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    Module 1. What Is Ethics. Basic Concepts

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    Denver Acenas
    Ethics is a branch of philosophy that studies morality and evaluates whether actions are right or wrong. It has four main areas: normative ethics which provides guidelines for moral behavior, metaethics which examines the meaning of ethical terms, descriptive ethics which describes people's moral beliefs, and applied ethics which applies ethical norms to specific issues. Key terms in ethics include moral, descriptive, normative, issue, decision, judgment, and dilemma. Ethical reasoning is important for making informed moral decisions based on principles rather than just emotions or consequences. Theories like utilitarianism and deontology provide frameworks for evaluating ethical situations.

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    Module 1. What Is Ethics. Basic Concepts

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    Denver Acenas
    1K views5 pages
    Ethics is a branch of philosophy that studies morality and evaluates whether actions are right or wrong. It has four main areas: normative ethics which provides guidelines for moral behavior, metaethics which examines the meaning of ethical terms, descriptive ethics which describes people's moral beliefs, and applied ethics which applies ethical norms to specific issues. Key terms in ethics include moral, descriptive, normative, issue, decision, judgment, and dilemma. Ethical reasoning is important for making informed moral decisions based on principles rather than just emotions or consequences. Theories like utilitarianism and deontology provide frameworks for evaluating ethical situations.

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    Module 1. What is Ethics. Basic Concepts

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    Ethics is a branch of philosophy that studies morality and evaluates whether actions are right or wrong. It has four main areas: normative ethics which provides guidelines for moral behavior, metaethics which examines the meaning of ethical terms, descriptive ethics which describes people's moral beliefs, and applied ethics which applies ethical norms to specific issues. Key terms in ethics include moral, descriptive, normative, issue, decision, judgment, and dilemma. Ethical reasoning is important for making informed moral decisions based on principles rather than just emotions or consequences. Theories like utilitarianism and deontology provide frameworks for evaluating ethical situations.

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    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    1K views5 pages

    Module 1. What Is Ethics. Basic Concepts

    Uploaded by

    Denver Acenas
    Ethics is a branch of philosophy that studies morality and evaluates whether actions are right or wrong. It has four main areas: normative ethics which provides guidelines for moral behavior, metaethics which examines the meaning of ethical terms, descriptive ethics which describes people's moral beliefs, and applied ethics which applies ethical norms to specific issues. Key terms in ethics include moral, descriptive, normative, issue, decision, judgment, and dilemma. Ethical reasoning is important for making informed moral decisions based on principles rather than just emotions or consequences. Theories like utilitarianism and deontology provide frameworks for evaluating ethical situations.

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    of 5

    MODULE 1

    WHAT IS ETHICS? BASIC CONCEPTS

    Learning Outcomes

    At the end of this module, you should be able to:

    1. Recall the meaning of ethics.


    2. Define and explain the terms that are relevant to ethical thinking
    3. Evaluate any ethical issues in connection to self, society, and environment.

    Introduction

    This module aims to introduce you to the basic meaning of ethics. It focuses on
    the meaning of ethics, its areas, and clarifications of ethical terms, as well as to discuss
    the relevance of ethics in our daily lives, especially in this COVID-19 pandemic crisis. In
    this module, you are expected to define ethics and its basic concepts and connect or
    relate them into the present situations as student or human being belongs to the
    community. Your task is not only to remember ethical concepts, but to apply them into
    your own life.

    Lesson: Ethics: Basic Concepts

    Ethics and Philosophy

    Ethics is a branch of philosophy, it is also called moral philosophy. Philosophy


    is a field of study that deals with the fundamental questions of human existence. It
    originated from two Greek words “philo” (love) and “sophia” (wisdom). Philosophy
    means love of wisdom, and a philosopher is a lovers of wisdom.

