural anthropology, though it is clear
that certain values are found across a great diversity of human cultures, such as
primary attributes of physical attractiveness (e.g. youthfulness, symmetry) whereas
other attributes (e.g. slenderness) are subject to aesthetic relativism as governed by
cultural norms. This objection is not limited to aesthetics. Relativism concerning
morals is known as moral relativism, a philosophical stance opposed to the existence
of universal moral values.

The claim for universal values can be understood in two different ways. First,
it could be that something has a universal value when everybody finds it valuable.
This was Isaiah Berlin's understanding of the term. According to Berlin, "...universal
values....are values that a great many human beings in the vast majority of places

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and situations, at almost all times, do in fact hold in common, whether consciously
and explicitly or as expressed in their behaviour..."Second, something could have
universal value when all people have reason to believe it has value. Amartya Sen
interprets the term in this way, pointing out that when Mahatma Gandhi argued that
non-violence is a universal value, he was arguing that all people have reason to
value non-violence, not that all people currently value non-violence. Many different
things have been claimed to be of universal value, for example, fertility, pleasure,
and democracy. The issue of whether anything is of universal value, and, if so, what
that thing or those things are, is relevant to psychology, political science, and
philosophy, among other fields.

Justice and fairness

Many public policy arguments focus on fairness. Is affirmative action fair? Are
congressional districts drawn to be fair? Is our tax policy fair? Is our method for
funding schools fair?

Arguments about justice or fairness have a long tradition in Western civilization. In

fact, no idea in Western civilization has been more consistently linked to ethics and
morality than the idea of justice. From the Republic, written by the ancient Greek
philosopher Plato, to A Theory of Justice, written by the late Harvard philosopher
John Rawls, every major work on ethics has held that justice is part of the central core
of morality.

Justice means giving each person what he or she deserves or, in more traditional
terms, giving each person his or her due. Justice and fairness are closely related
terms that are often today used interchangeably. There have, however, also been
more distinct understandings of the two terms. While justice usually has been used
with reference to a standard of rightness, fairness often has been used with regard to
an ability to judge without reference to one's feelings or interests; fairness has also
been used to refer to the ability to make judgments that are not overly general but
that are concrete and specific to a particular case. In any case, a notion of being
treated as one deserves is crucial to both justice and fairness.

When people differ over what they believe should be given, or when decisions have
to be made about how benefits and burdens should be distributed among a group
of people, questions of justice or fairness inevitably arise. In fact, most ethicists today
hold the view that there would be no point of talking about justice or fairness if it
were not for the conflicts of interest that are created when goods and services are
scarce and people differ over who should get what. When such conflicts arise in our

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society, we need principles of justice that we can all accept as reasonable and fair
standards for determining what people deserve.

But saying that justice is giving each person what he or she deserves does not take
us very far. How do we determine what people deserve? What criteria and what
principles should we use to determine what is due to this or that person?

Principles of Justice
The most fundamental principle of justice—one that has been widely accepted since
it was first defined by Aristotle more than two thousand years ago—is the principle
that "equals should be treated equally and unequals unequally." In its contemporary
form, this principle is sometimes expressed as follows: "Individuals should be treated
the same, unless they differ in ways that are relevant to the situation in which they
are involved." For example, if Jack and Jill both do the same work, and there are no
relevant differences between them or the work they are doing, then in justice they
should be paid the same wages. And if Jack is paid more than Jill simply because he
is a man, or because he is white, then we have an injustice—a form of discrimination
—because race and sex are not relevant to normal work situations.

There are, however, many differences that we deem as justifiable criteria for
treating people differently. For example, we think it is fair and just when a parent
gives his own children more attention and care in his private affairs than he gives the
children of others; we think it is fair when the person who is first in a line at a theater
is given first choice of theater tickets; we think it is just when the government gives
benefits to the needy that it does not provide to more affluent citizens; we think it is
just when some who have done wrong are given punishments that are not meted out
to others who have done nothing wrong; and we think it is fair when those who exert
more efforts or who make a greater contribution to a project receive more benefits
from the project than others. These criteria—need, desert, contribution, and effort—
we acknowledge as justifying differential treatment, then, are numerous.

On the other hand, there are also criteria that we believe are not justifiable
grounds for giving people different treatment. In the world of work, for example, we
generally hold that it is unjust to give individuals special treatment on the basis of
age, sex, race, or their religious preferences. If the judge's nephew receives a
suspended sentence for armed robbery when another offender unrelated to the
judge goes to jail for the same crime, or the brother of the Director of Public Works
gets the million dollar contract to install sprinklers on the municipal golf course
despite lower bids from other contractors, we say that it's unfair. We also believe it
isn't fair when a person is punished for something over which he or she had no
control, or isn't compensated for a harm he or she suffered. 

Different Kinds of Justice

There are different kinds of justice. Distributive justice refers to the extent to which

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society's institutions ensure that benefits and burdens are distributed among
society's members in ways that are fair and just. When the institutions of a society
distribute benefits or burdens in unjust ways, there is a strong presumption that
those institutions should be changed. For example, the American institution of
slavery in the pre-civil war South was condemned as unjust because it was a glaring
case of treating people differently on the basis of race.

A second important kind of justice is retributive or corrective justice. Retributive

justice refers to the extent to which punishments are fair and just. In general,
punishments are held to be just to the extent that they take into account relevant
criteria such as the seriousness of the crime and the intent of the criminal, and
discount irrelevant criteria such as race. It would be barbarously unjust, for example,
to chop off a person's hand for stealing a dime, or to impose the death penalty on a
person who by accident and without negligence injured another party. Studies have
frequently shown that when blacks murder whites, they are much more likely to
receive death sentences than when whites murder whites or blacks murder blacks.
These studies suggest that injustice still exists in the criminal justice system in the
United States.

