Determinants of Morality General Education 8/general Ethics 1ST SEMESTER SY 2020-2021
Determinants of Morality General Education 8/general Ethics 1ST SEMESTER SY 2020-2021
Determinants of Morality General Education 8/general Ethics 1ST SEMESTER SY 2020-2021
DETERMINANTS OF MORALITY
MODULE 4
DETERMINANTS OF MORALITY
OBJECTIVES
TOPICS COVERED
Do you believe that following our emotions or feelings in the face of moral dilemmas is
completely wrong? What are the risks of allowing our emotions to influence our decisions? What
about the dangers of relying solely on logic without considering our emotions?
So, why do we experience emotions? “Human beings are the most self-aware animals,”
allowing them to develop “basic emotional responses” and devise more rational survival
strategies. The distinction between humans and animals is this. (I. Simons, 2009) The Role of
our Emotions, according to Philosophy Professor Jordi Valverdu, is for survival and innate social
responsibilities.
When our ancestors lived in the desert without the protective gear that we have today,
their primary tool for survival was the “fight or flight” mode in their bodies. Their bodies became
tense, their muscles tightened, their lips dried, and their consciousness became alert in this
mode. Fear, which people experience when they perceive a potential threat or hazard, triggers
this response. In order to survive, our forefathers relied heavily on their emotions and feelings.
For example, when we are afraid, our bodies go into fight mode, which is then triggered by a
sense of danger around us. As a result, feeling isn't always a bad thing in humans.
Charles Darwin was one of the pioneers in the study of human emotions and feelings.
He claims that, in addition to surviving, we use our feelings to communicate with one another.
Fear, in the preceding example, is a useful tool for preventing us from being hurt in the past.
What about our other feelings?
So, can we make decisions solely based on our emotions? Regrettably, the
answer is no. We have already recognized the importance of feelings and emotional
responses in our survival. Today, having some emotions is beneficial because it
provides us with motivation and curiosity. However, an overabundance of these
emotions can cloud our judgment, especially if we are experiencing extreme happiness,
sadness, or fear. The irritability of rage, for example, causes us to be dissatisfied. These
feelings also prevent us from hearing other people's ideas and opinions. Anger can also
cause you to make hasty decisions. Excessive self-assurance can lead to a lack of
critical thinking.
Requirements of morality
The ability to see the interconnectedness of things and the logic behind the
processes involved is the reason for this. Reason seeks out the causes and effects of
actions, as well as evidence to support a hypothesis.
Impartiality is the principle of removing oneself from all forms of bias and prejudice in
order to develop an objective criterion free of unfair and unequal treatment of one group
of people over another.
So, should we stop listening to our feelings completely? Well, No. We must learn
to balance our emotions with our rational minds. Our emotions allow us to connect with
our humanity. It aids us in empathizing with others and considering how a particular
action would most likely affect them. Reason and impartiality, on the other hand, help us
see things more clearly by forcing us to be objective and separate ourselves from our
selfish desires.
Moral truths are truths of reason. A moral judgment is true if it is espoused bybetter
reasons than the alternatives.
Reason is the basis or motive for an action, decision, or conviction. As a quality, it refers
to the capacity for logical, rational, and analytic thought; for consciously making sense of things,
establishing and verifying facts, applying commonsense and logic, and justifying, and if
necessary, changing practices, institutions, and beliefs based on existing or new existing
information. Reason spells the difference of moral judgments from mere expressions of
personal preference. Moral deliberation is a matter of weighing reasons and being guided by
them. Truth in Ethics entails being justified by good reasons. Being defined by good reasons,
moral judgments are objective in the sense that they are true no matter what we might want or
think. Reason commends what it commends, regardless of our feelings, attitudes, opinions, and
desires.
Impartiality involves the idea that each individual’s interests and point of view are
equally important. It is also called evenhandedness or fair-mindedness. Impartiality is a principle
of justice holding that decisions ought to be based on objective criteria, rather than on the basis
of bias, prejudice, or preferring the benefit to one person over another for improper reasons.
Impartiality in morality requires that we give equal and/or adequate consideration to the interests
of all concerned parties. From the impartial standpoint, to say that no one is seen as intrinsically
more significant than anyone else, is not to say that there is no reason whatsoever for which an
individual might demand more moral attention or better treatment than others.
