This document provides an overview of a college-level ethics course. It discusses how moral decision-making is shaped by many contextual factors like culture, religion, emotions and feelings. It introduces Kohlberg's stages of moral development and emphasizes the importance of studying ethical theories to develop mature, rational decision-making. The document outlines how ethical frameworks like utilitarianism, natural law theory, Kantian ethics and virtue ethics can guide individuals in making moral decisions regarding themselves, society and the environment. It closes by stating that the study of ethics is an ongoing, never-ending process rather than a conclusive one.

2. Ethics
Foundations of Moral Valuation
Chapter VI:
Synthesis: Making Informed
Decisions

3. Table of Contents
Chapter VI: Synthesis: Making Informed
Decisions
• The Moral Agent and Contexts
• Moral Deliberation
• Self, Society, and Environment

4. Chapter Objectives
After reading this chapter, you should be
able to:
• Identify the different factors that shape an
individual in his/her moral decision-making;
• Internalize the necessary steps toward making
informed moral decisions; and
• Apply the ethical theories or frameworks on
moral issues involving the self, society, and the
non-human environment.

5. INTRODUCTION
• What is the value of a college-level class in Ethics? We have
been introduced to four major ethical theories or
frameworks: utilitarianism, natural law ethics, Kantian
deontology, and virtue ethics. None of them is definitive
nor final.
• What then is the use of studying them? Each represents the
best attempts of the best thinkers in history to give fully
thought-out answers to the questions “What ought I to
do?” and “Why ought I to do so?” This quest has not
reached its final conclusion; instead, it seems that the
human condition of finitude will demand that we continue
to grapple with these questions. The story of humanity
appears to be the never-ending search for what it means to
be fully human in the face of moral choices.

6. • Applying rational deliberation to determine a person’s ethical responsibility to
himself/herself, society, and environment is the overall goal of a college course
in Ethics. We shall explore all of these later in this chapter.
• In order to do this, we must first attempt to explore the self that must
undertake this challenge. We are talking about the moral agent, the one who
eventually must think about his/her choices and make decisions on what s/he
ought to do.
• We cannot simply assume that ethics is an activity that a purely rational
creature engages in. Instead, the realm of morality must be understood as a
thoroughly human realm. Ethical thought and decision-making are done by an
agent who is shaped and dictated upon by many factors within him/her and
without.
• If we understand this, then we shall see how complex the ethical situation is,
one that demands mature rational thinking as well as courageous decision-
making.

7. THE MORAL AGENT AND CONTEXTS
• What one ought to do in one’s life is not dictated by one’s
physical, interpersonal, social, or historical conditions.
• What one ought to do is also not abstracted from one’s own
specific situation.
• One always comes from somewhere. One is always
continuously being shaped by many factors outside of one’s
own free will. The human individual thus always exists in the
tension between being conditioned by external factors and
being a free agent.
• The moral agent is not a calculating, unfeeling machine that
produces completely objective and absolutely correct
solutions to even the most complex moral problems.

8. CULTURE AND ETHICS
Ethics should neither be reduced to one’s own cultural
standards, nor should it simplistically dismiss one’s unique
cultural beliefs and practices. What is important is that one does
not wander into ethical situations blindly, with the naive
assumption that ethical issues will be resolved automatically by
his/her beliefs and traditions. Instead, s/he should challenge
himself/herself to continuously work toward a fuller maturity in
ethical decision-making. Moral development then is a
prerequisite if the individual is to encounter ethical situations
with a clear mind and with his/her values properly placed with
respect to each other.

9. RELIGION AND ETHICS
Many religious followers assume that what their religion teaches
can be found either in their sacred scripture (e.g. the Bible for
Christians, the Qur’an for Muslims, etc.) or body of writings (e.g. the
Vedas, including the Upanishads, and other texts for Hindus; the Tao Te
Ching, Chuang-tzu, and other Taoist classics for Taoists) or in other
forms (other than written texts) of preaching that their leaders had
promulgated and become part of their traditions.
The moral agent in question must still, in full responsibility,
challenge himself/herself to understand using his/her own powers of
rationality, but with full recognition of his/her own situatedness, and
what his/her religious authorities claim his/her religion teaches.

10. MORAL DELIBERATION
• American moral psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg (1927−1987)
theorized that moral development happens in six stages
which he divided into three levels: pre-conventional,
conventional, and post-conventional.
• The significance of studying the different ethical theories and
frameworks becomes clear only to the individual who has
achieved, or is in the process of achieving, moral maturity. For
someone who is still in Kohlberg’s pre-conventional or
conventional stages, moral valuation remains a matter of
seeking reward or avoiding punishment, or at best, a question
of following the dictates of other people.

11. FEELINGS IN MORAL DELIBERATION
• Aristotle precisely points out that moral virtue goes beyond the mere act
of intellectually identifying the right thing to do. Instead, it is the condition
of one’s character by which the agent is able to manage his/her emotions
or feelings.
• The mature moral agent realizes that s/he is both a product of many
forces, elements, and events, all of which shape his/her situation and
options for a decision. Instead, a meaningful moral decision is one that
s/he makes in full cognizance of where s/he is coming from and of where
s/he ought to go.

