Basic theories as

Frameworks in Ethics
Module 6
⚫ Metaethics is the attempt to understand
the metaphysical, epistemological,
semantic, and psychological,
presuppositions and commitments of
moral thought, talk, and practice.

Introduction
⚫ As such, it counts within its domain a broad
range of questions and puzzles, including:
⚫ Is morality more a matter of taste than
truth?
⚫ Are moral standards culturally relative?
⚫ Are there moral facts?
⚫ If there are moral facts, what is their origin?
⚫ These questions lead naturally to puzzles
about the meaning of moral claims as well as
about moral truth and the justification of our
moral commitments.

Introduction
⚫ Metaethics explores as well the
connection between values, reasons for
action, and human motivation, asking
how it is that moral standards might
provide us with reasons to do or refrain
from doing as it demands, and it
addresses many of the issues commonly
bound up with the nature of freedom and
its significance (or not) for moral
responsibility.

Introduction
⚫ After studying this module, you should be
able to:
◦ Understand what are the theories
involved in ethics.
◦ Identifying the different ethical
theories of famous philosophers.
◦ Measure the effectiveness of the
following theories in real life situation

Learning Objectives
⚫ Frameworks
-Basic structure underlying a system
or concept.

Topics and Key Concepts

General Subject Area
in Ethics
⚫ Metaethics is the study of moral thought and
moral language.
⚫ Rather than addressing questions about what
practices are right and wrong, and what our
obligations to other people or future generations
are – questions of so-called ‘normative’ ethics –
metaethics asks what morality actually is.
⚫ The metaethicist is interested in whether there
can be knowledge of moral truths, or only moral
feelings and attitudes, and asks how we
understand moral discourse as compared with
other forms of speech and writing.

Metaethics
⚫ States that moral judgments convey
propositions, that is, they are ‘truth
bearers’ or they are either true or false.
⚫ Thus, moral judgments are capable of
being objectively true, because they
describe some feature of the world

Cognitivism
⚫ The existence of moral facts and the
truth(or falsity) of moral judgments are
independent of people’s thoughts and
perception

a. Moral realism
⚫ Holds that the truth(or falsity) of ethical
propositions are dependent on the
attitudes or standards of a person or
group of person

b. Ethical Subjectivism
⚫ Denies that the moral judgment are
either true or false

Non-Cognitivism
⚫ it submits that moral judgment are mere expressions of our
emotions and feelings.

Emotivism
⚫ Theorizes that moral facts and principles
apply to everybody in all places

Universalism/Moral Objectivism
⚫ Submits that different moral facts and
principles apply to different persons or
group of individuals

Moral Relativism
Moral Empiricism Vs.
Rationalism Vs.
Intuitionism
⚫ Is a meta-ethical stance which states that
moral facts are known through
observation and experience

Moral Empiricism
⚫ Contends that moral facts and principles
are knowable a priori, that is, by reason
alone and without reference to
experience.

Moral Rationalism
⚫ Submits that moral truths are knowable
by intuition, that is, by immediate
instinctive knowledge without reference
to any evidence.

Moral Intuitionism
⚫ Is the branch of ethics that studies how
man ought to act, morally speaking

Normative Ethics
⚫ Is the branch of ethics that studies how
man ought to act, morally speaking.

Deontology
⚫ Is a type of normative ethical theory that
denies that the rightness or wrongness of
our conduct is determined solely by the
goodness or badness of the
consequences of our acts or of the rules
to which those acts conform.

Nonconsequentialism
⚫ Refers to moral system that determines
the moral value of actions by their
outcomes or results.

Teleology
⚫ Philosophically examines specific,
controversial issues.
⚫ Refers to the practical application of
moral considerations.
⚫ It is ethics with respect to real-world
actions and their moral considerations in
the areas of private and public life, the
professions, health, technology, law, and
leadership.

Applied Ethics
Various Subfields in
Applied Ethics
⚫ the study of typically controversial ethics
brought about by advances in biology
and medicine

Bioethics
⚫ he discipline in philosophy that studies
the moral relationship of human beings
to, and also the value and moral status of,
the environment and its non-human
contents.

Environmental ethics
⚫ it's coming to know what it right or
wrong in the workplace and doing what's
right -- this is in regard to effects of
products/services and in relationships
with stakeholders.