Contemporary author Scott Rae proposes a model for making ethical decisions. His
suggested 7-step model introduces the use of reason and impartiality in deciding on moral
matters. Rae starts presenting his model by telling the case of a twenty-year-old Hispanic male.
A twenty-year-old Hispanic male was brought to a hospital emergency room, having suffered
abdominal injuries due to gunshot wounds obtained ingang violence. He had no medical
insurance, and his stay in the hospital was somewhat shorter than expected due to his good
recovery. Physicians attending to him felt that he could complete his recovery at home just as
easily as in the hospital land he was released after only a few days in the hospital. During his
stay in the hospital, the patient admitted to his primary physician that he was HIV positive,
having contracted the virus that causes AIDS. This was confirmed by a blood test administered
while he was hospitalized.
When he was discharged from the hospital, the physician recommended that a
professional nurse visit him regularly at home in order to change the bandages on his still
substantial wounds and to ensure that an infection did not develop. Since he had no health
insurance, he was dependent on Medicaid, a government program that pays for necessary
medical care for those who cannot afford it. However, Medicaid refused to pay for home nursing
care since there was someone already in the home who was capable of providing the necessary
care. That person was the patient’s twenty-two-year-old sister, who was willing to take care of
her brother until he was fully recovered. Their mother had died years ago and the sister was
accustomed to providing care for her younger siblings. The patient had no objection to his sister
providing this care, but he insisted that she not be told that he had tested HIV positive. Though
he had always had a good relationship with his sister, she did not know that he was an active
homosexual. His even greater fear was that his father would hear of his homosexual orientation
and lifestyle. Homosexuality is generally looked upon with extreme disfavor among Hispanics.
Now here lies the moral dilemma – the patient’s doctor is bound by his code of ethics that puts a
very high priority on keeping confidentiality. On the other hand, the patient’s sister, without
knowing the truth, is putting herself at risk by providing nursing care for him. So, if you were the
physician, what would you do in this case? Would you reach the rule of confidentiality to
safeguard the patient’s sister or would you keep confidentiality to protect the patient from harm
that would come to him from his other family members, especially his father?
For Rae, the question “What would you do in this situation?” is probably as good as the
question “How would you decide what to do in this situation?” He believes that the process of
making a moral decision can be as significant as the decision itself. He admits that the model is
not a formula that will automatically generate the “right” answer to an ethical problem but a
guideline in ascertaining that all the right questions are being asked in the process of ethical
deliberation.
Indeed, it is significant to understand that at some point, we must stop deliberating and
decide, as uncomfortable as that may be. For one thing, Rae’s model is good in the sense that
it has room in it to accommodate a whole host of different moral and ethical perspectives,
considering the ethnic and religious diversity of our society. The model is not necessarily tied to
anyone specific perspective, but can be employed comfortably with a variety of ethnic, cultural
and religious backgrounds. Finally, it promotes the primal consideration of reason and
impartiality in ethics without necessarily eradicating the role of feelings in ethical deliberation.
Direction: Use the 7-stepmoral reasoning model to solve the following case:
Juan Dela Cruz is a healthcare worker attending to the call of duty in the midst of the
COVID-19 pandemic. He is the breadwinner of his family. He takes care of his aged parents and
he has young children. Every health care worker counts during these times and there have been
instances where entire hospitals have been forced to shut down because of presumed exposure
or suspected status of one health care worker. In such an all hands-on deck scenario, to try to
push oneself to the limits of endurance, neglecting physical symptoms and needs, is par for the
course. In the hospital where Juan is working, there is limited availability of personal protective
equipment (PPE) and inequitable distribution of available equipment like ventilators. How
should he balance his ethical duty to care for his patient against genuine concerns of contacting
COVID-19 and spreading it to his family? If he thinks he has some respiratory symptoms and he
thinks he may have been exposed, should he open up about his symptoms and stay at home,
risking social and workplace discrimination, or continue to go about his work as usual, risking
his colleagues’ health, until his test comes positive?
REFERENCES
A. Online Resources:
Reason and Impartiality as Minimum Requirements for Morality/Michael Angelo F.
Empizo/Saint Louis College, City of San Fernando, La Union Memorial of Saint
Athanasius, Bishop and Doctor of the Church. Retrieved from May 02, 2020
https://www.scribd.com/embeds/482313051/
B. Printed resources:
Ethics/Paul J. Glenn/Published 2010
Ethics: Principles of Ethical Behavior in Modern Society by Jens Micah De Guzman et al.