MODULESETHICSPRELIM1STSEM.pptx

MODULE I : ETHICS, MORALITY
AND RULES
Intended Learning Outcomes:
At the end of this module, the students will be able to :
1. Understand what is ethics and what is morality;
2. Understand why there is a need to study ethics and the importance of rules;
3. Explain why we need to follow rules;
4. Explain the difference between moral and non-moral standards;
5. Understand the concept of moral dilemma, freedom and moral acts.
Reference:
Gubia-On, Arthur B., Leano, Roman, D.,Jr., and Ocampo, Imelda S. (2018). Ethics For
College Students, Mindshapers Company, Inc., Manila
Balotol, Ruben O. Jr., Enaya, Beljun P., Fernandez, Guiraldo C. Jr., Gallinero, Winston B.,
Morte, Arnel A., Salado, Fritzie B., and Villaroya, Al Franjon M. (2018). Ethics, Mutya
Publishing House, Inc., Malabon City.
Aquino, Edna C., Bamba, Lamberto M. Jr., Banzon, Jayson Anthony B., Benitez, Gherold C.,
De Guzman, Jens Micah, Hulada, Lou S., Madriaga, Aloysius T., Pacer, Jeremiah B., Puno,
Restie Allan A., and Tomas, Rodrigo DP. (2017). Ethics Principles of Ethical Behavior In
Modern Society, Mutya Publishing House, Inc., Malabon City.

The Commission on Higher Education states that
“ethics deals with principles of ethical behavior in
modern society at the level of the person, society, and
the interaction with the environment and other shared
resources.”(CMO 20 series 2013)

ETHICS
 The word “ethics” is derived from the Greek ethos,
which means “character”, or, in plural, “manners.”
 Ethics is the branch of philosophy that studies morality or
the rightness or wrongness of human conduct.
 Also called moral philosophy, ethics evaluates moral
concepts, values, principles, and standards. Because it
is concerned with norms of human conduct, ethics is
considered a normative study of human actions.

 Ethics ensure a generally agreed standard of work –
related behavior that empowers professionals to foster moral
values through their work.
 Ethics gives a sense of justification in one’s judgment,
and helps ensure that decisions at work are not made based on
purely subjective factors.
 Without the study of ethics, the practice of one’s profession
will fall prey to vastly conflicting individual interpretations.
 Ethics is concerned with other people’s interests, with
the interests of society, with God’s interests, with ultimate goods,
and so on. When a person “thinks ethically” they are giving at
least some thought to something beyond themselves.

The study of ethics helps a person :
 to look at his own life critically and to evaluate his
actions/choices/decisions.
 in knowing what he/she really is and what is best for
him/her and what he/she has to do in order to attain it.
 sharpen his/her general thinking processes, for it
trains our mind to think logically and reasonably and to
handle moral issues with greater clarity.

 Ethics allows you to live an authentic life.
 Ethics makes you more successful.
 Ethics allows you to cultivate inner peace.
 Ethics provides for a stable society.
 Ethics may help out in the afterlife.

MORALITY
 Morality refers to the set of standards that enable people
to live cooperatively in groups.
 It’s what societies determine to be “right” and “acceptable.”
 Morals refer to beliefs, principles, and values about what is
right and what is wrong, which are personal to each and
every individual.

ETHICS VERSUS MORALITY
 Ethics and morality necessarily carry the concept of moral
standards or rules with regard to behavior.
 Ethics and morals relate to “right” and “wrong” conduct.
 While they are sometimes used interchangeably, they are
different:
 Ethics refer to rules provided by an external source, e.g.,
codes of conduct in workplaces or principles in religions.
 Morals refer to an individual’s own principles regarding
right and wrong.

RULES AND ITS IMPORTANCE
 In the simplest sense, rule is defined as a “statement that tells you what
is or is not allowed in a particular situation.” (Merriam-Webster, 2017)
 One of the systems that humans developed are standards that guide
human activities, or simply, “rules.”
 Humans, in general, do not live in isolation. Instead, an individual is a
member of a community of people whose common goals is to survive
and thrive.
 Rules refer to a set of guidelines which have been put in different
countries and communities and have been accepted by all.

 Rules are useful tools in guiding and monitoring
the interactions of humans in the society.
 Rules help guide actions toward desired results.
 Rules refer to explicit or understood regulations
or principles governing conduct within a specific activity
or sphere.