Business ethics
⚫ like bioethics generally, sexual ethics
considers standards for intervention in
physical processes, rights of individuals
to self-determination, ideals for human
flourishing, and the importance of social
context for the interpretation and
regulation of sexual behavior.

Sexual ethics
⚫ social ethics thus has to do with the
principles and guidelines that regulate
corporate welfare within a society,
specifically with regard to determining
what is deemed right and just and noble.

Social ethics
⚫ Virtue
⚫ Is a moral characteristic that an
individual needs to live well.
⚫ It is an excellent trait of character.

Virtue ethics
⚫ is a philosophy developed by Aristotle
and other ancient Greeks.
⚫ It is the quest to understand and live a
life of moral character.
⚫ This character-based approach to
morality assumes that we acquire virtue
through practice.

Virtue ethics
⚫ is a broad term for theories that
emphasize the role of character and
virtue in moral philosophy rather than
either doing one’s duty or acting in order
to bring about good consequences.

virtue ethics
⚫ Basically, the virtues are the freely
chosen character traits that people praise
in others.
⚫ People praise them because:
⚫ (1) they are difficult to develop;
⚫ (2) they are corrective of natural
deficiencies; and
⚫ (3) they are beneficial both to self and
society.

Virtue Ethics
⚫ Wisdom- expert knowledge in the
fundamental pragmatics of life that permits
exceptional insight, judgment, and advice
about complex and uncertain matters.
⚫ Courage- the ability to control your fear in
a dangerous or difficult situation.
⚫ Moderation- the avoidance of excess or
extremes, especially in one's behaviour.
⚫ Justice- justice consists in what is lawful and
fair, with fairness involving equitable
distributions and the correction of what is
inequitable.

Cardinal Virtues
Socrates and Plato’s
Moral Philosophy
⚫ Like most other ancient philosophers,
Plato maintains a virtue-based
eudaemonistic conception of ethics.
⚫ That is to say, happiness or well-being
(eudaimonia) is the highest aim of moral
thought and conduct, and the virtues
(aretê: ‘excellence’) are the requisite
skills and dispositions needed to attain it.

Plato
⚫ The ulrimate aim of Socrates’
philosophical method is always ethical.
⚫ Socrates believed that if anyone knows
what good is, one will always do what is
good.
⚫ Thus if one truly understands the
meaning of courage, self-control, or
justice, one will act in a courageous, self-
controlled and just manner.

Socrates
⚫ The outcomes to this view is that all vice,
then, must be due to ignorance.
⚫ Nobody, he believes, knowingly does what is
wrong: they always think that what they are
doing is right.
⚫ Can you imagine someone saying, for
example,
◦ “ I know that this act is completely wrong and
totally wicked, but I am going to do it anyway”.
◦ In fact, even the person who performs the most
heinous acts imaginable always thinks that he is
doing them for some good reason.

Socrates
◦ it focuses on happiness(eudaimonia), or the
good for man, and how to obtain it.

Eudemian/Eudaimonistic Ethics
⚫ When someone acts in line with his
nature or end(telos) and thus realizes his
full potential, he does moral and will be
happy.

Self-realization
⚫ Aristotle believe that the essence or
essential nature of beings, including
humans, lay not at their cause or
beginning but at their end (telos).

⚫ The essence or ‘telos’ of human being is

rationality and, thus, a life of
contemplation is the best kind of life for
true human flourishing.

Aristotle’s Telos
⚫ All humans seek happiness, but in
different ways.
⚫ True happiness is tied to the purpose or
end of human life.
⚫ The essence of human beings is Reason.
⚫ Reason employed in achieving happiness
leads to moral virtues and intellectual
virtues

Nicomachean Ethics
⚫ The ultimate human goal is Self-
realization

Happiness and Virtue

⚫ Vegetable/Physical
⚫ Animal/Emotional
⚫ Rational/Mental

Nature of Man
⚫ Living in accordance with reason is
viewed as vital in self-realization or
developing one’s potential.
⚫ Aristotle also considers happiness as the
summum bonum - the greatest good of
all human life.

Aristotle
⚫ Aristotle’s idea of happiness should also
be understood in the sense of human
flourishing.
⚫ This flourishing is attained by the
habitual practice of moral and
intellectual excellences, or ‘virtues’.
⚫ The virtuous person, who has good
character, sees truly, judges rightly, and
acts morally.