Yet a third important kind of justice is compensatory justice. Compensatory

justice refers to the extent to which people are fairly compensated for their injuries
by those who have injured them; just compensation is proportional to the loss
inflicted on a person. This is precisely the kind of justice that is at stake in debates
over damage to workers' health in coal mines. Some argue that mine owners should
compensate the workers whose health has been ruined. Others argue that workers
voluntarily took on this risk when they chose employment in the mines.

The foundations of justice can be traced to the notions of social stability,

interdependence, and equal dignity. As the ethicist John Rawls has pointed out, the
stability of a society—or any group, for that matter—depends upon the extent to
which the members of that society feel that they are being treated justly. When some
of society's members come to feel that they are subject to unequal treatment, the
foundations have been laid for social unrest, disturbances, and strife. The members
of a community, Rawls holds, depend on each other, and they will retain their social
unity only to the extent that their institutions are just. Moreover, as the philosopher
Immanuel Kant and others have pointed out, human beings are all equal in this
respect: they all have the same dignity, and in virtue of this dignity they deserve to
be treated as equals. Whenever individuals are treated unequally on the basis of
characteristics that are arbitrary and irrelevant, their fundamental human dignity is
violated.

Justice, then, is a central part of ethics and should be given due consideration
in our moral lives. In evaluating any moral decision, we must ask whether our actions
treat all persons equally. If not, we must determine whether the difference in

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treatment is justified: are the criteria we are using relevant to the situation at hand?
But justice is not the only principle to consider in making ethical decisions.
Sometimes principles of justice may need to be overridden in favor of other kinds of
moral claims such as rights or society's welfare. Nevertheless, justice is an expression
of our mutual recognition of each other's basic dignity, and an acknowledgement
that if we are to live together in an interdependent community we must treat each
other as equals.

Taxation

The Philippine Constitution provides us the meaning of the State as a

community of persons more or less numerous, permanently occupying a definite
portion of territory, having a government of their own to which the great body of
inhabitants render obedience, and enjoying freedom from external control. State has
four essential elements – people, territory, government, and sovereignty.

Citizenship is a term denoting membership of a citizen in a political society,

which membership implies, reciprocally, a duty of protection on the part of the state.
Citizen is a person having the title of citizenship. Citizenship is a concept that is
western in tis origin. The idea that one has is a citizen of the world started with the
cynic doctrine of rejecting all forms of theorizing and its disdain for truth. For the
cynics, the good man consists merely in living with society with oneself.

The concept of taxation

Is to enable the government to collect taxes which it collect taxes which it can
then use to provide its citizens with various services. The Philippine constitution
highlights the duties and obligations of its citizens. (Article IV se. V, III).

To contribute to the development and welfare of the stat. the development

and welfare of the state should be the concern of every citizens for he will be the first
to enjoy the benefits thereof. The citizen can contribute to the development and
welfare of the state in many ways – by paying taxes willingly and promptly, by
cooperating in its activities and projects, by patronizing local products and trades,
and by engaging in production work.

Legalized confiscation

The purpose of taxation is to finance the state, indeed the origin of tax lie in
raising money to finance war. (as what was the condition in the early times). Taxation
in its effect legalized confiscation of citizen’s money in order to pay state activities. It
means that in the modern democracy that subscribes to the rule of law, the state’s
power to confiscate clearly and unambiguously set out before our money can legally
be taken from us. The obligation to pay tax must, therefore be a legal issue because

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the state right to take it from us must be set out in law. If we truly believe in the rule
of law, these define the limit of the obligation to pay tax; there is and can be no
further residual notion of a moral obligation to pay. Indeed for anyone to suggest
that, notwithstanding the terms of the tax statute and any juridical determination on
its meaning and extent, there remain an moral obligation to pay on fair share is to
undermine the rule of law. It seeks to substitute a subjective judgement and moral
duty in circumstances where the law sys there is no legal duty.

If those

Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Development

By Saul McLeod, updated 2013

Lawrence Kohlberg (1958) agreed with Piaget's (1932) theory of moral development
in principle but wanted to develop his ideas further.

He used Piaget’s storytelling technique to tell people stories involving moral

dilemmas. In each case, he presented a choice to be considered, for example,
between the rights of some authority and the needs of some deserving individual
who is being unfairly treated.

One of the best known of Kohlberg’s (1958) stories concerns a man called Heinz who
lived somewhere in Europe. Heinz’s wife was dying from a particular type of cancer.
Doctors said a new drug might save her. The drug had been discovered by a local
chemist, and the Heinz tried desperately to buy some, but the chemist was charging
ten times the money it cost to make the drug, and this was much more than the
Heinz could afford.

Heinz could only raise half the money, even after help from family and friends. He
explained to the chemist that his wife was dying and asked if he could have the drug
cheaper or pay the rest of the money later. The chemist refused, saying that he had
discovered the drug and was going to make money from it. The husband was
desperate to save his wife, so later that night he broke into the chemist’s and stole
the drug.

Kohlberg asked a series of questions such as:

1. Should Heinz have stolen the drug?

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2. Would it change anything if Heinz did not love his wife?

3. What if the person dying was a stranger, would it make any difference?

4. Should the police arrest the chemist for murder if the woman died?

By studying the answers from children of different ages to these questions, Kohlberg
hoped to discover how moral reasoning changed as people grew older. The sample
comprised 72 Chicago boys aged 10–16 years, 58 of whom were followed up at
three-yearly intervals for 20 years (Kohlberg, 1984).

Each boy was given a 2-hour interview based on the ten dilemmas. What Kohlberg
was mainly interested in was not whether the boys judged the action right or wrong,
but the reasons given for the decision. He found that these reasons tended to
change as the children got older.