RULES
Rules are important because :
 they tend to protect the weaker class in the society as
they might be in a disadvantageous position if rules are
broken.
 they provide a stable environment and human co-
existence in a society which leads to peace and
development.
 peace and order are maintained, an important
ingredient for society’s development.

MORAL VERSUS NON-MORAL STANDARDS
 Not all rules are moral rules. That is, not all standards are moral
standards.
 Moral standards are those concerned with or relating
to human behavior, especially the distinction between good
and bad (right or wrong) behavior.
 Moral standards involve the rules people have about
the kinds of actions they believe are morally right and wrong,
as well as values they place on the kinds of objects they
believe are morally good and morally bad.

MORAL STANDARDS
Examples of moral standards :
 Honesty: being truthful and sincere.
 Integrity: sticking to your moral and ethical principles
and values.
 Kindness: being considerate and treating others well.
 Perseverance: persisting in a course of action, belief
or purpose.

While morals tend to be driven by personal
beliefs and values, there are certainly some
common morals that most people agree on,
such as:
 Always tell the truth.
 Do not destroy property.
 Have courage.
 Keep your promises.
 Do not cheat.
 Treat others as you want to be treated.
 Do not judge.
 Be dependable.

NON MORAL STANDARDS
 Non-moral standards refer to rules that are unrelated to
moral or ethical considerations.
 Either these standards are not necessarily linked to morality
or by nature lack ethical sense.
 Examples of non-moral standards include rules of
etiquette, fashion standards, rules in games, and
various house rules.

ETIQUETTE, POLICY, LAW, AND COMMANDMENT
Etiquette
A set of rules on how an individual should
responsibly behave in the society (Taylor and
Williams, 2017).
Table manners such as the proper use of
utensils and the proper manner of eating are
examples of etiquette.
Policy
Is a clear, simple statement of how an organization plans
to handle its services, actions, or business.
Policies are guiding rules to help with decision making.
Example, wearing of school ID, wearing of school uniform.

Law
Is a rule created and enforced by the government
and its agencies to maintain order, resolve disputes, and
protect a person’s liberty and rights (Robertson, 2008)
Commandment
Is a rule that is to be strictly observed because it
was said to be set by a divine entity, such as those in the
Ten Commandments (Stahl,2009)

DILEMMA AND MORAL DILEMMA

The term dilemma refers to a situation in which a tough
choice has to be made between two or more options,
especially more or less equally undesirable ones.
A problematic situation in which a difficult choice must
be made.
A dilemma is a difficult situation in which you have
to choose between two or more alternatives
A dilemma is a problem offering two
possibilities, neither of which is unambiguously
acceptable or preferable.

When you find yourself facing a problem but the
solutions available to you will only create another
problem or worse create more problems, then you are
in a dilemma.
Some examples of classic dilemmas include:
 Deciding where to go for dinner on a first date.
 Uncertainty about which job offer to take.
 Wondering whether or not to make the move to a new
city.

Moral dilemma
Moral dilemmas are situations in which a difficult
choice has to be made between two courses of action,
either of which entails transgressing a moral principle.
A moral dilemma is a situation where:
1. There are two or more actions that you can possibly
do.
2. There is a moral reason(s) for doing such actions.
3. You cannot do all the possible actions presented to
you. You only need to choose one.

THREE LEVELS OF MORAL DILEMMA
a. Personal moral dilemma
Personal dilemmas are those experienced and
resolved on the personal level.
It is when your decision in a situation where there is
moral conflict is the cause of either your own, that of
another person, or a group of people’s potential harm.

EXAMPLES OF PERSONAL MORAL DILEMMA
 Having to choose between saving a dog from a fire or
saving your sister.
 Deciding which parent to live with.
 Someone deciding whether to let their family starve
or steal bread from someone else.

b. Organizational Dilemmas
Organizational moral dilemmas refer to ethical cases
encountered and resolved by social organizations.
Organizational dilemma is when a member or members
of the organization is in a situation where there is moral
conflict, and the decision will potentially harm either some
members of the group or the entire organization itself.
This category includes moral dilemmas in business,
medical field and public sector.

 One of the worst ethical dilemma a company face is
knowing your product harms people.
 One of the greatest examples of this is the Tobacco
industry.
 There is solid evidence that they knew about harm
smoking may cause on a person, from cancer to various
other diseases, but they continued to push product
aggressively.
 They were brazen enough to claim that smoking cause
no harm on pregnant woman, buy up scientist to argue for
them, even create strong lobby groups to protect their
interest.