Virtue as Habit
⚫ Acting in a reasonable manner is done when
we choose to and indeed act in a way that
neither goes to excess nor defect.
⚫ Excess and defect normally indicate a vice.
⚫ Virtue lies neither in the vice of deficiency
nor in the vice of excess but in the middle
ground.
⚫ According to Aristotle, Moral behavior is the
mean between two extremes - at one end is
excess, at the other deficiency.
⚫ Find a moderate position between those two
extremes, and you will be acting morally.

Virtue and the Golden Mean

⚫ In using golden mean to become virtuous,
we must recognize not only that the
mean is neither too much nor too little
but also it is ‘relative to us’ as moral
agents.

Phronesis and Practice

⚫ Is a grasp of the appropriate way to
respond in a particular situation and to
describe practical wisdom (phronesis)
and thoughtful, practical doing (praxis).

Phronesis
⚫ According to him the ultimate happiness
is not attainable in this life, for happiness
in the present life remains imperfect.
⚫ True happiness, then, is to be found only
in the souls of the blessed in heaven or in
beatitude with God.

Thomas Aquianas’ Ethics

⚫ The term ‘law’ means ordinance of reason for
the common good, promulgated by someone
who has care of the community.
⚫ Aquinas’ laws should also be understood in
terms of “rules and measures” for people’s
conduct and as “rational patterns or forms”.
Obedience to the law is thus viewed also as
participating in or being in conformity with
the pattern or form.
⚫ For Aquinas, there are four primary types of
law—the eternal, natural, human, and divine.

Thomas Aquinas
⚫ Eternal Law
◦ Refers to the rational plan of God by which all
creation is ordered.
◦ To this eternal law, everything in the universe
is subject.

4 Primary Types of Law

⚫ Is that aspect of the eternal law which is
accessible to human reason.

Natural Law
⚫ the order to which people are subject by
their nature ordering them to do good or
avoid evil.

Moral law
● It includes the civil and criminal laws, though
only those formulated in the light of practical
reason and moral laws.
● Human laws that are against natural law are
not real laws, and people are not obliged to
obey those unjust laws.

Human Law
● It is a law of revelation, disclosed through
sacred text or Scripture and the Church
which is also directed toward man’s eternal
end.

Divine Law
⚫ It is the innate principle in the moral
consciousness of every person which directs
the agent to good and restrains him from
evil.
⚫ Aquinas describes synderesis as a knowledge
of first principles or an innate habit of
thinking.
⚫ It is a form of a priori reasoning.
⚫ Synderesis cannot be mistaken.
⚫ It produces discernment of the first practical
principles, or primary precepts.

Synderesis
⚫ We have an innate desire to "do good
and avoid evil", which sums up in a
general sense the more specific primary
precepts:
◦ preservation of life
◦ Reproduction
◦ living in society
◦ education and
◦ worship of God.

Synderesis
⚫ To survive
⚫ To reproduce and educate offspring
⚫ To know the truth about God and to live
peacefully in the society.

Human Inclination
⚫ Species
● Also called the object of the action
● Kinds of human actions- (1)good, (2)evil
and (3)indifferent.
⚫ Accidents
● Simply refer to the circumstances
surrounding the action.
⚫ End
● Stands for the agent’s intention.

Features of Human Action

⚫ states that for an action to be moral, the
kind it belongs to must not be bad, the
circumstances must be appropriate, and
the intention must be virtuous.

Aquinas ethical theory

Happiness, Moral Virtues,
and Theological Virtues
⚫ Happiness is not equated with pleasure,
material possessions, honour, or any
sensual good, but in activities accordance
with virtue.

Happiness
⚫ Have as their object not God Himself, but
activities that are less virtuous and
inferior to the final end.

Moral Virtue
⚫ Prudence
⚫ Fortitude
⚫ Temperance
⚫ Justice

4 Basic Virtues
⚫ Acquired Habit
◦ repetitive, consistent effort
⚫ Infused Habit
◦ directly instilled by God.

2 Kinds of Habit
⚫ They provide us with true knowledge and
desire of God and of His will.
⚫ Theological Virtues
◦ Faith
◦ Hope
◦ Love

Theological Virtues
⚫ What makes you happy?
⚫ Describe it in any form of art (vlog,
poem, spoken poetry, song form, rap,
etc.).
◦ to be performed
⚫ Add a caption and describe it why.

Learning Task