He identified three distinct levels of moral reasoning each with two sub-stages.
People can only pass through these levels in the order listed. Each new stage
replaces the reasoning typical of the earlier stage. Not everyone achieves all the
stages.

Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Development

Level 1 - Pre-conventional morality

At the pre-conventional level (most nine-year-olds and younger, some over nine), we
don’t have a personal code of morality. Instead, our moral code is shaped by the
standards of adults and the consequences of following or breaking their rules.

Authority is outside the individual and reasoning is based on the physical

consequences of actions.

• Stage 1. Obedience and Punishment Orientation. The child/individual is good in

order to avoid being punished. If a person is punished, they must have done wrong.

• Stage 2. Individualism and Exchange. At this stage, children recognize that there is
not just one right view that is handed down by the authorities. Different individuals
have different viewpoints.

Level 2 - Conventional morality

At the conventional level (most adolescents and adults), we begin to internalize the
moral standards of valued adult role models.

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Authority is internalized but not questioned, and reasoning is based on the norms of
the group to which the person belongs.

• Stage 3. Good Interpersonal Relationships. The child/individual is good in order to

be seen as being a good person by others. Therefore, answers relate to the approval
of others.

• Stage 4. Maintaining the Social Order. The child/individual becomes aware of the
wider rules of society, so judgments concern obeying the rules in order to uphold the
law and to avoid guilt.

Level 3 - Post-conventional morality

Individual judgment is based on self-chosen principles, and moral reasoning is based

on individual rights and justice. According to Kohlberg this level of moral reasoning
is as far as most people get.

Only 10-15% are capable of the kind of abstract thinking necessary for stage 5 or 6
(post-conventional morality). That is to say, most people take their moral views from
those around them and only a minority think through ethical principles for
themselves.

• Stage 5. Social Contract and Individual Rights. The child/individual becomes aware
that while rules/laws might exist for the good of the greatest number, there are times
when they will work against the interest of particular individuals.

The issues are not always clear-cut. For example, in Heinz’s dilemma, the protection
of life is more important than breaking the law against stealing.

• Stage 6. Universal Principles. People at this stage have developed their own set of
moral guidelines which may or may not fit the law. The principles apply to everyone.

E.g., human rights, justice, and equality. The person will be prepared to act to defend
these principles even if it means going against the rest of society in the process and
having to pay the consequences of disapproval and or imprisonment. Kohlberg
doubted few people reached this stage.

Problems with Kohlberg's Methods

1. The dilemmas are artificial (i.e., they lack ecological validity)

Most of the dilemmas are unfamiliar to most people (Rosen, 1980). For example, it is
all very well in the Heinz dilemma asking subjects whether Heinz should steal the
drug to save his wife.

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However, Kohlberg’s subjects were aged between 10 and 16. They have never been
married, and never been placed in a situation remotely like the one in the story. How
should they know whether Heinz should steal the drug?

2. The sample is biased

According to Gilligan (1977), because Kohlberg’s theory was based on an all-male

sample, the stages reflect a male definition of morality (it’s androcentric). Mens'
morality is based on abstract principles of law and justice, while womens' is based on
principles of compassion and care.

Further, the gender bias issue raised by Gilligan is a reminded of the significant
gender debate still present in psychology, which when ignored, can have a large
impact on the results obtained through psychological research.

3. The dilemmas are hypothetical (i.e., they are not real)

In a real situation, what course of action a person takes will have real consequences –
and sometimes very unpleasant ones for themselves. Would subjects reason in the
same way if they were placed in a real situation? We just don’t know.

The fact that Kohlberg’s theory is heavily dependent on an individual’s response to

an artificial dilemma brings a question to the validity of the results obtained through
this research. People may respond very differently to real life situations that they
find themselves in than they do with an artificial dilemma presented to them in the
comfort of a research environment.

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4. Poor research design

The way in which Kohlberg carried out his research when constructing this theory
may not have been the best way to test whether all children follow the same
sequence of stage progression. His research was cross-sectional, meaning that he
interviewed children of different ages to see what level of moral development they
were at.

A better way to see if all children follow the same order through the stages would
have been to carry out longitudinal research on the same children.

However, longitudinal research on Kohlberg’s theory has since been carried out by
Colby et al. (1983) who tested 58 male participants of Kohlberg’s original study. She
tested them six times in the span of 27 years and found support for Kohlberg’s
original conclusion, which we all pass through the stages of moral development in
the same order.

Problems with Kohlberg's Theory

1. Are there distinct stages of moral development?

Kohlberg claims that there are, but the evidence does not always support this
conclusion. For example, a person who justified a decision on the basis of principled
reasoning in one situation (post-conventional morality stage 5 or 6) would frequently
fall back on conventional reasoning (stage 3 or 4) with another story. In practice, it
seems that reasoning about right and wrong depends more upon the situation than
upon general rules.

What is more, individuals do not always progress through the stages and Rest (1979)
found that one in fourteen actually slipped backward. The evidence for distinct
stages of moral development looks very weak, and some would argue that behind
the theory is a culturally biased belief in the superiority of American values over
those of other cultures and societies.

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2. Does moral judgment match moral behavior?

Kohlberg never claimed that there would be a one to one correspondence between
thinking and acting (what we say and what we do) but he does suggest that the two
are linked. However, Bee (1994) suggests that we also need to take account of:

a) habits that people have developed over time.

b) whether people see situations as demanding their participation.

c) the costs and benefits of behaving in a particular way.

d) competing motive such as peer pressure, self-interest and so on.

Overall Bee points out that moral behavior is only partly a question of moral
reasoning. It is also to do with social factors.

