GEC 7 (Ethics) – Reviewer

Introduction to Philosophy
 Definition of Philosophy
- came from 2 Greek words: philos (love) and Sophia (wisdom)
o (LOVE of WISDOM)
 Philosophy is the science of the ultimate reason of beings as acquired by the human intellect
alone.
 The term PHILOSOPHY was coined by Pythagoras (582-507 BC).
 Pythagoras identified three kinds of man: Lovers of Pleasure, Lovers of Success and the Lovers
of Wisdom as the highest form to be attained by humans.
Branches of Philosophy
 Metaphysics – comes the Greek word “metafuisca” means something that goes beyond. It is the
study of reality and existence.
 Epistemology – It is the philosophical study on the principles of human knowledge with regard to
value of human thought.
 Logic – The study of principles and methods in attaining correct and valid reasoning. Critical
thinking skills and fallacy is being explored.
 Theodicy – It is the philosophical study of God or BEING in its highest form. Existence of evil
and its problem.
 Ethics – The study of the morality and human conduct
 Cosmology – The philosophical study of the universe. Harmony, beauty and existence of things.
Relation of Ethics to other Fields of Sciences
 ETHICS AND LOGIC
- To think right ought to do right, as knowledge of right leads to the doing of right.
 ETHICS AND PSYCHOLOGY
- Psychology studies how man behaves; ethics studies how man ought to behave.
 ETHICS AND SOCIOLOGY
- Sociology deals with human relation in a society and moral order (Ethics) regulates the action
of men in a community
 ETHICS AND EDUCATION
- Education helps every learner to create a better, ethical, and moral life.
 ETHICS AND LAW
- Laws are restatements and interpretations of an action in becoming a morally good person.
 ETHICS AND POLITICS
- Politics aims a good government that serves the welfare of its constituents, ethics helps every
politician, as it should be, to become a better and morally good leader.
CONCEPT OF HUMAN ACT
THE HUMAN ACTS
The concept of a human act is central to various philosophical and ethical frameworks. It generally refers
to a voluntary action performed by a human being, as opposed to involuntary or involuntary actions. A
human act is characterized by several key elements:
1. Knowledge: The individual must be aware of their action, its nature, and its consequences. They must
have knowledge of the act itself, its object, and its circumstances.
2. Freedom: The individual must have the ability to choose to perform or not perform the action. They
must be free from external coercion or internal compulsion that would significantly limit their choices.
3. Voluntariness: The individual must willingly choose to perform the action, without being influenced by
undue external pressures or internal impulses.
4. Responsibility: The individual is accountable for their actions and their consequences. They are
morally responsible for the choices they make.
5. Morality: Human acts can be evaluated according to moral standards. They can be considered good or
bad, right or wrong, based on their conformity to moral principles.
The concept of human acts is important in various fields, including ethics, philosophy, law, and religion.
It provides a framework for understanding human behavior, making moral judgments, and assigning
responsibility.
There are different perspectives on the concept of human acts, with varying interpretations of the
elements involved. Some philosophers emphasize the role of reason and free will in determining human
actions, while others highlight the influence of emotions, habits, and social factors.
Key Points:
* Human acts are voluntary actions performed by human beings.
* They involve knowledge, freedom, voluntariness, responsibility, and morality.
* They are central to various philosophical and ethical frameworks.
* Different perspectives exist on the concept of human acts.
Would you like to explore any specific aspect of the concept of human acts, such as its role in ethics,
philosophy, or law?
ACTS OF MAN
Acts of Man are actions that are performed by a human being but do not meet the full criteria of a human
act. They are characterized by a lack of one or more of the essential elements: knowledge, freedom, or
voluntariness.
Examples of Acts of Man include:
* Habitual Acts: Actions performed repeatedly without conscious thought or deliberation, such as
brushing teeth or tying shoes.
* Acts under Duress: Actions performed under compulsion or threat, where the individual's freedom is
significantly limited.
* Acts Performed in Ignorance: Actions performed without full knowledge of their nature, consequences,
or moral implications.
* Acts Performed in Sleep or Under Hypnosis: Actions that occur while the individual is unconscious or
in a trance-like state.
While Acts of Man are not considered fully moral or immoral in the same way as human acts, they can
still have consequences and may be subject to legal or social repercussions. For example, a person who
acts under duress may not be held fully responsible for their actions, but they may still face consequences.
Key Points:
* Acts of Man are actions that do not meet the full criteria of a human act.
* They lack one or more of the essential elements: knowledge, freedom, or voluntariness.
* Examples include habitual acts, acts under duress, acts performed in ignorance, and acts performed in
sleep or under hypnosis.
* While not fully moral or immoral, they can still have consequences.
Would you like to explore any specific aspect of Acts of Man, such as their legal or ethical implications?
STANDARDS OF MORALITY
Values
 Derived from French word valoir meaning worth, merit, usefulness or importance of a thing.
 Values are individual beliefs that motivate people to act one way or another. They serve as a
guide for human behavior.