12. MORAL PROBLEMS
• Aristotle recognizes the importance of continuous habituation in the goal of
shaping one’s character so that s/he becomes more used to choosing the right
thing.
• A moral individual is always a human being whose intellect remains finite and
whose passions remain dynamic, and who is always placed in situations that
are unique. There are no automatic moral decisions; one must continue to
manage his/her reason and passions to respond in the best way possible to
the kaleidoscope of moral situations that s/he finds himself/herself in.
THE VALUE OF STUDYING ETHICAL THEORIES AND FRAMEWORK
• The ethical theories or frameworks may serve as guideposts, given that they
are the best attempts to understand morality that the history of human
thought has to offer.
• What the responsible moral individual must instead perform is to continuously
test the cogency and coherence of the ethical theory or framework in question
against the complexity of the concrete experience at hand.

13. SELF, SOCIETY, AND ENVIRONMENT
INDIVIDUAL/SELF
• In the realm of the self, as noted earlier, one has to pay
attention not just on how one deals with oneself, but also on
how one interacts with other individuals in personal relations.
One may respond to the demand for an ethically responsible
“care for the self ” by making full use of the four ethical
theories or frameworks.
• John Stuart Mill’s utilitarianism, though seemingly a
hedonistic theory given its emphasis on maximizing pleasure
and minimizing pain, elevates the human element above the
animalistic and above the merely selfish.

14. INDIVIDUAL/SELF
• Thomas Aquinas’s natural law theory states as its first natural
inclination the innate tendency that all human beings share with all
other existing things, namely, the natural propensity to maintain
oneself in one’s existence.
• Kant’s deontology celebrates the rational faculty of the moral agent,
which sets it above merely sentient beings.
• Aristotle’s virtue ethics teaches one to cultivate his/her own
intellect as well as his/her character to achieve eudaimonia in
his/her lifetime.

15. SOCIAL LIFE: IN THE PHILIPPINE CONTEXT AND IN THE
GLOBAL VILLAGE
• One’s membership in any society brings forth the demands of
communal life in terms of the group’s rules and regulations.
The ethical question arises when the expectations of a
particular society come into conflict with one’s most
fundamental values.
• Mill’s utilitarian doctrine will always push for the greatest
happiness principle as the prime determinant of what can be
considered as good action, whether in the personal sphere or
in the societal realm. Thus, Filipinos cannot simply assume
that their action is good because their culture says so.

16. SOCIAL LIFE: IN THE PHILIPPINE CONTEXT AND IN THE
GLOBAL VILLAGE
• Thomas Aquinas, on the other hand, in his natural law theory
has a clear conception of the principles that should guide the
individual in her actions that affect her larger society.
• Immanuel Kant argues for the use of the principles of
universalizability and of humanity as end in itself to form a
person’s autonomous notion of what s/he ought to do.
• Aristotle’s virtue ethics prescribes mesotes as the guide to all
the actions that a person has to take, even in his/her dealing
with the larger community of people.

17. THE NON-HUMAN ENVIRONMENT
• In the case of utilitarianism, some scholars point out that this
hedonistic doctrine that focuses on the sovereignty of
pleasures and pains in human decision-making should extend
into other creatures that can experience pleasures and pains,
namely, animals. Thus, one of the sources of animal ethics is
utilitarianism.
• Since Kantian deontology focuses on the innate dignity of the
human being as possessing reason, it can be argued that one
cannot possibly universalize maxims that in the end will lead
to an untenable social existence.

18. THE NON-HUMAN ENVIRONMENT
• Thomas Aquinas, on the other hand, may not necessarily talk
about the physical environment and human moral
responsibility to it as such, but one can try to infer from his
philosophy that certain actions should be avoided because
they do not produce a harmonious, peaceful society.
• Lastly, Aristotle’s virtue ethics also pick up on the problem of
such shortsightedness and ask how this can possibly lead to
becoming a better person.

19. A CLOSING THAT IS REALLY AN OPENING
• In the end, there is only a beginning: We do not have a computer
program here that can automatically calculate what the right thing
to do in a given situation.
• There is only the human individual and his/her community of fellow
human beings who need to accept that they must continue to
explore the meaning of what is good and right while hoping to
arrive at the best judgments they can make at this point in time.
• Realizing the finitude of human understanding and of the capacity
to make choices, but at the same time hoping that one’s best
attempt at doing what is right does mean something in the end—
these are part and parcel of making informed moral decisions.

20. DISCUSSION POINTS
1. What is the distinction between a religious
notion of sin and the philosophical
understanding of immoral or unethical acts?
2. How realistic is Kohlberg’s ideal of the
highest stage of post-conventional morality,
that of universal ethical principles, given that
feelings and emotions are inseparable from
human choice?

21. PROCESSING QUESTIONS
1. How can you be a genuine Filipino if you do
not follow Filipino customs?
2. Is there a difference between one’s ethical
responsibility toward fellow humans and
toward non-human nature? Please explain
your answer.