3. Is justice the most fundamental moral principle?

This is Kohlberg’s view. However, Gilligan (1977) suggests that the principle of caring
for others is equally important. Furthermore, Kohlberg claims that the moral
reasoning of males has been often in advance of that of females.

Girls are often found to be at stage 3 in Kohlberg’s system (good boy-nice girl
orientation) whereas boys are more often found to be at stage 4 (Law and Order
orientation). Gilligan (p. 484) replies:

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“The very traits that have traditionally defined the goodness of women, their care for
and sensitivity to the needs of others, are those that mark them out as deficient in
moral development”.

In other words, Gilligan is claiming that there is a sex bias in Kohlberg’s theory. He
neglects the feminine voice of compassion, love, and non-violence, which is
associated with the socialization of girls.

Gilligan concluded that Kohlberg’s theory did not account for the fact that women
approach moral problems from an ‘ethics of care’, rather than an ‘ethics of justice’
perspective, which challenges some of the fundamental assumptions of Kohlberg’s
theory.

The Moral Agent: Developing Virtue as habit

How Should One Live?

Moral theories are concerned with right and wrong behavior. This subject area of
philosophy is unavoidably tied up with practical concerns about the right behavior.
However, virtue ethics changes the kind of question we ask about ethics. Where
deontology and consequentialism concern themselves with the right action, virtue
ethics is concerned with the good life and what kinds of persons we should be.
"What is the right action?" is a significantly different question to ask from "How
should I live? What kind of person should I be?" Where the first type of question
deals with specific dilemmas, the second is a question about an entire life. Instead of
asking what is the right action here and now, virtue ethics asks what kind of person
should one be in order to get it right all the time.

Whereas deontology and consequentialism are based on rules that try to give us the
right action, virtue ethics makes central use of the concept of character. The answer
to "How should one live?" is that one should live virtuously, that is, have a virtuous
character.

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b. Character and Virtue

Modern virtue ethics takes its inspiration from the Aristotelian understanding of
character and virtue. Aristotelian character is, importantly, about a state of being. It's
about having the appropriate inner states. For example, the virtue of kindness
involves the right sort of emotions and inner states with respect to our feelings
towards others. Character is also about doing. Aristotelian theory is a theory of
action, since having the virtuous inner dispositions will also involve being moved to
act in accordance with them. Realizing that kindness is the appropriate response to a
situation and feeling appropriately kindly disposed will also lead to a corresponding
attempt to act kindly.

Another distinguishing feature of virtue ethics is that character traits are stable, fixed,
and reliable dispositions. If an agent possesses the character trait of kindness, we
would expect him or her to act kindly in all sorts of situations, towards all kinds of
people, and over a long period of time, even when it is difficult to do so. A person
with a certain character can be relied upon to act consistently over a time.

It is important to recognize that moral character develops over a long period of time.
People are born with all sorts of natural tendencies. Some of these natural
tendencies will be positive, such as a placid and friendly nature, and some will be
negative, such as an irascible and jealous nature. These natural tendencies can be
encouraged and developed or discouraged and thwarted by the influences one is
exposed to when growing up. There are a number of factors that may affect one's
character development, such as one's parents, teachers, peer group, role-models,
the degree of encouragement and attention one receives, and exposure to different
situations. Our natural tendencies, the raw material we are born with, are shaped
and developed through a long and gradual process of education and habituation.

Moral education and development is a major part of virtue ethics. Moral

development, at least in its early stages, relies on the availability of good role

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models. The virtuous agent acts as a role model and the student of virtue emulates
his or her example. Initially this is a process of habituating oneself in right action.
Aristotle advises us to perform just acts because this way we become just. The
student of virtue must develop the right habits, so that he tends to perform virtuous
acts. Virtue is not itself a habit. Habituation is merely an aid to the development of
virtue, but true virtue requires choice, understanding, and knowledge. The virtuous
agent doesn't act justly merely out of an unreflective response, but has come to
recognize the value of virtue and why it is the appropriate response. Virtue is chosen
knowingly for its own sake.

The development of moral character may take a whole lifetime. But once it is firmly
established, one will act consistently, predictably and appropriately in a variety of
situations.

Vitue ethics

Virtue ethics (or aretaic ethics  /ˌærəˈteɪ.ɪk/, from Greek ἀρετή (arete))

are normative ethical theories which emphasize virtues of mind,character and sense
of honesty. Virtue ethicists discuss the nature and definition of virtues and other
related problems which focuses on the consequences of action . These include how
virtues are acquired, how they are applied in various real life contexts, and whether
they are rooted in a universal human nature or in a plurality of [Link] actually a
character trait.

Aristotelian virtue is defined in Book II of the Nicomachean Ethics as a purposive

disposition, lying in a mean and being determined by the right reason. As discussed
above, virtue is a settled disposition. It is also a purposive disposition. A virtuous
actor chooses virtuous action knowingly and for its own sake. It is not enough to act
kindly by accident, unthinkingly, or because everyone else is doing so; you must act
kindly because you recognize that this is the right way to behave. Note here that
although habituation is a tool for character development it is not equivalent to virtue;
virtue requires conscious choice and affirmation.

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Virtue "lies in a mean" because the right response to each situation is neither too
much nor too little. Virtue is the appropriate response to different situations and
different agents. The virtues are associated with feelings. For example: courage is
associated with fear, modesty is associated with the feeling of shame, and
friendliness associated with feelings about social conduct. The virtue lies in a mean
because it involves displaying the mean amount of emotion, where mean stands for
appropriate. (This does not imply that the right amount is a modest amount.
Sometimes quite a lot may be the appropriate amount of emotion to display, as in the
case of righteous indignation). The mean amount is neither too much nor too little
and is sensitive to the requirements of the person and the situation.

