Ethics Reviewer

Module 5
The Objectivist Approach
- The objectivists or the moral realist, claim that ethical truths are fixed, permanent, specific,
objective or universal. They exist whether or not we accept them.

Kant’s on “Universal Law” and Deontological Approach

- He thinks that Christian ethics is superb, however, it does come from faith and not from
reason.
- How can a rational being explain a ‘moral code’ coming from the top of a mountain and is
carried by Moses.
- Kant shows to the people how moral rules can be explain through the use of reason.
- He finds out that goodness is hard to attain, because duties are often opposed to what a
person intends to do.
- Using our reason alone we can find out moral codes. He claims that reason is universal
therefore the rules we can find from reason is universal too.
- Universality means, the same for everyone, everywhere and in all context or cultural
milieu. It is fixed and unchanging, and thus, always right.
- Kant’s type of ethics is derived from reason but being ethical will always be a struggle. Since
to be ethical is usually going against your likes.
- Morality for Kant is based on reason, objective, completely outside of our wants and
desires. Besides, it is duty-based.
The word deontology comes from the Greek word ‘deon’ or duty. Deontology is a
moral principle that uses rules to determine right action from wrong action.
Deontology is often associated with religious groups and in philosophy
The following advantages of deontology are;
1. It emphasizes the worth of every human person
2. It tells that some behaviors are wrong. There are certain human behaviors that
are unacceptable for everyone everywhere, like, killing a person.
3. It provides sureness that something is wrong.
4. It deals with the intentions or motives of a person not the consequence.

However there are some disadvantages of this moral guide, such as;
 1. It sets a very rigid and absolute rules, it does not have a home for flexibility.
2. It is difficult to reconcile conflicting duties or rules.
3. It is very cruel to action; action can be judge only as good or bad.

Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill: Utilitarianism

- It says that ‘intention’ is not important only ‘consequences.’ This ethical principle is
far different from Kant’s ‘categorical imperative.’
- This moral principle utilizes as a tool the ‘teleological’ approach but still it is an
‘action-based’ ethics.
- The word is derived from the Greek word “telos,” which means “end, purpose, goal
or consequence.”

David Hume

- His moral principle is based on the concept of “pain and pleasure” an idea which is
first realized
- He claims that a law that creates ‘more pleasure and less pain’ is a ‘good’ law. And
a law that creates ‘more pain and less pleasure’ is a ‘bad’ law. In conjunction to
‘pain and pleasure’ concept of morality, he invented a system of “happiness Sum.”

“Happiness Sum” is like discerning the positive and negative effects of a particular
issue.
Utilitarianism is very democratic. It gives surety that most people will always get
what they want. If most people want a leader that is autocratic and very strict they
will get it, as long as the majority of the people will be happy.

Module 6
Applied Ethics
- It is the actual application of various moral principles or ethical theories to choose
an appropriate moral or ethical action in a given issue.
- It is the most practical part of the three divisions of ethics.
Branches of Applied Ethics

1. Ethics in Business
- is to identify and examine the moral obligations of businesses and their managers to
their workers in their workplace and their responsibilities in society
- It consists of set of appropriate rules of conducts to prevent any violation of
business companies regarding the generation of profits, labor laws and paying of
taxes.
- In short, business ethics means to do business with human heart, to give happiness
to its workers, consumers and society, and generate profit fairly.
The scope of business ethics consists of:
1. Ethics in Compliance. It is about obeying and staying to rules and authority because
it is the right thing to do and not because of fear of transgressing the law.
2. Ethics in Finance. This is about money matter. The issues in accounting like
misleading financial analysis.
3. Ethics in Human Resources. It involves employer-employee relationship, such as the
rights, duties and responsibility of an employer in a company, and the kind of
discipline required by an employer to its workers.
4. Ethics in Marketing. It refers to the moral principles behind the operation and
regulation of marketing. Like price fixing and price discrimination.
5. Ethics of Production. It refers to the duties of a company to make sure that products
and production processes do not cause damage to the consumer.