 Furthermore they have tried to argue against
addictiveness of their product, while using aggressive
campaigns to ingrain smoking to our consciousness,
targeting young and poor, two most vulnerable segments
to their predatory campaigns.
 This was a choice between people's life and profit,
and tobacco industry chose profits every time.

 Having to face with the pressures of meeting with the
expectations of employees to increase salaries/wages annually
even though the business may not be profitable or when there is
an ongoing exercise to reduce and ‘cut costs’ company-wide,
 The need to maintain the sales prices of some goods and
services, even though the costs of sourcing and production have
increased significantly,
 The need to retain profits and to re-inject them back into
business for business expansion and growth versus the need
to keep shareholders and business investors happy by making
good payouts to them,

 Having to keep the company in low-profile and out of
market attention amidst some high-profile market
corporate scandals and/or frauds,
 Businesses producing vaccines wanting to make
quick profits and take advantage of the Covid19
pandemic even though people are suffering and dying
worldwide,
 Having the need to show a good socially responsible
corporate citizen even though it is never the company
policy to do so,

Structural Dilemmas
Structural moral dilemmas refer to cases involving
network of institutions and operative theoretical paradigms.
Structural moral dilemma is when a person or group
of persons who holds high level positions in the society faces
a morally conflicting situation wherein the entire social
system is affected.
Structural moral dilemma - affect a network of
institutions and operative theoretical paradigms like universal
care, juvenile laws, and immigration, this type of dilemma
can affect a community and even a society at large.

 For example, nearly anyone would say that taking a life is a
more serious crime than rape, bad as the latter is.
 However, if held hostage, one has the right (if absolutely
necessary) to kill one’s hostage taker, but one does not
have the right to rape the person.
 But there might be closer questions;
 what if you threatened the hostage taker (credibly) with
taking HIS children hostage?
 One might say, “that would be wrong,” but would it be
wrong to merely make the threat, with no intention of
carrying it out?
 What if it worked, and the hostage taker released you?
 Would anyone be concerned that you threatened him
with your own hostage scheme?

MODULE II : FREEDOM, FREEWILL AND
HUMAN ACTS VS ACTS OF HUMAN
1. Understand the concept of freedom, freewill, human acts and acts of human.
2. Explain the philosophical thoughts on freedom?
Reference:
Gubia-On, Arthur B., Leano, Roman, D.,Jr., and Ocampo, Imelda S. (2018). Ethics For College Students,
Mindshapers Company, Inc., Manila
Balotol, Ruben O. Jr., Enaya, Beljun P., Fernandez, Guiraldo C. Jr., Gallinero, Winston B., Morte, Arnel A.,
Salado, Fritzie B., and Villaroya, Al Franjon M. (2018). Ethics, Mutya Publishing House, Inc., Malabon City.
Aquino, Edna C., Bamba, Lamberto M. Jr., Banzon, Jayson Anthony B., Benitez, Gherold C., De Guzman,
Jens Micah, Hulada, Lou S., Madriaga, Aloysius T., Pacer, Jeremiah B., Puno, Restie Allan A., and Tomas,
Rodrigo DP. (2017). Ethics Principles of Ethical Behavior In Modern Society, Mutya Publishing House,
Inc., Malabon City.

 Freedom is a condition in which people have the
opportunity to speak, act and pursue happiness without
unnecessary external restrictions.
 Freedom is important because it leads to enhanced
expressions of creativity and original thought, increased
productivity, and an overall high quality of life.

 One of the inborn properties of the human person is
freedom.
 The human being is a person endowed with characteristics
that are material, spiritual, rational and free.
 A human person is a being with inborn properties that he or
she uses to direct his or her own development toward
self-fulfillment.

PHILOSOPHICAL INSIGHTS ON FREEDOM
1. Freedom is a Gift
Freedom is the ability to make significant choices
and, according to Marcel, it is a gift given to us by God.
(Hernandez, 2009).
2. Freedom is Complementary to Reason
Aristotle considered freedom and reason as
necessary faculties for consciously making sense of
things (events, occurrences, phenomena, situations).
(Walsh, 1997)

3. Freedom is Absolute
 Existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre’s concept of
freedom is not the freedom to do something or anything.
 In Sartre’s view, the human person is “absolutely free.”
Freedom sets the human person apart from other creatures.
 Humans have a higher kind of freedom.
 In fact, a person who is in jail is still free. He is free to think,
to change and to become a better person.
 A prisoner is free to redefine himself.
 And we are free to use this freedom to attain goals higher
than satisfying basic needs.