Finally, virtue is determined by the right reason. Virtue requires the right desire and
the right reason. To act from the wrong reason is to act viciously. On the other hand,
the agent can try to act from the right reason, but fail because he or she has the
wrong desire. The virtuous agent acts effortlessly, perceives the right reason, has
the harmonious right desire, and has an inner state of virtue that flows smoothly into
action. The virtuous agent can act as an exemplar of virtue to others.

It is important to recognize that this is a perfunctory account of ideas that are

developed in great detail in Aristotle. They are related briefly here as they have been
central to virtue ethics' claim to put forward a unique and rival account to other
normative theories. Modern virtue ethicists have developed their theories around a
central role for character and virtue and claim that this gives them a unique
understanding of morality. The emphasis on character development and the role of
the emotions allows virtue ethics to have a plausible account of moral psychology---
which is lacking in deontology and consequentialism. Virtue ethics can avoid the
problematic concepts of duty and obligation in favor of the rich concept of virtue.
Judgments of virtue are judgments of a whole life rather than of one isolated action.

Habit

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In many discussions, the word "habit" is attached to the Ethics as though it were the
answer to a multiple-choice question on a philosophy achievement test. Hobbes'
Leviathan? Self-preservation. Descartes' Meditations? Mind-body problem.
Aristotle's Ethics? Habit. A faculty seminar I attended a few years ago was mired in
the opinion that Aristotle thinks the good life is one of mindless routine. More
recently, I heard a lecture in which some very good things were said about Aristotle's
discussion of choice, yet the speaker still criticized him for praising habit when so
much that is important in life depends on openness and spontaneity. Can it really be
that Aristotle thought life is lived best when thinking and choosing are eliminated?

On its face this belief makes no sense. It is partly a confusion between an effect and
one of its causes. Aristotle says that, for the way our lives turn out, "it makes no
small difference to be habituated this way or that way straight from childhood, but an
enormous difference, or rather all the difference." (1103b, 23-5) Is this not the same
as saying those lives are nothing but collections of habits? If this is what sticks in
your memory, and leads you to that conclusion, then the cure is easy, since habits
are not the only effects of habituation, and a thing that makes all the difference is
indispensable but not necessarily the only cause of what it produces.

We will work through this thought in a moment, but first we need to notice that
another kind of influence may be at work when you recall what Aristotle says about
habit, and another kind of medicine may be needed against it. Are you thinking that
no matter how we analyze the effects of habituation, we will never get around the
fact that Aristotle plainly says that virtues are habits? The reply to that difficulty is
that he doesn't say that at all. He says that moral virtue is a hexis. Hippocrates
Apostle, and others, translate hexis as habit, but that is not at all what it means. The
trouble, as so often in these matters, is the intrusion of Latin. The Latin habitus is a
perfectly good translation of the Greek hexis, but if that detour gets us to habit in
English we have lost our way. In fact, a hexisis pretty much the opposite of a habit.

The word hexis becomes an issue in Plato's Theaetetus. Socrates makes the point
that knowledge can never be a mere passive possession, stored in the memory the
way birds can be put in cages. The word for that sort of possession, ktÎsis, is
contrasted with hexis, the kind of having-and-holding that is never passive but

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always at work right now. Socrates thus suggests that, whatever knowledge is, it
must have the character of a hexis in requiring the effort of concentrating or paying
attention. A hexis is an active condition, a state in which something must actively
hold itself, and that is what Aristotle says a moral virtue is.

Some translators make Aristotle say that virtue is a disposition, or a settled

disposition. This is much better than calling it a "habit," but still sounds too passive to
capture his meaning. In De Anima, when Aristotle speaks of the effect produced in
us by an object of sense perception, he says this is not a disposition (diathesis) but a
hexis. (417b, 15-17) His whole account of sensing and knowing depends on this
notion that receptivity to what is outside us depends on an active effort to hold
ourselves ready. In Book VII of the Physics, Aristotle says much the same thing
about the way children start to learn: they are not changed, he says, nor are they
trained or even acted upon in any way, but they themselves get straight into an
active state when time or adults help them settle down out of their native condition of
disorder and distraction. (247b, 17-248a, 6) Curtis Wilson once delivered a lecture at
St. John's College, in which he asked his audience to imagine what it would be like if
we had to teach children to speak by deliberately and explicitly imparting everything
they had to do. We somehow set them free to speak, and give them a particular
language to do it in, but they--Mr. Wilson called them "little geniuses"--they do all the
work.

Everyone at St. John's has thought about the kind of learning that does not depend
on the authority of the teacher and the memory of the learner. In the Meno it is called
"recollection." Aristotle says that it is an active knowing that is always already at work
in us. In Plato's image we draw knowledge up out of ourselves; in Aristotle's
metaphor we settle down into knowing. In neither account is it possible for anyone to
train us, as Gorgias has habituated Meno into the mannerisms of a knower. Habits
can be strong but they never go deep. Authentic knowledge does engage the soul in
its depths, and with this sort of knowing Aristotle links virtue. In the passage cited
from Book VII of the Physics, he says that, like knowledge, virtues are not imposed
on us as alterations of what we are; that would be, he says, like saying we alter a
house when we put a roof on it. In the Categories, knowledge and virtue are the two

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examples he gives of what hexis means (8b, 29); there he says that these active
states belong in the general class of dispositions, but are distinguished by being
lasting and durable. The word "disposition" by itself he reserves for more passive
states, easy to remove and change, such as heat, cold, and sickness.

