This powerpoint will somehow help students during their study.

1. Prepared
By:
Jovanie Y. Tambis

2.  Ethics : from Greek word ethikos, meaning
‘character’. Refers to customary way to
behave in society
 Morality : from Latin word moralis,
concerned with which actions are right and
which are wrong
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What is Ethics?

3. Or “moral philosophy”, is the branch of philosophy
concerned with “conduct and character”
Is the systematic study of principles and methods
for distinguishing “right from wrong” and “good
from bad”.
It is called “moral philosophy” because it study the
general nature of morals and specific moral choices. 3

4. Metaphysics
ETHICS
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Epistemology
-The study of reality.
-The study of knowledge.
This may be seen through such questions as:
Whether there is any real difference between right and
wrong and, if there is, whether it can be known.
Is connected with

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Are there situations when an action might be right
and other situations when the same action might be
wrong?
Is one culture or religious view of morality as
good as that of another culture or religion?
Are there some actions which are ALWAYS right?
Are there certain moral rules that exist for all
times and for all places?
QUESTIONS….

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Ethics
Normative ethics
Meta-ethics
Religious ethics
Social ethics

7. • Is the study of the discipline of ethics itself.
Meta-ethics attempts to determine the meanings of normative terms
such as;
-right, good, ought, justice, and obligation.
To determine their interconnections and whether any of
these concepts is basic.
-Literally “about ethics”
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8. Naturalism
Cognitivism
Intuitionism
Subjectivism
Approaches of meta-ethics….
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9. NATURALISM
(Represented in different ways by Herbert Spencer and John Dewey)
Maintains that moral terms name complex matters of
fact and that moral judgements can be established by
scientific or factual investigation.
; nonnaturalistic theories (such as that of G. E. Moore) deny this.
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10. A cognitivist theory maintains that moral
judgements can be true or false and can, in
principle, be subjects of knowledge or cognition.
Intuitionists such as H. A. Prichard and W. D.
Ross claim that the sort of knowledge human
have of right and wrong, is immediate and self-
evident.
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11. Reaction to intuitionism has led to subjectivism, emotivism,
and imperativism.
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Subjectivists maintain that moral judgements
state only subjective facts about attitude and
make no assertion about the object.

12. Emotivism theory (A.J. Ayer, C. L. Stevenson)
Claims that moral judgements do not state anything that is
capable of being true or false, even subjectively, but merely
express emotions; moral terms according to this view, have
only emotive meaning, like oaths or exclamations.
Imperativism
(Rudolf Carnap)
Claims that moral judgements are commands in disguise
(So that “You ought to do that” means simply “Do that”)
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13. Meta-ethics
How we use ethical
language and where it
come from.
Naturalism
View that all
phenomena can be
explained in terms of
natural causes.
Cognitivism
Maintains that moral
judgements can be
true or false and can,
in principle, be
subjects of knowledge
.
Intuitionism
Our intuition tells us
what is right and
wrong.
Subjectivism
Maintain that moral
judgements state only
subjective facts about attitude
and make no assertion about
the object.
Emotivism
Imperativism

14. Any theory that maintains;
 That moral principles cannot be proved
 That there are no moral truths
 That morality has no rational basis
 That the difference between right and
wrong is merely a matter of taste or
convention
Form of moral
skepticism
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15. A widespread and familiar form of skepticism is
“ethical relativism”.
The view that there is no one correct moral code for
all times and peoples, that each group has its own
morality relative to its wants and values, and that all
moral ideas are necessarily relative to a particular
culture.
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16. ETHICAL RELATIVISM
According to this view, cannibals are justified in
eating human beings by the standards of their own
culture even if not by the standards of Western
culture, and there can be no basis for claiming that
the standards of Western culture are superior to
theirs.
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17. ETHICS REFLECTION 1…..
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‘Are there certain moral rules that exist for all
times and for all places?’

18. Normative ethics
= about the practical means of determining a moral
course of action.
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QUESTIONS under;
 What makes right actions right?
 How can we tell what is right?
 Why should I be moral?

