This document provides an overview of several philosophers' perspectives on ethics and human nature. It discusses Aristotle's view that man is naturally amoral and must learn morality. It describes Augustine's perspective that God created man good with free will, and man turns away from God. Utilitarianism is examined, where Bentham and Mill argued actions should maximize happiness for the most people. Kant is discussed believing morality comes from good will and acting out of duty rather than consequences. The document analyzes different frameworks for understanding ethics and human behavior.

1. MAN & ETHICS
By Mr. Ezekiel Rodriguez
MAED
“A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon this world”. - Albert Camus
Definition of Terms
1. ethics [éthiks]
 Study of morality's effect on conduct: the study of moral standards and
how they affect conduct.
2. morality [mə rállətee]
 accepted moral standards: standards of conduct that are generally
accepted as right or proper
 how right or wrong something is: the rightness or wrongness of
something as judged by accepted moral standards
3. conduct [kón dùkt]
 Behavior: the way a person behaves, especially in public.
Aristotle and Nature Based Ethics (Nicomachean /nɪˌkɒmæˈkiːən/ Ethics)
Nicomachean /nɪˌkɒmæˈkiːən/ Ethics is the name normally given to Aristotle's
best-known work on ethics. It is the work, which plays a pre-eminent role in
defining Aristotelian ethics, consists of ten books, originally separate scrolls, and
is understood to be based on notes from his lectures at the Lyceum, which were
either edited by or dedicated to Aristotle's son, Nicomachus.

2. According to Nicomachean Ethics, by nature man is blind to morality
suggesting that man is naturally an amoral creature. A creature amoral at birth
and then corrupted as we age and that man is hedonistic - a term meaning to
pursue pleasure and avoid pain by nature and a feature which later shaped the
works of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill when drawing up their moral
theories of utilitarianism.
Aristotle once said “If man is to become moral, we must learn to go against our
nature and control our impulses so that reason and rational judgment can guide
us accurately towards being moral agents’. He believed that each man has a
unique nature belonging to that individual alone and it is this individuality within
nature that compels us towards certain vices over others, so some are likely to be
more idle and/or some more ignorant.
According to Dr. Huei-hsia H, Area Chair/Lead Faculty of Strategic Planning,
Analysis & Law. Research & Leadership Consultant, Human nature-based ethics
is a belief system rooted in the dichotomy of human behavior, both good and bad,
without the direction of an outside authority; Dichotomy is defined as separation of
different or contradictory things: a separation into two divisions that differ widely
from or contradict each other. She also stressed that “Human nature-based ethics
stresses the importance of virtue, integrity, persons' character in determining

3. individual behavior/actions.” However, “It stresses self-interest, selfishness,
entitlement, and ego (called the self) that are defined by the training of
communities or organizations such as religion (Treviño & Nelson, 2007).
In summary, Human nature ethics are the universally accepted natural ways of
how human beings do live their life. Human nature ethics include how people
think, feel and act naturally without the influence of other factors like science or
technology and that Man is Essentially Body and Soul.
Saint Augustine (Love of God as the Highest Good)
In his book, De libero arbitrio, II. xiii. 36., St. Augustine expressed that “The
man who enjoys the supreme good is indeed happy”. He exemplifies that the Love
of God as the Highest Good. According o him, God is the absolute spirit, absolute
will, absolute intelligence, absolute freedom, absolute good, absolute power,
absolute holiness, cannot will evil, no beginning and no end and transcendent. St.
Augustine asserts that God is creator. God created the world out of nothing.
However, creation is not necessary on the part of God, because for Augustine,
God created the world out of love.
St. Augustine also stated that God created man in mortal body with an
immortal soul and gave man free will. To have free will is the assumption of his

4. nature and it is in that nature where the fact of evil is possible. Evil comes to the
world not because it is part God’s creation, but because of man’s free will.
Furthermore, Augustine stressed that God created man good, but the good in
man ceases to be good when man turns himself away from God. God created
man in his image, God, being the absolute freedom, gives man free will and that
the man who is the recipient of God-given free will is man because he is wholly
body and soul. Augustine once said that man “is not a body only nor a soul….
Only when body and soul are in union can we speak of man”.
Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism - Latin utilis, “useful”)
Utilitarianism is defined as believing value lies in usefulness: relating to,
characteristic of, or advocating the doctrine that value is measured in terms of
usefulness. It began with the philosophies of Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) and
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873). Utilitarianism gets its name from Bentham's test
question, "What is the use of it?” then he conceived of the idea when he ran
across the words "the greatest happiness of the greatest number" in Joseph
Priestley's Treatise of Government.
Utilitarianism is characterized by the greatest good for the greatest number.
According to John Stuart Mill, "In the golden rule of Jesus of Nazareth, we read
the complete spirit of the ethics of utility. To do as one would be done by, and to

