UNIVERSITY OF SAN AGUSTIN

Gen. Luna St. Iloilo City

Course: Ethics

Course code: GE 8
Course description: Designed for students of ethics under the new CHED General Education. Thus the course
deals with both the substance as well as the pedagogy of ethics. The former concerns the principles of ethical
behavior in modern society at the level of the person, society, and interaction with the environment and other
shared resources (CMO 20 s2013), while the latter pertains to the various methods of teaching the course, as
well as the skills necessary to accomplish it, in a way that incorporates the most recent principles of and insights
into learning in the college level.

General Objectives:

During and at the end of the course, a student would be able to:

1. Recognize the basic moral theories and their proponents.;

2. Discuss and analyze the arguments that support the moral principles and their application to moral issues;

3. Make a stand on moral issues, strengthen, and deepen the sense of responsibility towards fellow human
beings as a transformative community builder oriented towards God;

4. Demonstrate an appreciation for various moral concepts and find the possible application in their lives as
Filipinos.

Course outline:

1. Morality, Ethics and Moral Philosophy

2. Morality as Compared to Other Normative

3. Traits of Moral Principles

4. Difference Between Moral and Non Moral Standards

5. Moral Dilemmas, Three Levels of Moral Dilemma,

6. Freedom as Foundation for Moral Acts, Culture and Moral Behavior

7. Domains of Ethical Assessment

8. The Purpose of Morality

9. Relativism in Ethics

10. Cultural Relativism and Filipino Moral identity.

12. Stages of Moral Development Reason and Impartiality

13. Feelings and Reason

14. Aquinas’s Natural Law Theory and the Value of Natural Law Theory

15. Utilitarianism

16. Bentham and Mill’s Utilitarianism

17. The Strength and Weakness of Utilitarianism

18. External Criticisms of Utilitarianism

19. Deontology: The Ethics of Duty

20. Immanuel Kant and the Categorical Imperative

21. Kant and rights

22. W.D. Ross: Duties are Prima Facie

23. John Rawls and Justice as Fairness

24. Virtue-Based Ethical System

25. Aristotle’s Theory

26. The Strengths and Limitations of Virtue Ethics

27. Globalization and its Ethical Challenges

28. Millennials and Filinnials : Ethical Challenges and Responses

Requirements of the Course:

1. Readings
2. Accomplishment of worksheets
3. Passing of Examination
 Module 7/Week 7

John Rawls and Justice as Fairness, and Justice is Fairness versus Justice as Fairness

Prepared by: Prof. John Christian Cabales

Overview:

This module comprises one (1) lesson. It is expected that you will:

1. Use ethical frameworks or principles to analyze moral experiences;

2. Make sound ethical judgments bases on principles, facts, and the stakeholders.

Lesson 1
John Rawls and Justice as Fairness, and Justice is Fairness versus Justice as Fairness

Objectives:
This lesson will help you –

1. Use ethical frameworks or principles to analyze moral experiences;

2. Make sound ethical judgments bases on principles, facts, and the stakeholders.

Introduction

People believed that inequality exists in this world. We hear others claim that life is unfair. Justice delayed is
justice denied. Are these claims justified? Good questions to reflect while we live in this world. We experience
a variety of Phenomenon and encounter social issues in the country. John Rawls theory of justice as fairness
envisions a society of free citizens holding equal basic rights.

“Philosophy can show that human life is not simply domination, and cruelty, prejudice, folly and
corruption; but that at least in some ways it is better that it has become as it is.
- John Rawls

Write down your reflection/comment about the quote:

Page 1 of Module 7/Week 7 GE 8

John Rawls was an American political philosopher in the liberal tradition. John was born in 1921 in Baltimore,
Maryland. His father was a prominent lawyer, his mother a chapter president of the League of Women Voters.

Rawls went to school in Baltimore and continued education at Kent School in Connecticut. After graduating
from Kent School, he studied at the Princeton University. John received his doctorate in philosophy from
Princeton in 1949, and continued to teach at Harvard University until 1995. John Rawls died in 2002, aged 81.