19. Theories
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Consequentialist (Teleological)
Nonconsequentialist (Deontological)
= Maintains that the morality of an action is determined
solely by its consequences.
= Claims variously, that the morality of an action
depends on its intrinsic nature, or in its motives, or on
its being accordance with some rule or principle, and
either not at all or only partly on consequences.

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Consequentialist (Teleological)
Teleological theories vary in their determination of what
consequences are relevant and in how the value of the
consequences is to be determined, but all interpret moral
judgements as dependent on values and evaluation.
Hence, on value theory;
Hedonism = the view that only pleasure is good as an end.
Utilitarianism
Ideal utilitarianism
Self actualizationism
or Perfectionism
Hedonistic
Teleological but
not Hedonistic.

21. UTILITARINISM
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(Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill)
= The theory that the greatest happiness of the greatest
number of people is the test of right and wrong.
; Is Hedonistic, since it interpret happiness as a balance
of pleasure over pain.
Consequentialist (Teleological)

22. Ideal Utilitarianism
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(G. E. Moore and Hasting Rashdall)
= Which maintains that one ought to do that act of all those
available in the circumstances that would produce the most
good.
Self actualizationism or
Perfectionism
( Aristotle and Thomas Hill Green)
= Which hold that the ultimate end is the full development or
perfection of the self.
Consequentialist (Teleological)

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Theological (or Divine command) theory.
= States that it is the will of God that determines whether
an action is right or wrong.
 On this view (Saint Augustine, William Paley)
the morality of an act depends on neither its
consequences nor its essential nature nor its
motive, but solely on whether it is in
accordance with the will of God.
Nonconsequentialist (Deontological)

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The concept of moral worth ( Immanuel Kant)
= Insist that one’s action , even if right, has moral
value only if one’s motive for acting was to do what
is right.
 Moral worth, then depends on one’s motive or intention,
and not on what is actually done.
Nonconsequentialist (Deontological)

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EGOISM ( Thomas Hobbes)
= Basing itself on the idea that everyone acts always out
of self-interest, maintains that an action is right only if it
is in the interest of the agent.
 Challenge to ethical theory itself.
The challenge of Egoism is that;
 It raises the question Why should I be moral?
 What’s in it for me?
Which rest on the idea that if there is no advantage in
being moral, the agent can have no reason to be.
Nonconsequentialist (Deontological)

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Situation Ethics
= Claims that the morality of an action depends on
the on the situation and not on the application of a
law to the case.
 The original idea can be traced back to Aristotle, who
held that the decision in a particular case “rests with
perception,” and the idea can be found in Ross (an
intuitionist and nonnaturalist) as well as in Dewey (a
naturalist and consequentialist).
Nonconsequentialist (Deontological)

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CONSEQUENTIALIST
(Teleological)
Nonconsequentialist
(Deontological)
Hedonism
Utilitarianism
Ideal Utilitarianism
Perfectionism
Theological (or Divine
Command) theory
Kantianism (moral worth)
EGOISM
Situation ethics
Normative Ethics
=about the practical
means of determining a
moral course of action.

28. Ethics Reflection 2….
What makes right actions right?
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29. Religious Ethics
= Religious moralists tend to claim that there can
be no morality without religion, because without
God there can be no reason to be moral.
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RELIGION
Founded upon revelation
Concerned with morals
Morals are absolute.
Have to do with
person- to-God
Concerned with “super
nature”
Miracles are a part
Goal is to find God.
PHILOSOPHY
 Founded upon reason
 Concerned with ethics
 Ethics are relative.
 Are person-to-person
 Not concerned with
nature, but with “meta-
nature” (science
concerned with nature)
 Miracles are irrelevant
 Goal is to find truth.
Distinction

31. Social Ethics
Philosophers distinguish between personal and social
ethics;
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Personal ethics
= Is taken as comprehending how one should act in
relation to one self.
Social ethics
= How one should act in relation to others.

32. END!
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THANK YOU…

33. SOURCE:
Books: -(Grolier Encyclopedia of knowledge
International Edition.)
ISBN 0-7172-5372-4 (complete set)
-(The American Heritage Dictionary)
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