THE ORIGIN OF ETHICS

 Ethics comes from the Greek word ethos, means

character, customs or habit.
 Ethics, in ancient Greece, was concerned with
the development of a virtuous and moral
character.
 The great Greek moralist, Socrates, was the
First recognize the value of questions that effect
how a person should alive.
 Socratic method consist of asking people
questions about ideas they presumably know a
about.
DEFINED ETHICS
 Ethics is also often called moral
philosophy.
 The word of moral from the Latin word
mores which also means customs and
habits.
 Ethics will be define as the study of the
methods and principles used to
distinguish good from bad, right from
wrong actions.
 Thus, ethics means the science of
customs or habits in society.
THE ASSUMPTIONS OF ETHICS
Like any other discipline, ethics proceeds
from some basic assumptions. Assumptions
are the fundamentals beliefs or statements
that are accepted to be true without burden
of proving or of proof. Most books
concerning the study of ethics present a long
list of assumptions.
THE ASSUMPTIONS OF ETHICS
THE TWO MOST IMPORTANT AND MOST
COMMON ASSUMPTION OF ETHICS
 FIRST, that man is a rational being. This means that
man is rational and actions with a purpose, unlike
brutes who merely act out of instinct and reflex.
 SECOND, that man is free. Ethics assumes that man is
free to act according to his will and he has the power to
act, speak, or think if he choose to restraints.
 THE OBJECTS OF ETHICS
The principal cause of actions is usually attributed to the
doer. If, for the instance, Pedro and not any malicious
demon or spirit is responsible for his act or for the crime
he committed. Because Pedro did the act, it is expected
that Pedro suffer the moral or legal consequences of his
act.
 THE OBJECTS OF ETHICS
THE PHYSICAL OBJECT OF ETHICS
 The doer of an act and the act done by the doer are two
different objects of Ethics.
 The doer of an act is the physical object of ethics
(moral agent) physical object of ethics does not only
refer to a person, but to an institutions (the business
firm, the government etc.), and the to other forms of
social of social organization (nongovernmental
organizations, clubs, fraternity associations, etc.)
 THE OBJECT OF ETHICS
 THE NONPHYSICAL OBJECT OF ETHICS
The action done by a moral agent, such as the act
of telling the truth, helping others in distress, fulfilling
a promise, forgiving other’s trespasses, humility,
including malicious deeds, such a murder stealing,
lying, and others are called the Nonphysical object of
ethics.
TWO GENERAL FORMS OF ACT
1. ACTS OF A MAN
Involuntary Natural Acts
acts of a man, are of two types: the first
type is called involuntary natural acts. These
include the involuntary, intuitive or reflex acts
exhibited by man, such as the blinking of the
eye, the beating of the heart, sneezing, yawning,
breathing, scratching, and others.
 TWO GENERAL FORMS OF ACTS
Try doing the following and confirm for yourself if
they are indeed voluntary
 Stop blinking for five to ten minutes
 Stop breathing for five to ten minutes
 Stop your heart from breathing
 Stop your stomach from digesting the food you have
taken during breakfast.
 TWO GENERAL FORMS OF ACTS
Voluntary Natural acts
 The second type of normal acts are called voluntary acts.
They include voluntary and natural, but not necessarily
reflexive acts, such as sleeping, eating drinking.
 Performs as part of our daily, activities socially learned
activities, example : brushing our teeth, combing our
hair, cutting our nails taking a bath etc.
TWO GENERAL FORMS OF ACTS
2. HUMAN ACTS
 The second general form of acts is called
human acts.
 Human are included actions that are
conscious, deliberate, intentional, voluntary
and are within the preview of human value
judgement.
 Human acts are either moral or immoral.
Classification of human acts
Classification of human acts
1. Moral or ethical acts
these are human acts that observe or conform to a
standard or norm of morality.
2. Immoral or unethical acts
these are human acts that violate or deviate from a
standard of morality.
FORMS OF ETHICAL ANALYSIS
DESCRIPTIVE ETHICS
 is more suited to empirical sciences like
sociology, psychology, or political science as it
aims to discover what moral beliefs are held
by a given society, social group or social
organization.
 NORMATIVES ETHICS
 Many part, philosophers believe that ethics is
for the most part, a normative study.
 Normative study is not merely a description
of what people find morally good.
MAJOR NORMTIVE ETHICS
CONSIQUENTIALIST (TELEOGCAL) ETHICS
 This school of thought maintains that the morality of an
action is determined solely by its consequences.
example: of an consequences is utilitarianism
NONCONSIQUENTIALIST (DEOTOLOGICAL)ETHICS
 Deontological theories assert that the morality of an action
depend on its intrinsic nature, its motives, or its accordance
with so rules or principles and not n its consequences.
examples: is Immanuel Kant’s Categorical
imperative
FORMS OF ETHYCAL ANALYSIS
 AUTHORTARIAN ETHICS
 The Authoritarian Theory morality of appeals to
authority and force in determining what constitute
right from wrong, good from bad, moral from
immoral.
 THEOLGICAL ETHICS
 This holds that the will of God is what determines
the rightness and wrongness of an act.
 LEGALISM OF LEGALISTIC MORALITY
 Determines right from wrong, based on a body of
clearly state and well-documented body of laws.
FORMS OF ETHYCAL ANALYSIS
 ETHICAL EGOISM
 Maintains that an action is right only if it is
in the interest of the agent of the doer of the
act.
 Ethical egoism is not a simple theory of
morality.
SITUATONAL ETHICS
 Asserts that the morality of an action
depends on the situation and not the
application of moral laws to the case.
FORMS OF ETHICS
 PRACTICAL ETHICS
 Is a primarily concerned with answering
matter- of-fact questions, such as the
questions posed by the situations presented
above.
 Is a essentially normative, that is . It
prescribes courses of action for moral issue
where clear answers are lacking.
FORMS OF ETHICS
 THEORETICAL ETHICS
 Is a primarily aims to study the meaning
of ethical concepts such as good, right,
fairness, etc.
 Attempts to study of moral acts, inquires
into what makes a right, and determines
the relation between facts and values.
 Forms of ethics
MORAL SKEPTICISM
 Comes from the Greek, word, skeptesthai,
meaning
“to examine” or “to consider”.
 It is a general name for the philosophic
attitude that rejects any claim to certainly,
thus opposed to any form of moral
dogmatism, or to any attitude of
authoritative certainty.
PERSONAL AND SOCIAL ETHICS
 Personal Ethics tries to study how a
person should act in relation how a
person should act in relation to himself,
 Social Ethics concerns how a person
should act in relation to others, such a
distinction rest on differentiating
between to one’s self and duties to
others.