Western Ethics Part 1 PDF

# ETHICS/Part One ## An Expose of Western and Eastern Ethics - We do not intend to provide a comparative study between Western and Eastern ethics. The reason is that when we compare them the effect is disadvantageous to one of them. - When one compares, one necessarily finds which is superior and...

# ETHICS/Part One ## An Expose of Western and Eastern Ethics - We do not intend to provide a comparative study between Western and Eastern ethics. The reason is that when we compare them the effect is disadvantageous to one of them. - When one compares, one necessarily finds which is superior and which is inferior. - Categorically it is not good to speak of superior ethics or inferior ethics, just as it is equally wrong to speak of backward morality in contradiction to advanced or progressive morality. - No ethics is higher in degree than any other. - Western and Eastern ethics should be given equal footing in importance. - Ethics or morality is based on absolute and universal laws. - There is a difference in views of morality as a reflection of actual life situations. - There are many different ethical insights, theories, and principles. ## Generally, Western ethics teaches: - Man has a self. - Man is an individual. - Man is a person. - Western ethics is personalist. - The "ought" of Western ethics obligates man to be a self, to be what he is, and to be a person. ## Western ethics, conversely, generally does not teach: - That man is a self. - Eastern ethics teaches a doctrine of "many selves." - Man is not treated as an individual or person. - Man is a being among other beings who is tasked to harmonize his existence with his fellow human beings. ## Chapter 1: Western Ethics - We begin with a brief historical survey. ## The moral life in ancient Greece developed: - When a Greek performed his duties as a citizen, such as paying taxes. - To the Greeks, a man who performs his duties is a good man. - This gave rise to the concept of how it is to be good. ## During the medieval period: - The moral life was dominated by the Church. - The good life was identified with the holy life or religious life. - Moral standards were geared towards salvation. ## In the modern period: - A revolt against the Catholic Church occurred. - This period was characterized by man's persistent dissociation from what had been the medieval man's source of moral life (i.e., the Church). - Morality is more concerned with free individuals. ## Today, ethics is conditioned by two influences: - Free reflections that arose in the Greek city states. - Moral tradition of Judeo-Christians. - Moral standards that originated from Eastern moralities are also included. - Buddhism and Hinduism are starting to be embraced by some of the Westerners. ## A. Greek Ethics - The great Greek triumvirate philosophers - Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle - who started to fashion morality in a systematic order. ## Socratic, Platonic, and Aristotelian ethics may be perhaps classified as ethics of self-realization: - They emphasize the personhood of every individual. - They highlight the self as being confronted with demands of living a good life. ## What is the good life? - Greek ethics aims to answer this question. - Socrates answers through his concept of knowledge and virtue or goodness. - Happiness is the ultimate end of human actions for Socrates. - Man can be happy if he is wise. - A wise man is good or virtuous. - A good man knows and does what is good. ## Ethical Teaching of Socrates - Considered as the greatest moral philosopher of Western civilization. - His philosophy is ethical rather than ontological. - His epistemology is geared towards a moral life. - He speaks of truth as a discourse of will. - He speaks of knowledge as a means of ethical action. - Knowledge is not an entity for its own sake, but a means of ethical action. - Socrates taught that knowledge and truth provoke the will to act for the good so that the agent can live right or have a good moral life. - A person can act correctly and well if they know what the good life is. - Knowledge and virtue cannot be considered distinct from each other. - A wise man knows what is right. - Action is the extension of knowledge. - Socrates does not equate right action with good action. - Correctness is different from goodness. - Wrongness is different from badness. - Correctness and wrongness of actions are based on existing principles. - Action is right or correct if it conforms with a given principle. - Badness and wrongness of actions are based on the quality of the act. - An action is good if it bears a good quality. - An action is good if it serves man truly