    Plato and Aristotle asserted that philosophy begins with wonder. To wonder is to ask
    profound questions such as who am I, what is the nature of the universe, etc:

    The task of philosophy is to make that wonder work in everyday life. What strikes
    us in doing philosophy is the claim that to apprehend the reality of things, one
    has to start from the point of view of wonder [ CITATION Oca18 \l 1033 ].

    Ethics as a discipline that study morality. It deals with the wrongness and
    correctness of our actions. It evaluates whether a particular action is good or bad, right
    or wrong, acceptable or unacceptable. The word ethics comes from the Greek word
    “ethos” meaning “use, custom, way of behaving, character” and correspond to the Latin
    word “moralitas” or morality. Ethics has four main areas:

     Normative ethics: Ethics is descriptive when we study a person, people, or


    society’s moral beliefs or what they think about right and wrong. A historian or
    sociologist who tries to study the morality of Filipinos is a good example of
    descriptive studies.

     Normative Ethics: a normative study of morality asks with a question, “How


    should I live? Normative ethics provides guidelines, norms, and principles that we
    follow to act morally and acceptably. What we “ought” to do or not?

     Metaethics: metaethics is not concern whether our actions are good or bad (as
    normative ethics) but it focuses on dealing with the nature and meaning of ethical
    terms. Before we know if death penalty is morally bad, then we need to know first
    what we mean by morally bad or good.

     Applied Ethics: If normative ethics provides us with norms, applied ethics is an


    application of these norms into specific issues and cases. How can we apply
    ethics into issues such as abortion, death penalty, euthanasia or mercy killing?
    Ethics can be also applied in a particular field such as business, environment,
    etc.

    Clarifications of Ethical Terms

    Ethics and Morals

    In terms of ethics and morality, this video from unwrapped ethics will give you a
    glimpse of the differences/relationships between these two terms. The short video
    asserted that though ethics and morals may differ, they are also related and can be
    used interchangeably, and that is what we intended for this course:
    https://ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu/glossary/ethics

    Descriptive and Normative

    Ethics is not a descriptive but a normative study. It does not only describe
    (Descriptive) people’s morality but see this morality conform to ethical standards
    (Normative). In the book, Ethics, Foundation of Moral Valuation, Dr. Calano and his
    colleagues claimed that “a philosophical discussion of ethics goes beyond recognizing
    the characteristics of some descriptive theory; also, it does not simply accept as correct
    any normative theory. A philosophical discussion of ethics engages in a critical
    consideration of normative theory the strengths and weaknesses of these
    theories.”[ CITATION Cal18 \l 1033 ]

    Moral Valuations in Ethics

    What valuation or situation belongs to ethical discussion? Does calling a movie


    bad and good needs moral judgment? Can we say that someone is immoral if he/she
    closed the door impolitely? Valuations or values that belongs to Aesthetics (personal
    preferences or taste), Technique (good or bad in baking), and Etiquette (cultural
    understanding of right or wrong) are not considered in the discussion of ethics. What
    belongs in the ethical discussions are issues that are severe with intensity, questions on
    matter of life and death, and issues/ concerns that effects the well-being of people.
    Issues such as corruption, war, capital punishment, poverty, and killing are moral issues
    that greatly affect human life. However, the question of how we measure the graveness
    of a problem is not always clearly define? Can we say that wearing clothes is a matter
    of personal preference or taste or it calls for moral judgment? Can we judge a person’s
    actions as immoral when he/she wears shorts or sandos during church services? Or
    can we say that not wearing masks and not following government protocols during the
    COVID-19 pandemic are just bad manners or is there a need for moral evaluation?

    Issue, Decision, Judgment, and Dilemma

    In any situation, it is vital to recognize the existence of an ethical issue.


