Ethics and Morality: Core Principles & Values

• Ethics involves standards of duty and virtue that guide behavior.
• Ethics concerns right and wrong actions and the behavior of honorable individuals.
• Ethics is about being a good person.
• Values are principles, objects, or persons considered important that guide daily life and actions.
• Values serve as the foundation for individual actions.
• Values are what people consider significant in their lives.

Kinds of Values

• Biological
• Social and Cultural
• Rational and Religious
• Moral
• Essential values should be prioritized over accidental ones.
• Values yielding greater satisfaction should be chosen over those providing short-lived pleasures.

Ethics and Morality

• The Greek term "ethos" refers to customs, usage, and character.
• Ethics represents a characteristic way of acting.
• The Latin words "mos" or "mores" are the basis for morals and morality.
• Morality encompasses traditional manners, customs, habits, or character within a community.
• Morality relates to a group's standards or system of values determining good, right, and proper conduct.
• Morality is the science of human acts' morality, studying human motivation and rational behavior.

Morality Defined

• Human acts quality, which are defined as good, bad, or indifferent.
• Moral: good
• Immoral: bad
• Amoral: neither good nor bad

Human Acts and Acts of Man

• Human Acts are performed knowingly, freely, and voluntarily, resulting from conscious knowledge and control of the will.
• Acts of Man are instinctive actions not under the control of the will.

Essential Attributes for Human Acts

• The act must be performed by a conscious agent aware of their actions and consequences.
• The act must be performed by an agent acting freely, using their volition and powers.
• The act must be performed voluntarily by an agent who fully decides to perform it.

Voluntariness

• "Voluntas" in Latin refers to voluntariness.
• Voluntariness is essential to an act.
• Actions are done intentionally if the person wants to do them.

Intentional/Voluntary Acts

• A voluntary act comes from an intrinsic principle with knowledge of the end.
• A voluntary act comes from and relies on the will, which makes it a will-act.
• Actions have a voluntary character when one is fully aware and moves towards the endpoint of their work.

Indirect Voluntariness

• Individuals are responsible for their actions and consequences, but an individual is also accountable for unintended results if:
  • The doer could foresee the evil results or effect
  • The doer can refrain from the action causing evil
  • The doer has a duty to refrain from the action

Kinds of Human Acts

• Wish: The tendency of will towards something, whether realizable or not.
• Intention: The tendency of the will towards something achievable without committing to achieving it.
• Consent: Acceptance of the will of those needed to carry out the intention.
• Election: Selection of the means effective enough to implement the intention.
• Use: Command of the will to use chosen means to carry out the intention.
• Fruition: Enjoyment derived from attaining the desired thing.
• Commanded acts are done using mental or bodily powers under the will's command.

Actions

• Internal Actions
• External Actions

Moral Distinctions of Human Acts

• Moral actions.
• Immoral actions.
• Amoral actions are neutral actions.

Modifiers of Human Acts

• Ignorance
• Passions
• Fear
• Violence
• Habits

Ignorance

• The lack of required knowledge which human beings should have relating to moral duties.

Passions

• Passions (Concupiscence): Strong tendencies towards good or aversion to evil, considered indifferent unless ordered by reason.
• Passions: Neither good nor evil, but INDIFFERENT without bias or preference for someone.

Chief Passions

• Love
• Desire
• Delight
• Hope
• Bravery
• Anger
• Hatred
• Sadness
• Despair
• Fear
• Horror

Passions in Moral POV

• Passions are natural for self-preservation.
• Without passions, a person lacks self-defense, improvement, and devotion.
• Passions are good when the rational will orders them to help in virtue or attain moral good.
• Passions are bad when the rational will uses them to accomplish morally evil actions or when uncontrolled by reason.

Fear

• Fear is mental disturbance caused by the thought of a threatening evil.
• Fear is the mind's apprehension of impending evil.
• Fear is an unpleasant feeling of anxiety or apprehension.
• Actions done with or in spite of fear are always voluntary.
• Actions done from or through fear are involuntary.
• Fear lessens voluntariness but does not destroy it.
• Fear may increase or diminish the voluntariness of human acts if considered an ordinary passion.

Violence

• Violence or compulsion is use of external force to compel someone against their will.

Habit

• Habit is a consistent way of doing things through repetition.
• Habit is an established, repeated action, possibly done unconsciously.
• Habit Synonyms: addiction, dependency, fixation, obsession, weakness, custom, routine, practice, tradition, convention, pattern.