in the sense of enhancing his authentic happiness (eudaimonism). - Knowing what is right means doing what is right. - A person does not choose to do evil. - A person does evil out of ignorance. - Correctness of an action is a projection of the good. - The will of man always aims at the good. - No individual person volitionally does evil because the will does not aim at evil. - A person does evil only indirectly. - An agent who is not knowledgeable of what is right is morally weak. - A wise person is a well-cultured person who knows what is right. - They know how to control themselves. - A wise person is just and courageous. - A wise person is happy. - Happiness is not material possession. - True pleasure is doing what is right. - True pleasure will offer lasting happiness. - A wise person is moral. - If you wish to be happy, you should be wise, because wisdom is its own reward.. - Ethics embodies a fundamental principle. - Man's supreme goal is happiness. - Human beings can attain happiness by doing what is right. - Happiness demands two things: goodness and virtue. - An ethical life is a happy life. - An ethical person is happy because they do what is right and good. - An ethical person is virtuous. - Virtue is knowledge. - Vice is a lack of knowledge. - Rational life implies ethical life. - If one cannot be rational, they cannot be ethical. ## Ethical Teaching of Plato - Happiness lies in reason. - Man actualizes himself if they try to be rational. - We will investigate his philosophy in general and hope to get a comprehensive view of his ethical teaching. ## Plato posits that there are two domains of reality. - **Ideal (idea)** and **Phenomenal (phenomena)** worlds. - Ideal is described by Plato as eternal, immutable, self-existing, and indestructible. - The zenith of Idea is Good. - The Good is beyond truth, essence, and is like the sun that shines throughout everything that exists. - The phenomenal world is material, mutable, teleological, and destructible. ## Plato's concept of ideal and phenomenal worlds is related to his concept of man. - Man is a metaphysical dichotomy between body and soul. - Man is the locus of the Ideal and Phenomenal worlds.. - Man is a soul using a body. - The human soul has three parts: - Appetitive (desire). - Spiritual (feeling). - Rational. - The spiritual soul is located in the chest. - The appetitive soul is located in the abdomen. - The rational soul is located in the head. ## The human body falls under the domain of the Phenomenal world in Platonic philosophy. - It is material and changeable. - It has a definite purpose. - It is teleological. - It is destructible. ## The human soul falls under the domain of Idea or the Ideal world. - Plato argues that the rational part is the part that can establish balance in a person. - Self-realization is attainable by nurturing reason properly. - This becomes the "ought" in Platonic ethics. ## Plato's view of Justice - Plato speaks of four basic virtues: - Wisdom. - Courage. - Temperance. - Justice. - Wisdom arises in the rational soul. - Courage arises in the spiritual soul. - Temperance arises in the appetitive soul. - Wisdom rules over the other virtues. - The rational soul rules over the other levels of the soul. - Wisdom directs: - Courage (intellectual courage). - Temperance. - Temperance means moderation. - Justice can only come to the fore if there is balance between wisdom, courage, and temperance. - Justice means the observance of duty and righteousness. - Justice is what is due to or from a person.. - Justice covers the field of the individual's conduct as long as such conduct affects others. ## In his ethical teachings, Plato develops the concept that the life of reason (rational soul) is the happiest and the best form of life. - Knowledge (rational soul) makes a well-balanced man. - Wisdom arises in the rational soul. - Reason establishes a balance. - Reason rules passion (spiritual soul) and desires (appetitive soul). - A harmonious man is a morally virtuous man who is rationally, biologically, and emotionally balanced. - If one wants to be happy, they should be a harmonious man: a man of virtue. ## Evaluating Plato's Ethics - Plato develops a universal or absolute ethical theory just like Socrates. - Platonic ethics is absolute ethical theory because virtue and knowledge belong to Idea. - Virtue is innate. - Knowledge is absolute, universal, and objective. - Moral laws are universal and absolute because virtue and knowledge are parts of the moral law. - Good is the summit of Idea. - The good involves virtues: - Wisdom. - Temperance. - Courage. - Justice. - Knowledge enables a harmonious man to arrive at the Good. - To