You have seen a person who met
an accident, lying on the road and
waiting for someone to give him
assistance. You were in a hurry,
because you were going to present
a big project in a company worth a
million contract. What will you do?
You have seen your best friend being
bullied by the well-known gangsters in
your school. Every students are afraid
of them because they are dangerous
and every student who stand in their
way always end up being beaten by
them. Your best friend see you and ask
you for your help, what will you do?
Your are in need of money. You need it as
soon as possible to pay the bill of your
mother in the hospital because if you can’t
give it that day, they will double the bills in
the hospital. Then, your co-worker, who is
qualified for the promotion same as you, ask
you to let him be the one to be promoted. In
return, he will pay the bills of your mother.
What will you do?
The Nature of
Morality
Philosophy
Comes from the Greek word
“philia” meaning love or friendship
and “sophia” meaning wisdom.
There are three major branches of
philosophy: epistemology,
metaphysics, ethics.
Epistemology
It is the study of knowledge.
It deals with the following questions:
What is knowledge? What are truth and
falsity? What is the nature of perception,
and how reliable is it? What’s the
difference between knowledge and belief?
Is there anything such as “certain
knowledge”?
Metaphysics
It is the study of nature of reality
or things.
It deals with the questions: What
do you mean my nature? How do
we know if one thing truly causes
another?
Ethics
It deals with what is right or wrong in human
behavior ang conduct.
It deals with the questions: what constitutes
any person being good, bad, right, or wrong
and how do we know? Should we use
principles or rules or laws as the basis for our
choices, or should we let each situation decide
our morality?
Ethics and Morality
Comes from the Greek word
“ethos” meaning character.
Comes from the Latin word
“moralis” meaning custom or
manners.
Amoral and Nonmoral
It means having no moral
sense, or being indifferent to
right or wrong.
Approaches to the
study of Morality
Descriptive or Scientific
Approach
This approach is most often used
in the social sciences and, like
ethics, deals with human behavior
and conduct
Philosophical Approach
This is the second major
approach to morality and it
consists of two parts:
1. Normative or Prescriptive Ethics
2. Metaethics or Analytic Ethics
Normative or
Prescriptive Ethics
From the word itself norm and
prescribe it deals with how people
behave and act according to the
prescribe standards.
Metaethics or Analytic
Ethics
is analytic in two ways.
It analyzes ethical language.
It analyzes the rational foundations
of ethical systems or of the logic
and reasoning of various ethicists.
Morality and it’s
application
Religious Morality
refers to a human being in relationship to
a supernatural being or beings.
1. I am the Lord, Your God; do not worship
false gods.
2. Do not take the name of God in vain.
3. Keep holy the Sabbath Day.
Individual Morality
to individuals in relation to
themselves and to an individual
code of morality that may or may
not be sanctioned by any society
or religion
Social Morality
Social morality concerns a
human being in relation to
other human beings
Where does Morality
came from?
Values as Totally Objective
They come from some supernatural
being or beings.
There are moral laws somehow
embedded within nature itself
The world and objects in it have value
with or without the presence of valuing
human beings
The Supernatural Theory
People believe that come
from some higher power or
supernatural being, beings or
principle
The Natural Law
Others believe that morality
somehow is embodied in nature
and that there are “natural laws”
that human beings must adhere to
if they are to be moral.
Criticism of Supernatural Theory
Albert Einstein – said “I do not
believe in immorality of the individual,
and I consider ethics to be an
exclusively human concern with no
superhuman authority behind it.”
"If you were to destroy in mankind the
belief in immortality, not only love but
every living force maintaining the life of
the world would at once be dried up.
Moreover, nothing then would be
immoral; everything would be lawful,
even cannibalism."
Values as Totally
Subjective
Some hold that morality and values
reside strictly within human beings
and that there are no values or
morality outside of them.
Values as both Objective
and Subjective
It is said that values are both objective and
subjective when it is determined by the
following:
a. The thing of value or the thing valued.
b. A conscious being who values, or the valuer.
c. The context or situation in which the valuing
takes place.
Morality
and
law
Martin Hartwell crashed in a cut off
area, in the early 70s. He was the
only survivor. To stay alive until he
get rescued he had to eat. His only
source of food was the dead body of
his companion, a young nurse.
What should he have done?
Become a cannibal or starved to
death?
Two mountaineers were climbing the Alps,
roped together. One slipped and fell.
Unable to move, he lay dangling at the end
of the rope. The other climber couldn’t lift
his companion back up, nor could he
himself move on without cutting the rope.
What could he have done?
Cut the rope and sent his companion to his
death or stayed where till both died?
Which would you put first- self-
preservation or the maintenance of
another human life?
Do you think the law should have the
answer to these questions?
Law
A system of rules, a union of
primary and secondary rules
Professor Hart
An embodiment of reason,
whether in the individual or the
community
Plato
Morals
Conforming to standards and
principles which are accepted by
wider society.
Beliefs and values shared by a
society or a section of society.
A body of rules which govern a
groups behavior.
Similarities of
morality and Law
Laws are derived from morals since
they are the final stage of the
development of the morals of a
people.
All laws are part of the morals of
political society because of the
acceptance of such laws made by
that same society.
Differences of
morality and Law
Law demands an absolute
subjection to its rules and
commands.
Morality demands that men
should act from a sense of
ethical duty.
Law has enforcing authority
derived from state.
Morality has no such enforcing
authority from state.
Law regulates men’s relations
with others and with society.
It governs the inner life of
men.
Law cannot be changed to
morals.
Morality applies to every human
act.
Kohlberg’s theory of
moral development
Lawrence Kohlberg
Grew up in Bronxville, New York
He was born on 1927 and died on 1987
at the age of 59
He became a professor of education and
social psychology at Harvard in 1968
His theory was dependent on the thinking
of the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget
A woman was near death from cancer. One drug
might save her, a form of radium that a druggist in the
same town had recently discovered. The druggist was
charging $2,000.00, ten times what the drug cost him to
make.
The sick woman’s husband, Heinz went to everyone
he knew to borrow the money, but he could only get
together about half of what it cost. He told the druggist
that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper
or let him pay later. But the druggist said “no.”
The husband got desperate and broke into the man’s
store to steal the drug for his wife. Should the husband
have done that?... Why do you think so?
Preconventional Level
A person is motivated by obedience to
authority.
There are two stages:
Stage 1- Obedience and Punishment
- One is motivated by fear of punishment.
Stage 2- Individualism and Exchange
- The child conforms to gain rewards
Conventional Level
People focus on following social norms and
customs
There are two stages:
Stage 1- Interpersonal relationships
Also known as “Good boy-Good girl” orientation
Stage 2- Maintaining Social order
Consider society as a whole when making
judgments
Post-conventional
Theory
Judgment is based on self-chosen principles
There are two stages:
Stages 1- Social contract & Individual rights
Begin to account the differing values, opinions and
beliefs of other people
Stages 2- Universal Principles
- Reasoning is based on universal ethical principles
and abstract reasoning
