4.

Ethics
Prepared by:
Sir Albert Avila
 Ethics

• What is the good life?

 Nature of ethics

a. Ethics is the philosophical study of the morality of

human acts.

b. Only human acts are subjects of morality and moral

responsibility.

c. Human acts are acts done with knowledge, freedom

and voluntariness.
 Nature of ethics

d. Acts with no knowledge, and/or freedom, and/or

voluntariness, are called acts of man and are not
subject to morality.

e. The determinants of morality are the acts itself, the

circumstances, and the end of the doer.
Classical
ethical
theories
 1. Platonism
• If a man knows what the
good life is, he will not act
immorally. Thus, evil is due
to lack knowledge.

• Absolutism – there is
fundamentally one and only
one good life for all men to
lead – the objectivity of
Moral principle.
 2. Aristotle
nicomachean ethics

• The Doctrine of the

mean – in order to
achieve happiness,
men must act
moderately, they
must act so as to be
striving for the
mean between two
extreme.
 Aristotle
nicomachean ethics

• The good life is a life

of happiness.

• Happiness is an
activity not a goal.

• Men ought to behave so

as to achieve happiness.
 3. Epicurus –
hedonism
• Pleasure is the sole good – to
live pleasantly without
suffering from any of the
undesirable effects of such
living.

• Dynamic pleasure – pleasure

accompanied by pain.
Epicurus – hedonism
• Passive pleasure – pleasure
not accompanied by pain.

a. Psychological
Hedonism – a doctrine
that states that men pursue
pleasure and only pleasures
in their lives.

b. Ethical Hedonism
– the view that men not only
seek pleasure but that they
ought to do so since it is the
only good.
 4. Cynicism –
Diogenes
• Holds that all fruits of
civilization are worthless.

• If salvation is to be found , it
is in the rejection of society
and a return to simple life, to
a life of ascetic living.
Cynicism – Diogenes

• The world was

fundamentally evil,
in order to live properly a
man must withdraw from
participation in it.

• Man must find it, within

itself. This is what virtue
consists of.
 5. Stoicism – zeno
• Learn to be indifferent to
external influences

• Epictitus – good or evil

depends upon oneself.

• Virtue resides in the will,

that only the will is good or
bad.
Stoicism – zeno
• Man who is indifferent is a
free man – he becomes
independent of the world.

• Predestination – all
happenings in the world are
fixed by God according to
some preconceived plan.

• Virtue consists of a will

which is in agreement with
the happenings of nature.
 6. Christian Ethics
• The view that there is
divine being who has
laid down certain
rules for moral behavior and
that correct conduct consist in
acting accordance with these
rules and incorrect conduct
consists in violating them.

• Authoritarianism – the church

regards the moral code as
an objective and infallible
guide to correct behavior.
7. Baruch Spinoza
• All things come to pass,
according to the eternal
order and fixed laws
of nature – stoics point of
view.

• Nothing is good or bad in

itself but it is only in
relation to someone
relativist.

• One should look at events as

part of of a larger system.
 8. Utilitarianism:
J. Bentham and J.S Mill

• An action is right in so far as

it tends to produce the
greatest happiness
for the greatest
number.
• The consequences of a
given action determines
the rightness or the
wrongness of an act not
the motive for which it was
done.
Activity 1