Beliefs
 Belief is an idea that a person holds as being true. A person can base a belief upon
certainties, probabilities or matters of faith.
Norms
 Norms are the agreed-upon expectations and rules by which a culture guides the behavior of
its members in any given situation.
Virtue
 Virtue is behavior showing high moral standards. Virtue is moral excellence. A virtual is a
trait or quality that is deemed to be morally good, foundation of principle and good moral
being.
 Virtue refers to acquired disposition of mind. Virtue is the habit of deliberate choice of right
actions.
MORAL THEORIES
SOCRATES

- wrote nothing but emerges as an intense genius who, along with extra ordinary intellectual
rigor, possessed a personal warmth and fondness for humor.
 For Socrates knowledge and virtue were the same thing.
 He in fact identified goodness and knowledge, saying that to know the good is to do the good,
that knowledge is virtue. By identifying knowledge and virtue, Socrates meant also to say that
vice, or evil, is the absence of knowledge. Just as knowledge is virtue, so, too, vice is ignorance.
 Wrongdoing, he said, is always involuntary, being the product of ignorance.
PLATO
 Elaborating on Socrates’s view of morality, Plato emphasized (1) the concept of the soul and (2)
the concept of virtue as function.
 In the Republic Plato describes the soul as having three parts, which he calls reason, spirit, and
appetite.
 When he analyzed the nature of this conflict, he discovered that there are three different kinds of
activity going on in a person. First, there is an awareness of a goal or a value; this is the act of
reason. Second, there is the drive toward noble action—the spirit—which is neutral at first but
responds to the direction of reason. Last, there is the desire for the things of the body, the
appetites.
 The body by itself is inanimate, and, therefore, when it acts or moves, it must be moved by the
principle of life, the soul.
 The function of the rational part of the soul to seek the true goal of human life, and it does this by
evaluating things according to their true nature.
 In the soul’s prior existence, the rational part has a clear vision of the Forms and of truth.
 In one sense, then, the cause of evil is present even in the soul’s preexistent state.
 Evil, on this view, is not a positive thing but rather is a characteristic of the soul wherein the soul
is “capable” of forgetfulness.
 For Plato morality consists in the recovery of our lost inner harmony. It means reversing the
process by which our reason has been overcome by our appetites and the stimuli of our body.
 Assuming, as Plato does, that knowledge is lodged deeply in our memory, this latent knowledge
will from time to time come to the surface of consciousness.
 What the soul once knew is raised to present awareness by the process of recollection.
Recollection begins first of all when our minds experience difficulties with the seeming
contradictions of sense experience.
ARISTOTLE
 Aristotle’s theory of morality centers around his belief that people, like everything else in nature,
have a distinctive end to achieve and function to fulfill.
 For Aristotle, on the other hand, the principle of good and right was imbedded within each
person. Moreover, this principle could be discovered by studying the human nature and could be
attained through actual behavior in daily life.
 Aristotle sets the framework for his ethical theory with a preliminary illustration. Having said that
all action aims toward an end, he now wants to distinguish between two major kinds of ends: (1)
instrumental ends (acts that are done as means for other ends) and (2) intrinsic ends (acts that are
done for their own sake).
 How should we understand the word good? Like Plato before him, Aristotle tied the word good to
the special function of a thing. A hammer is good if it does what hammers are expected to do. A
carpenter is good if he or she fulfills his or her function as a builder.
 The good person, according to Aristotle, is the person who is fulfilling his or her function as a
human being.
 Since a person’s function as a human being means the proper functioning of the soul, Aristotle
sought to describe the nature of the soul. The human soul is the form of the human body. As such,
the soul refers to the total person.
 Accordingly, Aristotle said that the soul has two parts: the irrational and the rational. The
irrational part is composed of two subparts. First, as with plants, a vegetative component gives us
 the capacity to take in nutrition and sustain our biological lives. Second, as with animals, an
appetitive component gives us the capacity to experience desires, which in turn prompts us to
move around to fulfill those desires.
 The particular kind of action implied here is the rational control and guidance of the irrational
parts of the soul. Moreover, the good person is not the one who does a good deed here or there,
now and then. Instead, it is the person whose whole life is good, “for as it is not one swallow or
one fine day that makes a spring, so it is not one day or a short time that makes a person happy.”
 Human action should aim at its proper end. Everywhere people seek pleasure, wealth, and honor.
Although these ends have some type of value, they are not the chief good for which people
should aim. To be an ultimate end, an act must be self-sufficient and final, “that which is always
desirable in itself and never for the sake of something else” (Ibid.) and it must be attainable by
people.
 Aristotle is certain that all people will agree that happiness is the end that alone meets all the
requirements for the ultimate end of human action.
 Happiness, it turns out, is another word or name for good, for like good, happiness is the
fulfillment of our distinctive function.
EPICURUS
 In any case, human beings are not part of a created or purposeful order caused or ruled by God
but rather the accidental product of the collision of atoms.