    According to Calano et al (2018), “a moral issue refers to those particular situations that
    are often the source of considerable and inconclusive debate”. Personal and communal
    issues on abortion, divorce, capital punishment, etc. are examples of moral issues. In
    this video from unwrapped ethics, the idea of Moral Myopia and ethics allows us to
    understand the weaknesses and failures of recognizing ethical issues.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8KpQatf3mw

    A person who is confronted with an issue that needs an action to perform is


    called to make a moral decision. But we need to ask, who decides whether our action is
    good or bad. In this matter, when a person is an observer who assesses the actions or
    behaviors of someone, she is making a moral judgment.” A dilemma is a situation
    where one is forced to choose between two or more conflicting options, either of which
    is acceptable.” [ CITATION Cal18 \l 1033 ] Moral dilemma has three (3) conditions: “(1) the
    person or the agent of moral actions obliged to make a decision about which course of
    action is best. (2) There must be different courses of action to choose from. (3) No
    matter what course of action is taken, some moral principles are always compromised.”
    [ CITATION Kar \l 1033 ]

    Ethics and Reasoning


    How do we know if our decision is morally right or wrong? By making a decision
    based solely on our emotions may lead into error or erroneous judgment. We will only
    know certainly what is right and wrong if we use reasoning. Reasoning is an important
    tool for studying ethics. But “what kind of reasoning are we talking about?’
    Ethical or moral reasoning is about informed-decision making that is not based
    on reward and punishment. If we do not cheat because we are afraid to be caught or we
    are helping someone so that people praise our good works, then it is a shallow
    reasoning. For our reasoning to be powerful, we need to ask the question “ why”. Why
    cheating is bad or why should I help people in need? This question reveals its purpose.
    Asking “why” will lead us beyond reward and punishment. Our judgment will be
    based on principles, defined as “rationally established grounds by which one justifies
    and maintains her moral decisions and judgments” [ CITATION Cal18 \l 1033 ] Why should I
    care for others and not cheat during exams? We do not only follow a particular principle,
    but we also explain its reasons, that cheating is bad since it is against the idea of fair
    play and exam validity, nor I helped others out of duty. But how do we arrive into a
    moral claim?
    This is where moral theory enters. Moral theory “is a systematic attempt to
    establish the validity of maintaining certain moral principles.” A moral theory is s system
    of ideas but also called a framework. A framework is a “theory of interconnected ideas,
    and at the same time, a structure through which we can evaluate our reasons for
    valuing a certain decision or judgment” [ CITATION Cal18 \l 1033 ] . As result, throughout this
    course, we will tackle and use moral theories in evaluating ethical issues. We will study
    moral theories such as Utilitarianism, natural law, deontology, virtue ethics, and John
    Rawl’s theory of justice. We will also evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each
    theory but most importantly apply them into our daily lives, particularly in this time of the
    Covid-19 pandemic crisis.

    Conclusion

    Ethics is a branch of philosophy that studies our morality. Our task is to ask
    questions about the morality of our existence, to examine and evaluate whether our
    actions and conducts are based on ethical standards. You will also evaluate ethical
    issues. We do not just sit and relax, we do ethics guided by our reasoning since it is our
    main role.

    References

     Vaughn, Lewis. 2016. Doing ethics: Moral Reasoning and Contemporary Issues 4 th
    Edition. New York: W. W.Norton & Company Inc.: 3-12.

     Evangelista, Francis Julius N. & Mabaquiao Jr., Napoleon M. 2020. Ethics: Theories
    and Applications. Mandaluyong City: Anvil Publishing, Inc. P 1-19.

     Ocampo, Ph.D, Ma. Liza A. 2018. Ethics Primer: A Young Person’s Guide to Mora
    Reasoning. Quezon City: Vibal Group Inc.: 1-10.

     Calano, Mark Joseph, Oscar G. Bulaong Jr., Albert M. Lagliva, Michael Ner E.
    Mariano and Jesus Deogracias Z. Principe. 2018. Ethics: Foundations of Moral
    Valuation, 1st ed. Manila: Rex Bookstore: 1-5.

     https://philonotes.com/index.php/2018/06/10/moral-dilemmas/
     https://www.socialworker.com/feature-articles/ethics-
    articles/What_Is_an_Ethical_Dilemma%3F

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