In the Ethics, Aristotle identifies moral virtue as a hexis in Book II, chapter 4. He
confirms this identity by reviewing the kinds of things that are in the soul, and
eliminating the feelings and impulses to which we are passive and the capacities we
have by nature, but he first discovers what sort of thing a virtue is by observing that
the goodness is never in the action but only in the doer. This is an enormous claim
that pervades the whole of the Ethics, and one that we need to stay attentive to. No
action is good or just or courageous because of any quality in itself. Virtue manifests
itself in action, Aristotle says, only when one acts while holding oneself in a certain
way. This is where the word hexis comes into the account, from pÙs echÙn, the
stance in which one holds oneself when acting. The indefinite adverb is immediately
explained: an action counts as virtuous when and only when one holds oneself in a
stable equilibrium of the soul, in order to choose the action knowingly and for its own
sake. I am translating as "in a stable equilibrium" the words bebaiÙs kai
ametakinÍtÙs; the first of these adverbs means stably or after having taken a stand,
while the second does not mean rigid or immovable, but in a condition from which
one can't be moved all the way over into a different condition. It is not some inflexible
adherence to rules or duty or precedent that is conveyed here, but something like a
Newton's wheel weighted below the center, or one of those toys that pops back
upright whenever a child knocks it over.

This stable equilibrium of the soul is what we mean by having character. It is not the
result of what we call "conditioning." There is a story told about B. F. Skinner, the
psychologist most associated with the idea of behavior modification, that a class of
his once trained him to lecture always from one corner of the room, by smiling and
nodding whenever he approached it, but frowning and faintly shaking their heads
when he moved away from it. That is the way we acquire habits. We slip into them
unawares, or let them be imposed on us, or even impose them on ourselves. A
person with ever so many habits may still have no character. Habits make for

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repetitive and predictable behavior, but character gives moral equilibrium to a life.
The difference is between a foolish consistency wholly confined to the level of acting,
and a reliability in that part of us from which actions have their source. Different as
they are, though, character and habit sound to us like things that are linked, and in
Greek they differ only by the change of an epsilon to an eta, making Íthos from ethos

We are finally back to Aristotle's claim that character, Íthos, is produced by habit,
ethos. It should now be clear though, that the habit cannot be any part of that
character, and that we must try to understand how an active condition can arise as a
consequence of a passive one, and why that active condition can only be attained if
the passive one has come first. So far we have arranged three notions in a series,
like rungs of a ladder: at the top are actives states, such as knowledge, the moral
virtues, and the combination of virtues that makes up a character; the middle rung,
the mere dispositions, we have mentioned only in passing to claim that they are too
shallow and changeable to capture the meaning of virtue; the bottom rung is the
place of the habits, and includes biting your nails, twisting your hair, saying "like"
between every two words, and all such passive and mindless conditions. What we
need to notice now is that there is yet another rung of the ladder below the habits.

We all start out life governed by desires and impulses. Unlike the habits, which are
passive but lasting conditions, desires and impulses are passive and momentary, but
they are very strong. Listen to a child who can't live without some object of appetite
or greed, or who makes you think you are a murderer if you try to leave her alone in
a dark room. How can such powerful influences be overcome? To expect a child to
let go of the desire or fear that grips her may seem as hopeless as Aristotle's
example of training a stone to fall upward, were it not for the fact that we all know
that we have somehow, for the most part, broken the power of these tyrannical
feelings. We don't expel them altogether, but we do get the upper hand; an adult
who has temper tantrums like those of a two-year old has to live in an institution, and
not in the adult world. But the impulses and desires don't weaken; it is rather the
case that we get stronger.

Aristotle doesn't go into much detail about how this happens, except to say that we
get the virtues by working at them: in the give-and-take with other people, some
become just, others unjust; by acting in the face of frightening things and being

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habituated to be fearful or confident, some become brave and others cowardly; and
some become moderate and gentle, others spoiled and bad-tempered, by turning
around from one thing and toward another in the midst of desires and passions.
(1103 b, 1422) He sums this up by saying that when we are at-work in a certain way,
an active state results. This innocent sentence seems to me to be one of the lynch-
pins that hold together the Ethics, the spot that marks the transition from the
language of habit to the language appropriate to character. If you read the sentence
in Greek, and have some experience of Aristotle's other writings, you will see how
loaded it is, since it says that a hexis depends upon an energeia. The latter word,
that can be translated as being-at-work, cannot mean mere behavior, however
repetitive and constant it may be. It is this idea of being-at-work, which is central to
all of Aristotle's thinking, that makes intelligible the transition out of childhood and
into the moral stature that comes with character and virtue. (See Aristotle on Motion
and its Place in Nature for as discussion energeia.)

The moral life can be confused with the habits approved by some society and
imposed on its young. We at St. John's College still stand up at the beginning and
end of Friday-night lectures because Stringfellow Barr -- one of the founders of the
current curriculum -- always stood when anyone entered or left a room. What he
considered good breeding is for us mere habit; that becomes obvious when some
student who stood up at the beginning of a lecture occasionally gets bored and
leaves in the middle of it. In such a case the politeness was just for show, and the
rudeness is the truth. Why isn't all habituation of the young of this sort? When a
parent makes a child repeatedly refrain from some desired thing, or remain in some
frightening situation, the child is beginning to act as a moderate or brave person
would act, but what is really going on within the child? I used to think that it must be
the parent's approval that was becoming stronger than the child's own impulse, but I
was persuaded by others in a study group that this alone would be of no lasting
value, and would contribute nothing to the formation of an active state of character.
What seems more likely is that parental training is needed only for its negative effect,
as a way of neutralizing the irrational force of impulses and desires. We all arrive on
the scene already habituated, in the habit, that is, of yielding to impulses and
desires, of instantly slackening the tension of pain or fear or unfulfilled desire in any
way open to us, and all this has become automatic in us before thinking and