 They no longer had to fear God because God did not control nature or human destiny and was,
therefore, unable to intrude into people’s lives.
 He thus rejects common views of the gods saying that they “are not grounded in sensation, but
rather in false opinions, particularly the false view that the gods are responsible for the greatest
evils that happen to wicked people, and the benefits which are given to the good” (Letter to
Menoecius).
 As for death, Epicurus said that this need not bother anyone, because only a living person has
sensation either of pain or of pleasure. After death there is no sensation, since the atoms that
make up bodies and minds come apart.
 He was certain that pleasure was the standard of goodness, but he was equally certain that not
every kind of pleasure had the same value.
 If asked how he knew that pleasure was the standard of goodness, Epicurus would answer simply
that all people have an immediate feeling of the difference between pleasure and pain and of the
desirability of pleasure.
AUGUSTINE
 Everything culminates in morality, which clarifies the sure road to happiness, which is the
ultimate goal of human behavior.
 Our human moral quest is the outcome of a specific and concrete condition. The condition is that
we are made in such a way that we seek happiness.
 Augustine, though, held that true happiness requires that we go beyond the natural to the
supernatural.
 It is not by accident that we seek happiness, but rather is a consequence of our incompleteness
and finitude.
 According to Augustine, we inevitably love. To love is to go beyond ourselves and to fasten our
affection on an object of love.
 We can love (1) physical objects, (2) other persons, or even (3) ourselves.
  All of these things will provide us with some measure of satisfaction and happiness. Further, in
some sense, all of these things are legitimate objects of love since nothing is evil in itself—as
we’ve seen, evil is not a positive thing but the absence of something.
 Our moral problem consists not so much in loving or even in the objects of our love. The real
issue is the manner in which we attach ourselves to these objects of love and our expectations
regarding the outcome of this love.
 Augustine believed that we have different human needs that prompt different acts of love. There
is in fact some sort of correlation between various human needs and the objects that can satisfy
them. Love is the act that harmonizes these needs and their objects.
 To love God, then, is the indispensable requirement for happiness, because only God, who is
infinite, can satisfy that peculiar need in us that is precisely the need for the infinite.
 Disordered love consists in expecting more from an object of love than it is capable of providing,
and this produces all kinds of pathology in human behavior.
 Augustine did not agree with Plato that the cause of evil is simply ignorance.
 We must choose to turn toward God or away from God. We are, in short, free.
 According to Augustine, evil, or sin, is a product of the will.
 In spite of the fact of original sin, we still possess freedom of the will. This freedom (liberum) of
the will is not, however, the same as spiritual freedom (libertas), for true spiritual liberty is no
longer possible in its fullness in this life.
 We must have the help of God’s grace. Whereas evil is caused by an act of free will, virtue is the
product not of our will but of God’s grace.
AQUINAS
 Aquinas built upon Aristotle’s theory of ethics. Aristotle held that ethics is a quest for happiness,
and that to achieve our happiness we must achieve our purpose and end, which involves fulfilling
our natural functions and capacities as rational animals.
 Aquinas, by contrast, agreed that happiness involves the fulfillment of our end, but Aquinas
added that this end is a supernatural one, and not merely a natural one.
 As a Christian, Aquinas viewed human nature as having both its source and ultimate end in God.
 Aquinas therefore argued that there is a dual level to morality corresponding to our natural end
and to our supernatural end.
 The will is the agency that inclines a person toward the achievement of good.
 We must make this choice by our wills under the direction of reason.
 The intellect is our highest faculty, and a natural end requires that the intellect, as well as all the
other faculties, seek its appropriate object. The appropriate object of the intellect is truth, and
truth in its fullness is God.
 The perfect happiness is found not in created things but in God, who is the supreme good.
 Morality, as Aquinas viewed it, is not an arbitrary set of rules for behavior. Rather, the basis of
moral obligation is found, first of all, in human nature itself. Built into our nature are various
inclinations, such as the preservation of life, the propagation of species, and, because people are
rational, the inclination toward the search for truth. The basic moral truth is simply to “do good
and avoid evil.”
Eternal Law
- This law refers to the fact that “the whole community of the universe is governed by Divine
Reason. Because of this, the very notion of the government of things in God the Ruler of the
universe, has the nature of a law.
Natural Law
- For Aquinas natural law consists of that portion of the eternal law that pertains particularly to
people. His reasoning is that “all things share somewhat of the eternal law . . . from its being
imprinted on them” and from this all things “derive their respective inclinations to their
proper acts and ends.” This is particularly true of people, because our rational capacity “has a
share of the Eternal Reason, whereby it has a natural inclination to its proper act and end.”
Human Law
- This refers to the specific statutes of governments. These statutes or human laws are derived
from the general precepts of natural law.
Divine Law
- The function of law, Aquinas said, is to direct people to their proper end. Since we are
ordained to an end of eternal happiness, in addition to our temporal happiness, there must be
a kind of law that can direct us to that supernatural end.