2. Professional Ethics
- Professional ethics defines, clarifies, and assesses professional work and its usual
values.
- Professionals are categorized by means of expertise and their ability to serve ideally.
Their service ideal is referred to values that define the objectives of their work
- Professional ethics is a code of conduct applicable to different professions and is set
up by the expert members of such profession or professional organizations.

3. Bioethics
- Bioethics is relatively similar to medical ethics.
- Medical ethics concerns with ethical questions on different and highly developed
medical practices and healthcare, such as, abortion, contraception, stem cell research,
gene therapy, organ transplant and euthanasia, etc. It includes, generally, the well-being
of animals and environment on issues of moral status and protection.

4. Sexual Ethics
- Sexual ethics refers to what is good and bad to human sexuality and the proper and
improper expression of human sexual behavior.
- It seeks to know and assess the moral behavior of interpersonal relationships and
sexual activities from the cultural, social and philosophical point-of-view.

5. Cyber Ethics
- Cyber ethics is about what is good and bad to computers, how computer users or
netizens behave, how it must be used, and what are its effects to human beings and
society.
- It is an ethical standards applied to computer users or netizens and the online
environment.

Module 7
Taxation
Paying Taxes is a Social and Moral Obligation
President Duterte
- There are two things that will surely come to us, death and taxes, and we can’t run
away from them.
- Paying taxes is our moral obligation, not just social. It is the payment we give to the
government in exchange of the services she is providing us.

The Nature of Taxation

- It means that the money utilizes by government to pay public expenditures like
salaries of government workers, comes from the people’s pocket and coffers of
corporate institutions, and it is called “taxes.”
Purpose of Taxes
- The purpose of taxes is to finance the expenses of the government for the protection
and general welfare of its constituents.
Essential Characteristics of Tax
- The necessary features of tax are; it is a required contribution of everybody to
its government, in monetary form, which is based on the taxpayer’s ability to pay and
charged on persons and property within the jurisdiction of the state pursuant to
legislative authority, for public purpose and usually required to pay on a regular
intervals.
Classification of Taxes
- There are two types of taxes in the Philippines, the national and local tax.

1. There are two types of taxes in the Philippines, the national

and local tax. The national tax is the one we pay to the
government through the Bureau of Internal Revenue, an
agency in the government that collect taxes.
2. The other one is the local tax, payment we give to local
government units, such as the municipalities and cities, to
name a few.
Our national taxation is based on the National Internal Revenue Code of 1997 or the
Republic Act No. 8424 otherwise known as the Tax Reform Act of 1997, as amended.

Kinds of National Taxes:

1. Capital Gains Tax is tax coming from the sale, exchange, or other disposition of
capital assets located in the Philippines.
2. Documentary Stamp Tax is imposed on documents, instruments, loan agreements,
and papers that are used as evidence of acceptance, assignment, sale or transfer of
obligation, rights, or property.
3. Donor’s Tax is levied on a donation or gift for the gratuitous transfer of property
between two or more persons who are both still living at the time of transfer. Even
relief goods sent for donation are charged this type of tax.
4. Estate Tax is required to be paid before an estate is transferred to the rightful
beneficiary or heir of a deceased person. This is based on a graduated schedule of
tax rate.
5. Excise tax is tax on goods produced for sale and subsequently sold within the
country. It is considered an indirect tax which means the manufacturer is supposed
to recover it by adding the amount to the selling price.
6. Income tax is imposed on all compensation and income received or earned from
practice of profession, conduct of trade in business, and from properties.
7. Percentage tax is a business tax imposed on businesses not covered by Value Added
Tax and where gross annual receipts for sale of goods and services do not exceed
Php750,000.
8. Value Added Tax or VAT is another kind of indirect tax that is passed on to the end
consumer. It is a form of consumption tax making it the most common tax type
because all final sales are almost always charged this tax.
9. Withholding tax on compensation is tax deducted from salaries of employees and it
is the company’s responsibility to remit the same to the government. Other kinds of
withholding tax are Expanded Withholding Tax, Final Withholding Tax, and
Withholding Tax on Government Money Payments.