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choosing are available to us at all. This is a description of what is called "human

nature," though in fact it precedes our access to our true natural state, and blocks
that access. This is why Aristotle says that "the virtues come about in us neither by
nature nor apart from nature" (1103a, 24-5). What we call "human nature," and some
philosophers call the "state of nature," is both natural and unnatural; it is the passive
part of our natures, passively reinforced by habit. Virtue has the aspect of a second
nature, because it cannot develop first, nor by a continuous process out of our first
condition. But it is only in the moral virtues that we possess our primary nature, that
in which all our capacities can have their full development. The sign of what is
natural, for Aristotle, is pleasure, but we have to know how to read the signs. Things
pleasant by nature have no opposite pain and no excess, because they set us free to
act simply as what we are (1154b, 15-21), and it is in this sense that Aristotle calls
the life of virtue pleasant in its own right, in itself (1099a, 6-7, 16-17). A mere habit of
acting contrary to our inclinations cannot be a virtue, by the infallible sign that we
don't like it.

Our first or childish nature is never eradicated, though, and this is why Aristotle says
that our nature is not simple, but also has in it something different that makes our
happiness assailable from within, and makes us love change even when it is for the
worse. (1154b, 21-32) But our souls are brought nearest to harmony and into the
most durable pleasures only by the moral virtues. And the road to these virtues is
nothing fancy, but is simply what all parents begin to do who withhold some desired
thing from a child, or prevent it from running away from every irrational source of
fear. They make the child act, without virtue, as though it had virtue. It is what
Hamlet describes to his mother, during a time that is out of joint, when a son must try
to train his parent (III, Ìv,181-9):

Assume a virtue if you have it not.

That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat

Of habits evil, is angel yet in this,

That to the use of actions fair and good

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He likewise gives a frock or livery,

That aptly is put on. Refrain tonight,

And that shall lend a kind of easiness

To the next abstinence; the next more easy;

For use almost can change the stamp of nature...

Hamlet is talking to a middle-aged woman about lust, but the pattern applies just as
well to five-year-olds and candy. We are in a position to see that it is not the stamp of
nature that needs to be changed but the earliest stamp of habit. We can drop
Hamlet's "almost" and rid his last quoted line of all paradox by seeing that the reason
we need habit is to change the stamp of habit. A habit of yielding to impulse can be
counteracted by an equal and opposite habit. This second habit is no virtue, but only
a mindless inhibition, an automatic repressing of all impulses. Nor do the two
opposite habits together produce virtue, but rather a state of neutrality. Something
must step into the role previously played by habit, and Aristotle's use of the word
energeia suggests that this happens on its own, with no need for anything new to be
imposed. Habituation thus does not stifle nature, but rather lets nature make its
appearance. The description from Book VII of the Physics of the way children begin
to learn applies equally well to the way human character begins to be formed: we
settle down, out of the turmoil of childishness, into what we are by nature.

We noticed earlier that habituation is not the end but the beginning of the progress
toward virtue. The order of states of the soul given by Aristotle went from habit to
being-at-work to the hexis or active state that can give the soul moral stature. If the
human soul had no being-at-work, no inherent and indelible activity, there could be
no such moral stature, but only customs. But early on, when first trying to give
content to the idea of happiness, Aristotle asks if it would make sense to think that a
carpenter or shoemaker has work to do, but a human being as such is inert. His
reply, of course, is that nature has given us work to do, in default of which we are
necessarily unhappy, and that work is to put into action the power of reason. (1097b,
24-1098a, 4) Note please that he does not say that everyone must be a philosopher,
nor even that human life is constituted by the activity of reason, but that our work is
to bring the power of logos forward into action. Later, Aristotle makes explicit that the

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irrational impulses are no less human than reasoning is. (1111 b, 1-2) His point is
that, as human beings, our desires need not be mindless and random, but can be
transformed by thinking into choices, that is desires informed by deliberation. (1113a,
11) The characteristic human way of being-at-work is the threefold activity of seeing
an end, thinking about means to it, and choosing an action. Responsible human
action depends upon the combining of all the powers of the soul: perception,
imagination, reasoning, and desiring. These are all things that are at work in us all
the time. Good parental training does not produce them, or mold them, or alter them,
but sets them free to be effective in action. This is the way in which, according to
Aristotle, despite the contributions of parents, society, and nature, we are the co-
authors of the active states of our own souls (1114b, 23-4).

Virtue

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, c. 350 B.C.

A virtue is a moral habit which generally results in the gaining or maintaining of your
values. Your values are based on your moral standard which should be your own
life. Virtues are pre-thought out methods for achieving your values. This means that
with rational virtues, acting virtuous leads to a happy and successful life. This is very
different from the traditional mystical view that there is some "good" out there which
is opposed to your natural tendencies and you constantly have to choose between
what you want and what is "good". There is no choice to be made between some
"mystical good" and your own life, morality is not a limit on action. What is "good" is
actually that which is in your rational self-interest -- there is no conflict.

It is important to keep in mind that virtues are not absolutes. Or, put another way,
they are contextually absolute. They are not to be followed blindly and dogmatically.
Virtues only apply within the context in which they were formulated. To understand
the context and when a virtue applies is why you must understand the "why" behind
the "what" of each principle. When it is not clear whether a virtue applies or how to
apply it, you must fall back onto your ultimate standard of value, your life, to guide
your actions.

Nicomachean Ethics: Books I to IV

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Scholars do not agree on where the name for the Nicomachean Ethics comes from.
Both Aristotle’s father and his son were named Nicomachus, so it is possible that the
book is dedicated to either one. Other scholars suggest that Aristotle’s son may have
edited the book after Aristotle died, so that the title “Nicomachean” may refer to this
particular edition of Aristotle’s ethical works.