4. Freedom Demands Responsibility
 Jean – Paul Sartre said “ You are free” because he believed
a person always has a choice.
 It is important to note however, that he also added the
concept of responsibility to freedom.
 According to Sartre, even though individuals must make their
own choices because they are free, these choices (though freely
made) also have consequences to it.
 Responsibility, as a moral quality serves as a voluntary
check and balance of one’s freedom.
 Without proper balance limitless freedom is as dangerous as
an extremely controlling social group. Great social injustices have
resulted from such radical mindsets.

THE CONCEPT OF FREEWILL
Free will, in humans, the power or capacity to choose among
alternatives or to act in certain situations independently of natural,
social, or divine restraints.
 Free Will describes our capacity to make choices that
are genuinely our own.

HUMAN ACTS VS ACTS OF HUMANS
 Human acts make use of his knowledge and free will.
 Example, love your enemy, pray to God, sacrifice for
others.
 Acts of human do not make use of his intellect or will
knowledge.
 His action is natural. Examples of acts of human are
breathing, blinking, and sneezing.

MODULE III : THE MORAL AGENT
1. Understand deeper the concept of morality.
2. Explain the key features of morality.
3. Understand man as a moral agent.
4. Explain Aristotle’s Moral Responsibility
4. Understand the concept of culture.
5. Understand how culture shapes human behavior.
6. Understand and explain cultural relativism
Reference:
Gubia-On, Arthur B., Leano, Roman, D.,Jr., and Ocampo, Imelda S. (2018). Ethics For College
Students, Mindshapers Company, Inc., Manila
Balotol, Ruben O. Jr., Enaya, Beljun P., Fernandez, Guiraldo C. Jr., Gallinero, Winston B., Morte,
Arnel A., Salado, Fritzie B., and Villaroya, Al Franjon M. (2018). Ethics, Mutya Publishing House, Inc.,
Malabon City.
Aquino, Edna C., Bamba, Lamberto M. Jr., Banzon, Jayson Anthony B., Benitez, Gherold C., De
Guzman, Jens Micah, Hulada, Lou S., Madriaga, Aloysius T., Pacer, Jeremiah B., Puno, Restie Allan
A., and Tomas, Rodrigo DP. (2017). Ethics Principles of Ethical Behavior In Modern Society, Mutya
Publishing House, Inc., Malabon City.

I. MORALITY
 Morality can be defined as the standards that an
individual or a group has about what is right or wrong, or
good and evil.
 Morality is an informal public system applying to all
rational persons, governing behavior that affects others,
and has the lessening of evil or harm as its goals.
 Morality is not imposed from outside, but innate
and can be unconscious.

II. KEY FEATURES OF MORALITY
1. People experience a sense of moral
obligation and accountability .
 Secularists like Kai Nielsen recommend that
one “ought” to act or follow some rules, policies,
practices, or principles. [Kai Nielsen, Ethics Without God. London:
Pemberton, 1973, p. 82.]
 Atheist Richard Dawkins declares that there are “moral
instruction[s] on how we ought to behave.”
[Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion. London: Bantam Press, 2006, p.347.]

2. Moral values and moral absolutes exist
It’s hard to deny the objective reality of moral
values—actions like rape, torture, and child abuse are
not just socially unacceptable behavior but are moral
abominations. [William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics. Wheaton,
Illinois: Crossway Books, 1994, p. 124.]
Some actions are really wrong in the same way
that some things like love and respect are truly good.
There are moral absolutes—truths that exist and
apply to everyone, like that “you ought not to torture
babies for fun on feast days.”

3. ‘MORAL LAW’ THEREFORE EXISTS
 When we accept the existence of goodness, we
must affirm a moral law on the basis of which to
differentiate between good and evil.
4. ‘Moral law’ is known to humans
 Moral law is also called Law of Nature because early
philosophers thought that generally speaking, everybody
knows it by nature. [C.S. Lewis, The Case for Christianity. New York: MacMillan, pp. 5-6.]