5. love one's neighbor as oneself, constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian
morality.“
Jeremy Bentham developed his ethical system around the idea of pleasure.
According to Bentham, the most moral acts are those, which maximize pleasure
and minimize pain. This has sometimes been called the "utilitarian calculus." An
act would be moral if it brings the greatest amount of pleasure and the least
amount of pain. John Stuart Mill modified this philosophy and developed it apart
from Bentham's hedonistic foundation. Mill used the same utilitarian calculus but
instead focused on maximizing the general happiness by calculating the greatest
good for the greatest number. This objective is also considered the aim of all
legislation and is the ultimate criterion of all social institutions. The utilitarian
theory of ethics is generally opposed to ethical doctrines in which some inner
sense or faculty, often called the conscience, is made the absolute arbiter of right
and wrong.
Why did utilitarianism become popular?
• First, it is a relatively simple ethical system to apply. To determine
whether an action is moral you merely have to calculate the good and
bad consequences that will result from a particular action. If the good
outweighs the bad, then the action is moral.

6. • Second, utilitarianism avoids the need to appeal to divine revelation.
Many adherents to this ethical system are looking for a way to live a
moral life apart from the Bible and a belief in God. The system replaces
revelation with reason. Logic rather than an adherence to biblical
principles guides the ethical decision-making of a utilitarian.
• Third, most people already use a form of utilitarianism in their daily
decisions. We make lots of non-moral decisions every day based upon
consequences.
• At the checkout line, we try to find the shortest line so we
can get out the door more quickly.
• We make most of our financial decisions (writing checks,
buying merchandise, etc.) on a utilitarian calculus of cost
and benefits. So making moral decisions using
utilitarianism seems like a natural extension of our daily
decision-making procedures.
There are also a number of problems with utilitarianism. One problem with
utilitarianism is that it leads to an "end justifies the means" mentality. The end
never justifies the means. The means must justify themselves. A particular act
cannot be judged as good simply because it may lead to a good consequence.
The means must be judged by some objective and consistent standard of
morality. Second, utilitarianism cannot protect the rights of minorities if the goal is

7. the greatest good for the greatest number. Americans in the eighteenth century
could justify slavery on the basis that it provided a good consequence for a
majority of Americans. Certainly the majority benefited from cheap slave labor
even though the lives of black slaves were much worse. The third problem with
utilitarianism is predicting the consequences. If morality is based on results, then
we would have to have omniscience in order to accurately predict the
consequence of any action. But at best we can only guess at the future, and often
these educated guesses are wrong. The fourth problem with utilitarianism is that
consequences themselves must be judged. When results occur, we must still ask
whether they are good or bad results. Utilitarianism provides no objective and
consistent foundation to judge results because results are the mechanism used to
judge the action itself.
Emmanuel Kant (Categorical Imperative)
Emmanuel Kant once said, “There is no possibility of thinking anything good in
this world or out of it, which can be regarded as good, except for good will itself”.
Instead of starting with his point about the final cause, our purpose or the results
of our actions, he placed his principle purely in good will. The main idea of other
philosophers was based on consequentialism, which place more importance on
the result of an action, rather than the intention of it. Kant believed in doing one’s
duty, therefore, he looked for an ‘objective’, a purpose set in certain guidelines
that needed to be considered moral to do one’s duty for the right reason. He also
believed that it was not good enough just to do one’s duty because you had to, or

8. it benefited you in some way, but said that you need to want to do it because it is
the right thing to do. The term Categorical Imperative means that you should do
something. It is in contrast to the hypothetical imperative that says if you want
something, you need to do this action to get that result. The Categorical
imperative is you should do this, not because it will benefit you in this way, but
because it is the morally right thing to do. In other words, you are not doing a
good thing for your own self-interest, but because you know, it is morally right.
This is ‘good will’.
Three Forms of Bases of Categorical Imperative
• The first being: So act the maxim of your will could always hold at the
same time as a principle establishing universal law.
• In simple terms, this means that you can only call something
morally just, if it can be turned into a universal maxim, on which
everybody should uphold in a similar situation.
• If you make a promise with no intentions of keeping it, then it is
only morally just if it can be applied to everyone. This would
mean that not everyone who tells a promise would intend to keep
it. Thus would make “promises” pointless, as no one would keep
them and there would be no reason for them to.

9. • His second basis is: Act in such as way that you always treat humanity,
whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply
a means an end.
• What Kant is saying here is that, he does not believe that people should
use other people as a means to achieve a personal goal. One should
be used by someone else to meet their purpose, which they want to
fulfil. Act as if a legislating member in the universal kingdom of ends.
This follows on from the second basis and means that you ought to act
in a way that is considered morally right within the society you are in.
Your moral choices should be compatible with those around you.