Summary

Happiness is the highest good and the end at which all our activities ultimately aim.
All our activities aim at some end, though most of these ends are means toward
other ends. For example, we go grocery shopping to buy food, but buying food is
itself a means toward the end of eating well and thriftily. Eating well and thriftily is
also not an end in itself but a means to other ends. Only happiness is an end in itself,
so it is the ultimate end at which all our activities aim. As such, it is the supreme
good. The difficulty is that people don’t agree on what makes for a happy or good
life, so the purpose of the Ethics is to find an answer to this question. By its nature,
the investigation is imprecise because there are so many variables involved when
considering a person’s life as a whole. Aristotle defines the supreme good as an
activity of the rational soul in accordance with virtue. Virtue for the Greeks is
equivalent to excellence. A man has virtue as a flautist, for instance, if he plays the
flute well, since playing the flute is the distinctive activity of a flautist. A virtuous
person is someone who performs the distinctive activity of being human well.
Rationality is our distinctive activity, that is, the activity that distinguishes us from
plants and animals. All living things have a nutritive soul, which governs growth and
nutrition. Humans and animals are distinct from plants in having a sensitive soul,
which governs locomotion and instinct. Humans are distinct above all for having also
a rational soul, which governs thought. Since our rationality is our distinctive activity,
its exercise is the supreme good.

Aristotle defines moral virtue as a disposition to behave in the right manner and as a
mean between extremes of deficiency and excess, which are vices. We learn moral
virtue primarily through habit and practice rather than through reasoning and
instruction. Virtue is a matter of having the appropriate attitude toward pain and
pleasure. For example, a coward will suffer undue fear in the face of danger,

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whereas a rash person will not suffer sufficient fear. Aristotle lists the principle virtues
along with their corresponding vices, as represented in the following table. A virtuous
person exhibits all of the virtues: they do not properly exist as distinct qualities but
rather as different aspects of a virtuous life.

We can only be held responsible for actions we perform voluntarily and not for cases
involving physical compulsion or unavoidable ignorance. The best measure of moral
judgment is choice, since choices are always made voluntarily by means of rational
deliberation. We always choose to aim at the good, but people are often ignorant of
what is good and so aim at some apparent good instead, which is in fact a vice.

Analysis

The Nicomachean Ethics advances an understanding of ethics known as virtue

ethics because of its heavy reliance on the concept of virtue. The word we translate
as virtue is aretê, and it could equally be translated as “excellence.” Something has
aretê if it performs its function well. A good horseman, for example, has the aretê of
being good at handling horses, and a good knife has the aretê of sharpness. For the
Greeks, moral virtue is not essentially different from these other kinds of excellence.
The Greeks do not have a distinctive concept of morality like we do, which carries
associations of sanctity or duty. Moral virtue is simply a matter of performing well in
the function of being human. For the Greeks, the motivation for being good is not
based in a divine legislator or a set of moral dos and don’ts but rather in the same
kind of striving after excellence that might make an athlete train hard. The Greek
word ethos, from which we derive the word ethics, literally means “character,” and
Aristotle’s goal is to describe what qualities constitute an excellent character.

The important lesson to draw from Aristotle’s Doctrine of the Mean is that virtue
consists of finding an appropriate middle ground between two extremes. As such,
each virtue has not one opposite but two. The opposite of courage is both cowardice
and rashness, for example. This idea that there are two opposites for every virtue
goes against much of the received wisdom of Aristotle’s time, including Plato’s
writings on virtue. It also emphasizes the importance of moderation: we achieve
virtue by finding a middle ground, not by aiming for an extreme. Where exactly this
middle ground lies, however, is less obvious. Aristotle repeats a number of times that
his table presents only a rough approximation and that virtues lie closer to one vice

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than another to different extents for different people. The Table of Virtues just
presented is not intended as a set of exact rules. On the contrary, Aristotle argues
that a truly virtuous person will naturally be inclined to behave appropriately and will
have no need of rules.

Aristotle is clear that we arrive at moral virtue primarily through practice and that the
value of studying ethical texts such as the one he has written is limited. This view
makes sense when we consider that moral virtue is not essentially different from
other forms of excellence as far as the Greeks are concerned. If we want to achieve
excellence in rock climbing, for instance, it helps to study texts that show us how to
improve our technique, but we can’t make any significant improvements except by
getting on a rock wall and practicing. Analogously, it helps to read texts like the
Nicomachean Ethics to get a clearer understanding of moral virtue, but the only way
to become more virtuous is through practice. We can only become more courageous
by making a point of facing down our fears, and we can only become more patient by
making a habit of controlling our anger. Since practice, not study, is the key to
becoming virtuous, Aristotle takes a strong interest in the education of the young. He
perceives that there is only so much we can do to improve a nasty adult, and we can
more easily mold virtuous youths by instilling the proper habits in them from a young
age.

Aristotle calls happiness an “activity,” which distinguishes his conception of

happiness both from our modern conception of happiness and from virtue, which
Aristotle calls a “disposition.” We tend to think of happiness as an emotional state
and hence as something we are, rather than as something we do. The Greek word
generally translated as “happiness” is eudaimonia, and it can equally be rendered as
“success” or “flourishing.” People who are eudaimon are not in a particular emotional
state so much as they are living successfully. While happiness is the activity of living
well, virtue represents the potential to live well. Excelling in all the moral virtues is
fine and good, but it doesn’t ensure our happiness unless we exercise those virtues.
Courageous people who never test their courage by facing down fear have virtue,
but they are not happy. Aristotle illustrates this distinction between happiness and
virtue by saying that the best athletes only win at the Olympic Games if they
compete. A virtuous person who does not exercise virtue is like an athlete who sits

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on the sideline and watches. Aristotle has a proactive conception of the good life:
happiness waits only for those who go out and seize it.

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