Kinds of Local Taxes

1. Basic Real Property Tax is tax on real properties classed as follows: agricultural,
commercial, industrial, residential, timberland, and mineral.
2. Franchise Tax is imposed by LGUs on business franchises at a rate not more than
50% of 1% of the gross annual receipts of the previous taxable year.
3. Business of Printing and Publication Tax is collected from any business that does
printing or publication of printed materials such as books, cards, pamphlets, posters,
or tarpaulins.
4. Professional Tax is collected from doctors, lawyers, engineers, and other
professionals engaged in the exercise or practice of professions that require
government examination or acquisition of license to practice.
5. Amusement Tax is tax on all forms of entertainment such as movies, concerts, and
plays. This tax is usually already included in the ticket price.
6. Community Tax, more commonly called Cedula, is required from individuals from
a base fee of Php5.00 and additional Php1.00 for every Php1,000 income.
7. Annual Fixed Tax for Delivery Trucks and Vans amounting to Php500 is collected
by the LGU from trucks and vans which deliver goods such as beer, soda, and/or
cigarettes.
8. Barangay Tax is subjected on sari-sari stores and retailers whose annual gross sales
do not exceed Php50,000 and is accrued on the first day of January of each year.
9. Barangay Clearance is paid as a legal permission for particular individuals, hosts, or
companies to conduct an event or start a business in a barangay.

Principle of Taxation in the Philippines: The TRAIN has arrived...

The TRAIN Law

- On December 19, 2017, Pres. Rodrigo Duterte signed Republic Act RA 10963 or Tax
Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion or the TRAIN law.
- Its objective is to increase Filipino’s take-home pay or salary by bringing down
income tax rates, while increasing and rationalizing tax rates in other goods and
services.

Purpose of TRAIN Law

Train law will subsidize the following government program
1. Education
The tax reform will be able to finance investments in education, achieving a more
conducive learning environment with sufficient numbers of teachers for the students.
This means,

a) achieving the 100% enrollment and completion rates

b) building 113,553 more classrooms
c) hiring 181,980 more teachers between 2017 and 2020

2. Healthcare Services
With the tax reform, we can spend more in our country’s healthcare by providing
better services and medical facilities, such as;

a) upgrading 704 local hospitals and establish 25 local hospitals

b) achieving 100% PhilHealth coverage at higher quality of services
c) upgrading and/or relocating 263 rural and urban health units to disaster-
resilient facilities
d) building 15,988 new barangay health stations
e) building 2,424 new rural health units and urban health centers

Between 2017 and 2022, the program of the government is to hire an additional
2,424 doctors, 29,466 nurses, 1,114 dentists, 3,288 pharmacists, 2,682 medical
technologists, 911 public health associates, and 2,497 UHC implementers

3. Infrastructure Programs
The additional income raised by the tax reform will be utilize to finance
infrastructure program of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH),
which consists of the following, major and minor thoroughfares, and flood control
projects.

MODULE 8
The Moral Challenge of Globalization

Globalization
- is the process by which countries around the world come together to do business
with less taxes to pay
The Real Problem of Globalization
- It is about the basic needs of the people throughout the world, like potable water,
insufficient housing, and an honest leader.

The Right Thing to do in a Globalized World

- The first thing to do in this globalized world should be, to adopt peace which is
beyond the meaning of national security.
- The second thing do in this globalized world should be, to understand the real
meaning of democracy. Most of the times, we link democracy to absolute freedom.
- The last thing to do in this globalized world should be, the reformulation of justice
within the context of economy. True democracy is the distribution of economic
power.
The Responsibility of the First World
- It is the responsibility of rich and powerful countries of the world to formulate a
policy that support the poor and empower the third world to manage themselves
and attain development – financially, politically, culturally etc
Security by Building Military Capability – A Wrong Perspective
- Military capability, is the ability of a nation to win a war against its enemy which
include force structure, modernization, readiness, and sustainability
- Leaders of the world must stop showing militaristic venture as a measure of
national security, instead invest in a peaceful multilateral efforts to avoid world war
and improve poor human conditions from all nations.