5. MORALITY IS OBJECTIVE
 Morality is absolute—there is a real right and real
wrong that is universally and immutably true,
independent of whether anyone believes it or not.
 Since almost all people assume certain things to be
wrong—such as genocide, murder of babies for feast,
and rape—the best explanation is that such things really
are wrong and morality is objective. [Lowell Kleiman, Philosophy:
An Introduction Through Literature. New York: MacMillan, pp. 317-324.]

6. MORAL JUDGMENTS MUST BE SUPPORTED BY REASONS
Moral judgments are different from mere
expressions of personal preference—they require backing
by reasons, and in the absence of such reasons, they are
merely arbitrary.[James Rachels, The Elements of Moral Philosophy.
USA:McGraw-Hill Coll

III. MAN AS A MORAL AGENT
 A moral agent is a person who has the ability to discern
right from wrong and to be held accountable for his or her
own actions.
 Moral agents have a moral responsibility not to cause
unjustified harm.
 Traditionally, moral agency is assigned only to those
who can be held responsible for their actions.

 A moral agent is any person or collective entity with
the capacity to exercise moral agency.
 It is suggested that rational thought and deliberation
are prerequisite skills for any agent.
 In this way, moral agents can discern between right
and wrong and be held accountable for the
consequences of their actions.

 To be a moral agent means to be responsible for
one's moral actions. ...
 Not unimportantly, groups and organizations of various
kinds can also be held responsible as moral agents.
 Corporations may be held responsible for
their moral actions, for example, when their actions do
harm to people.

CHARACTERISTICS OF A MORAL PERSON
KALEIGH MULCAHY

ARISTOTLE AND MORAL RESPONSIBILITY
 “Moral Responsibility” —“moral” to indicate its
connection to the virtues of character (courage,
temperance, generosity, justice) — and “responsibility” to
indicate the causal relation Aristotle posits between agents
and their voluntary actions.
 According to Aristotle, it is the possession and use of
practical knowledge that makes it possible to live a good
life.
 Ethics and politics, which are the practical sciences,
deal with human beings as moral agents.

For Aristotle, eudaimonia is the highest human
good, the only human good that is desirable for its own
sake (as an end in itself) rather than for the sake of
something else (as a means toward some other end).
According to Aristotle, every living or human-made
thing, including its parts, has a unique or characteristic
function or activity that distinguishes it from all other
things.

 The highest good of a thing consists of :
 the good performance of its characteristic function, and
 the virtue or excellence of a thing consists of whatever traits or
qualities enable it to perform that function well.
 (Thus, the virtue or excellence of a knife is whatever
enables the good performance of cutting, that of an eye
whatever enables the good performance of seeing, and so
on.)

 It follows that eudaimonia consists of the good
performance of the characteristic function of human
beings, whatever that may be, and human virtue or
excellence is that combination of traits or qualities that
enables humans to perform that function well.
 Aristotle believes that the characteristic function of
human beings, that which distinguishes them from all
other things, is their ability to reason.

IV. CULTURE
Culture is derived from the Latin word “cultura” or
“cultus” which means care or cultivation.
The father of cultural anthropology, Edward Tylor
stated that in general, culture is the way of life of a
group of people that “includes their knowledge, belief,
art, morals, law, customs, and any other capabilities
and habits acquired by man as a member of society”
(Tylor, 1974, 1981)

ELEMENTS OF CULTURE
Symbols
Symbols can be anything that a group of people find
meaningful. For example, in religious groups, the cross is
a symbol for Christianity while the crescent is for Islam.
Language
Language enable human beings to communicate
either verbally or through writing. Ilocano, Bisaya,
Tagalog, and several other native languages were already
spoken in pre-colonial Philippines.

Beliefs
Beliefs are assumptions or convictions held to be true
by an individual or a group of people.
These assumptions / convictions could be about events,
people or things. Example – superstitious beliefs.
However, when people started to think critically and
scientific research flourished, events are now explained
differently. Thus, beliefs change through time.
Values
Values are culturally accepted standards of behavior.
It is what a person considers important or beneficial in life.
Norm
Norm is an informal guideline by a particular group of
people or social unit about what is considered normal or
correct/incorrect social behavior. Example – pakikisama.

HOW DOES CULTURE DEFINE MORAL BEHAVIOR?
 Plato insisted that a child’s cultural surrounding should
express the image of a noble character, that role models
should display the conduct of a proper human being
because the behavior of the adults serves as the child’s
moral foundation as he /she grows and develops (Cornford,
1966, Pekarsky, 1998).