Four roles of political philosophy

• Role one: political philosophy can discover bases for reasoned agreement in a society where sharp
divisions threaten to lead to conflict;
• Role two: help citizens to orient themselves within their own social world. Philosophy can describe what
it is to be a member of a society with a certain political status; and suggest how the nature and history of
that society can be understood from a broader perspective.
• Role Three: Probe the limits of practicable political possibility. Political philosophy must describe
workable political arrangements that can gain support from real people.
• Role Four: reconciliation: “to calm our frustration and rage against our society and its history by
showing us the way in which its institutions... are rational, and developed over time as they did to attain
their present, rational form” (JF,3).

Not only did John Rawls create the four roles of political philosophy, but he created the theory “Justice as
fairness”. Rawls constructs justice as fairness around specific interpretations of the defining liberal ideas that
citizens are free and equal and that society should be fair. He holds that justice as fairness is the most
egalitarian, and also the most plausible, interpretation of liberalism's fundamental concepts.

Two principles of justice as fairness

• Principle one: Each person has the same indefeasible claim to a fully adequate scheme of equal basic
liberties, which scheme is compatible with the same scheme of liberties of all.

• Principle two: Social and economic inequalities are to satisfy two conditions:

Page 2 of Module 7/Week 7 GE 8

b. They are to be to the greatest benefit of the least- advantaged members of society ( the
difference principle ) (JF, 42-43)

The Equality Principle

The first principle devotes itself to basic rights and liberties for all citizens: liberty of conscience and freedom of
association, freedom of speech, the rights to vote, to hold public office, to be treated in accordance with the rule
of the law, and so on. This principle ascribes these rights to citizens equally.

“In all parts of society there are to be roughly the same prospects of culture and achievement for those
similarly motivated and endowed” (JF, P. 44)

The Difference Principle

Rawls second principle of justice has two parts. The first part, fair equality of opportunity, requires that citizens
with the same talents and willingness to use them have the same educational and economic opportunities
regardless whether they were born rich or poor. The second part, of the second principle is the difference
principle, which regulates distribution of wealth and income. This principle requires that social institutions be
arranged so that any inequalities of wealth and income work to the advantage of those who will be worst off.

Figure 1

Figure 2

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1. They say, if you have money, you can buy anything. Some even believed that they can buy the justice
system. The poor fellow barely eats three times a day. However, if these two persons commit the same
crime, the poor fellow will easily go to jail while the other one possibly can bail out. Why is it that the
person who has money and without money must be treated fair and justly? Apply the principles of
Rawls.

2. Cite a situation where in the first and second principles of Rawls are applicable in helping you make a
sound judgment of the circumstances and consequences.

Limit your answer to the spaces provided.

Enrichment activities

1. For further reading, read Introductory text to Philosophy.Makati: Best Books, Inc., 1987. Adrales, Venancio
B. Dictionary of Philosophy. New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1981 Avey, Alber E. Handbook in
History of Philosophy. New York: Barns and Noble, Inc., 1968 Black, Max. Critical Thinking. 2nd ed. New
York: Prentice-Hall, 1955 Beck, Lewis W. Eighteenth Century Philosophy. New York:The Free Press, 1966.

2. Fieser, James. Moral Philosophy Through the Ages. USA: Mayfield Publishing Company, 2001.

3. Ruggiero, Vincent Ryan. Thinking Critically About Ethical Issues, 6th ed. New York: The McGraw-Hill
Companies, 2004. ANGELES, ANTONETTE AND ROWENA AZADA. “Medicine Prices, Control and the
Pharmaceutical Industry.”

4. - http://mises.org/misesreview_detail.aspx?control=172 -http://www.philosophers.co.uk/john-rawls.html
-http://www.liberal-international.org/editorial.asp?ia_id=686

5. Fieser, James. Moral Philosophy Through the Ages. USA: Mayfield Publishing Company, 2001.

6. Birsch, Douglas. Introduction to Ethical Theories: A Procedural Approach. USA: Waveland Press, Inc.,
2014.

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