3. THE FOUNDATION OF ETHICS
Every process or activity, every human
undertaking must presuppose
something already existing, something
as basis on which and with which to
start.
• Foundation of a building
• Argument- premise
• Astronomy- stars
• Crystallography- crystals
4. THE FOUNDATION OF ETHICS
Science, as a structure of
knowledge, must be
grounded on well
established facts and
principles.
5. THE FOUNDATION OF ETHICS
Postulates : the
foundation of Science.
Science is a body of truths, of
well established facts and
principles, properly
coordinated and systematized.
6. Ethics postulate:
•“ that there is a difference between right
and wrong; and that, therefore, there
are actions which man should or ought
to do and some actions which he should
or ought not to perform; that is
responsible for his actions; and that if he
does wrong, he deserves to be
punished”.
7. THE FOUNDATION OF ETHICS
Freedom, law, duty, responsibility,
morality are imperceptible and
intangible but nonetheless real.
•Facts known by consciousness,
implied in conscious and
deliberate acts, embodied as
basic principle in the laws of
nations.
8. THE FOUNDATION OF ETHICS
What is human life
without these concepts?
•Becomes a
meaningless riddles.
On these realities that
the science of ethics
is built.
9. UNTENABILITY OF MORAL
SKEPTICISM AND RELATIVISM
The theory of Skepticism:
•Basic tenet: Everything is to
be doubted; nothing can be
held for certain. Moral
skepticism would doubt the
existence and validity of all
moral standards.
10. UNTENABILITY OF MORAL
SKEPTICISM AND RELATIVISM
The Theory of Relativism:
•Basic tenet: makes all truths
variable: dependent on time, place,
age, race, financial status; so that
there is one truth for the old,
another for the young; one for the
rich and for the poor.
•Applied to morals: moral relativism:
morality is never fixed or constant
but continuously changing.
11. UNTENABILITY OF MORAL
SKEPTICISM AND RELATIVISM
- it is in itself
contradictory.
If everything is to be
doubted, then skepticism
must be doubted.
Skepticism refutes
itself.
12. UNTENABILITY OF MORAL
SKEPTICISM AND RELATIVISM
For Relativism: for if all
truths are relative, then the
very truth of relativism would
be relative and therefore,
uncertain and unreliable.
13. UNTENABILITY OF MORAL SKEPTICISM AND
RELATIVISM
The argument of moral
relativism is diversity of moral
judgments.
What matters is to see that
in all these diversities the notion
of an objective value of moral
good and evil is always
presupposed even there exists
contradictory positions
concerning the moral quality of
the action.
14. UNTENABILITY OF MORAL SKEPTICISM AND
RELATIVISM
The fundamental
principles of morality are
the same and invariable. It
is the interpretation of
some of these principles
that sometimes varies
among different peoples.
15. Relativism is not only
hostile to ethics, it is
destructive of all
knowledge, all science,
all philosophy, which
stand for the attainment
of objective truth.