 Culture is learned as children grow up in society and
discover how their parents and others around them interpret
the world.
 In our society, we learn to classify and perform different
kinds of acts, and even evaluate what is morally good and bad
and to judge when an unusual action is appropriate or
inappropriate (Manego and Pena, 2016)
Many aspects of morality are taught.
 People learn moral and aspects of right or wrong from
transmitters of culture, parents, teachers, novels, films and
television.
 Observing and watching them people develop a set of idea
of what is right and wrong and what is acceptable and what is
not.

VII. CULTURAL RELATIVISM
 Cultural relativism is the ability to understand a culture on
its own terms and not to make judgments using the
standards of one’s own culture.
 The goal of this is promote understanding of cultural
practices that are not typically part of one’s own culture.
 Using the perspective of cultural relativism leads to the
view that no one culture is superior than another culture
when compared to systems of morality, law, politics, etc.


 It is a concept that cultural norms and values derive
their meaning within a specific social context.
 This is also based on the idea that there is no absolute
standard of good or evil, therefore every decision and
judgment of what is right and wrong is individually
decided in each society.

The concept of cultural relativism also means that any
opinion on ethics is subject to the perspective of each person
within their particular culture.
 Overall, there is no right or wrong ethical system.
 In a holistic understanding of the term cultural relativism, it
tries to promote the understanding of cultural practices
that are unfamiliar to other cultures such as eating insects,
genocides or genital cutting.

 Cultural relativism refers to not judging a culture to
our own standards of what is right or wrong, strange or
normal.
 Instead, we should try to understand cultural
practices of other groups in its own cultural context.
 For example, instead of thinking, “Fried crickets are
disgusting! ” one should instead ask, “Why do some
cultures eat fried insects?”.

VIII. ADVANTAGES OF CULTURAL RELATIVISM
1. It is a system which promotes cooperation.
 Every individual has a different perspective that is
based on their upbringing, experiences, and personal
thoughts.
 By embracing the many differences we have, the
cooperation creates the potential for a stronger society.
 Each individual definition of success allows us to pursue
stronger bonds with one another and potentially achieve
more because there are no limitations from a group level and
what can or cannot be accomplished.

2. It creates a society where equality is
possible.
 Cultural relativism allows the individual to define
their moral code without defining the moral code of
others.
 Each person is separate in such a society.
 That separation creates equality because each person
can set their own definition of success.

3. People can pursue a genuine interest.
 If you can’t afford to go to college, then you pursue a
vocational career or some sort of entrepreneurship instead
of a career that requires a graduate degree.
 If you can’t afford to buy a house, you go rent an apartment.
 In cultural relativism, you get to pursue your own interests
without restriction.
 You set the definitions of what you can have and what you
cannot have.
 When implemented successfully, each person would get to
focus on their strengths instead of their weaknesses.

4. RESPECT IS ENCOURAGE IN A SYSTEM OF
CULTURAL RELATIVISM
 People come from different cultures.
 They have different ideas.
 They pursue different definitions of success.
 Because such a system promotes the individual’s definition
instead of a group definition, a society can evolve because
there is a natural level of respect built into the process.
 Each person is naturally given the right to pursue life
through their own specific perspective and then learn from
their experiences in a way that works best for them.

5. It preserves human cultures.
 Humanity is a very diverse set of thoughts, traditions,
ideas, and practices.
 Native and First Nations tribes in North America did this
by signing treaties which would help them to preserve
some lands, but limit their rights by being subject to a
new governmental authority.
 They were forced to trade some of their culture.
 Under the theory of cultural relativism, such a trade
would not be necessary.
 It wouldn’t even be a consideration.

6. Cultural relativism creates a society without
judgment.
 Under the theory of cultural relativism, judgment goes
away.
 The only person that judges you is yourself.
 People who might disagree with you are able to set their
own codes and standards for their own individualistic
bubble.
 Instead of worrying about others, you only worry about
yourself.

7. Moral relativism can be excluded from
cultural relativism.
 Each culture can be treated as an individual under the
theory of cultural relativism.
 This means the moral codes of a culture can be
defined and an expectation implemented that people follow
it.
 You’re focusing on the customs of a culture, not the
morality that is imposed upon those customs.

8. We can create personal moral codes based
on societal standards with ease.
 To determine if a decision would be “right” or
“wrong,” cultural relativism allows individuals to consult
with the standards of their society or culture.
 It is a simple test to determine the course that a
person should take in such a circumstance.
 By consulting with the moral code of the culture, one
question must be asked: does the action conform to the
cultural moral code? If it does, then the action is
permitted.

