Moral Statements & Standards

• Moral statements and moral standards

Nature of Moral Statements and Moral Standards

• Some college students are not Catholic believers.
• One must knock before entering a room.
• One must cover their mouth when coughing.
• Some Filipino drivers exceed the MMDA speed limit.
• Students must remain silent when the teacher is lecturing.
• Cheating during exams is never permissible.
• Catholics must confess sins to a priest.
• There should be censorship in art.
• Shorts should not be worn to formal dinners.
• Picasso is a great painter.
• Some students are impolite.
• There is an unequal distribution of wealth in the Philippines.
• Rich countries are helpful to poor/developing countries.
• Some business owners evade taxes.
• Littering is not allowed in the classroom.
• Take a bath every day.
• Mr. dela Cruz is an awesome professor.

Differences

• Factual/Empirical statements are verifiable through research.
• Ideal statements are prescriptive and verifiable.

Normative Statements

• Normative Statements express a value judgement
• Correctness is determined by a reference to a norm or standard
• Appeals must be made to standards when dealing with normative statements.
• Moral and ethical claims are subsets of normative claims.
• All moral statements are normative statements, but not all normative statements are moral statements.

Characteristics of Ethical/Moral Statements

• There is a need to observe a certain mode of behavior.
• It is a claim of how things ought to be.
• Prescribing conduct is not in itself enough to make a statement ethical.
• Personal needs do not dictate what is right or wrong.
• Violating a moral rule is more important than breaking grammar or etiquette rules.
• Moral rules ought to be preferred compared to other values.
• Moral rules cannot be changed by authoritative bodies.

Characteristics of Ethical/Moral Standards

• Moral standards involve serious wrongs or provide significant benefits.
• Moral standards have Universality
• Moral standards have overiding importance
• Moral standards are not established by authoritative bodies.
• Moral Standards can by calculated by Norms + Values

Morality and Other Normative Subjects

Etiquette

• Etiquette is a set of rules or customs determining accepted behavior in a social group.
• Etiquette presents rules to improve social relations.
• Etiquette is guided by social approval.
• Etiquette determines what is polite instead of what is right.

Morality and Law

• PNP operatives from Davao served arrest warrants on Pastor Quibuloy, hidden within the KOJC compound, Davao City.
• KJOC members barricaded it to prevent entry.
• PNP dismantled the barricade to serve the warrants of arrest.
• Some called the action overkill.
• Morality and the Law may overlap but are not identical.
• The law is not consulted to determine what is right.
• Laws are passed for moral reasons.
• A person's morality is not derived from the law
• Before the state promulgated laws humans possessed rights.
• The morality of people becomes embodied in law, which directs individual actions.
• Human positive laws are state laws and are based on natural moral law

Questions to Ponder

• In case of conflict between state and conscience, which prevails?
• With everything in human conduct being contained in natural moral law, why is state law needed?

Ethics and Religion: Fundamental Problems

• Moral directives of religion are general and imprecise.
• Nobody can be certain of what God wants them to do.
• There is a role for the faculty of reason.

Task

• Some practices are accepted some religions but rejected in others.
• Is the difference a matter of religious belief or or moral principle?

Explanation of moral statements, standards, and their differences from factual or empirical statements. Includes examples of moral and normative statements. Ideal versus prescriptive statements explained.