9. It stops cultural conditioning.
 People tend to adapt their attitudes, thoughts, and
beliefs to the people they are with on a regular basis.
 This is cultural conditioning and it prevents people
from having an individualistic perspective. Cultural
relativism stops this.

IX. DISADVANTAGES OF CULTURAL RELATIVISM
1. It creates a system that is fueled by personal bias.
 People tend to prefer to be with others who have
similar thoughts and feelings, so they segregate
themselves into neighborhoods, communities, and social
groups that share specific perspectives.
 When people are given the power to define their own
moral code, then they will do so based on their own
personal bias.
 There is no longer a group perspective.

2. It would create chaos.
 People who can follow their own moral code
because there is no “wrong” or “right” would be allowed
to pursue any life they preferred under the theory of
cultural relativism.
 If you’re upset with your neighbor, then you can kill
that person without consequence if your moral code
allows for murder.
 Instead of purchasing something, you could steal it if
you see stealing as “right” to do.
 There is no real way to protect people in such a
society, so each person becomes responsible to protect
themselves.
 It creates a system that is Darwinian in practicality,
where only the strongest can survive.

3. It is an idea that is based on the perfection
of humanity.
 Many people strive to do good every day.
 Most want to see everyone have the chance to
pursue happiness in some way.
 That is why the idea of cultural relativism often
seems to be inviting.
 The only problem is that people are not perfect.
 We can be forgetful.
 We can lie.
 We can become aggressive when a driver cuts you
off while driving and puts your family at risk.
 Without a group moral code in place to govern
decisions, anything could happen when we experience
these moments of imperfection.

4. It could promote a lack of diversity.
 Cultural relativism promotes an individualistic point
of view, so although it seems to promote diversity, it
actually removes it from a society.
 It would allow men to exclude women from voting
once again.
 It would stop employers from paying someone a fair
wage – or even paying them a wage at all.
 The only standards that are in place are those which
are set by the individual involved, which means everyone
is pursuing their own position of strength.
 We cannot create diversity when the emphasis of a
society is individualistic gain that can come at the
expense of others

5. It draws people away from one another.
 Although cultural relativism can promote people
coming together to share their strengths, it can also
encourage people to draw apart from one another.
 Because each person is uncertain of what codes and
standards another is following, the natural inclination for
self-preservation causes people to draw away.

6. It could limit moral progress.
 When we look at the idea of moral progress, we
think of becoming more inclusionary instead of
exclusionary.
 This inclusion is reflected in the laws and customs of
the culture.
 In cultural relativism, everyone would be able to use
their bathroom of choice OR a culture could state that
everyone must use a specific bathroom without exception
and there would be complete agreement in either choice.
 Within the society, either choice would be seen as
moral progress, but in reality, it could hold people back.

7. It could limit humanity’s progress.
 No definition of success can be implemented
because each is successful in its own way.
 We might consider the ability for women to vote as
the “right” thing to do today, but in past societies, not
allowing women to vote was also “right” from a cultural
standpoint.
 Because both are “right,” there’s no way to judge
progress.

8. Cultural relativism can turn perceptions into
truths.
 It’s a dark night and it is warm outside. In the world of
cultural relativism, biases becomes a truth that can be acted
upon.
 The decision to act becomes a righteous one because
of the individual truth that the culture allowed through the
bias it perpetrates.

CONCEPTS IN ETHICS
Egoism - It is a theory which describes the underlying
dynamics behind all human actions
Utilitarianism - A philosophical thought which claims that what
is true is what is useful
Moral Theory - A systematic attempt to establish the validity of
certain moral principles
Epistemology - The study of knowledge
Moral - It refers to specific belief that people have
Subjectivism - Its starting point is the recognition that the
individual is at the heart of moral violations

Freedom - A fundamental option
Metaphysics - The study of beings
Ethics - The science of morality
Utilitarianism - What is ethical is dependent
on one’s culture
Aristotle - His Philosophy is Rationalism

Positive - Laws which can be found in the constitutions
Law - It is enforced by the way of a system of sanctions
administered thru persons compelling us to obey
Morality - The quality of human acts the rightness or wrongness of
it
Framework - A theory is a system of thought or ideas which can
also be called _______?
Justice - Giving what is due for others

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