arrive at the Good requires searching for knowledge. - The Good is the terminal point of a morally virtuous person. - Thus, the Good is the harmony of our native interest: - To see. - To know. - To cultivate the affections. - To associate ourselves with the movements of the visible world. - To find our true place in communal. - To join harmony and grace of symmetry. - To subject variations of temper to rational control. - To forbid excess. - To see that the good embodies truths won by analysis and experience. ## Ethical Teaching of Aristotle - If Plato claims that ethics or morality is a matter of nature (because virtues are innate), Aristotle claims that ethics is matter of planning, purpose, and decision: a matter of character. - It is not natural for man to be moral. - It is demanded by nature. - There is no reciprocal exchange in Plato's and Aristotle's philosophy or ethical teaching. - Plato's is tailor-made or a stereotype because he admitted morality as inborn in man. - Aristotle's ethics has many ethical dogmas. - Aristotle and Plato have different points of view on ethics. - We treat each separately. - Aristotle’s theory follows the same thread as Plato and Socrates. - They emphasize the supremacy of man's rational and teleological nature. - Aristotle emphasizes virtues: - Moral. - Intellectual. - Contemplation is the activity that enables man to attain the highest form of happiness and the teleology (purpose) for why man acts. ## The basic premise where Aristotelian ethical theory begins is the experimental inquiry. - What is the fundamental object of human desire? - Aristotle pragmatically seeks to answer what man ultimately seeks: - Honor. - Wealth. - Achievement. - Sensual pleasure. - Aristotle argues that there is something fundamental behind these things: happiness. - He sets forth to investigate the nature of happiness. - He looks at the requisites and conditions for its acquisition. ## Aristotelian ethics is an ethics of self-actualization. - This means that happiness is dependent on one's self-actualization. - Morality for Aristotle is centered in his happiness doctrine. - Morality is not innate. - Happiness is developed by man. - Moral ideals are developed. - Happiness depends on one's self-actualization. - Aristotle's answer requires us to understand happiness in the context of reason, which is, for the pundit, man’s distinctive activity or function. ## If happiness should be understood in the context of reason, where shall we put the connection between reason and virtue? - Reason is virtue. - Virtue is reason. - Virtue arises from: - Intellectual virtue. - Moral virtue. - Intellectual virtue arises from teaching. - Intellectual virtue surfaces through one's contemplation of theoretical moral truths and one's discovery of rational principles that ought to control our every action. - Moral virtue arises from habit. - Moral virtue comes forth from habitual choice of action in consonance with rational principles. - Aristotle concludes that virtue is reason and reason is virtue. - This implies that a virtuous person lives in reason. - A virtuous person is happy because they are in the active exercise of virtue. - Virtue is the excellence of a thing to perform effectively its proper function. ## When can virtue occur? - Virtue occurs in the context of the mean. - Virtue is a state of character concerned with choice lying in a mean. - If virtue is a choice, it is an activity. - Moral and intellectual virtue is a choice. - Aristotle's idea of the mean: a choice between two vices. - The mean lies between vice in the context of excess and vice in the context of defect. ## What about actions that are not immune to the clutches of the mean? - Aristotle recognizes that the "Doctrine of the Mean" cannot be applied to all actions. - These actions are ontologically bad: - Shamelessness - Envy - Adultery - Murder - Aristotle clarifies that because virtues are states of character, they are not passions. ## Passions are appetites such as: - Anger. - Fear. - Confidence. - Joy. - Friendly feelings. - Hatred. - Longing. - Emulation. - Pity. - Passions are feelings that are accompanied by either pleasure or pain. ## Virtue is a mean. - It stands between two vices: - Excessive. - Deficient. - Virtue cannot be applied to actions that are in themselves evil because they are not subject to error or fault. - Aristotle properly applies his Doctrine of the Mean to specific factual cases. ## Aristotelian concept of the mean can be conveniently grouped as follows: - **The mean from the standpoint of conduct:** - **Fear:** excess is confidence, deficiency is fear (cowardice, rash). - **Confidence:** excess is fear (cowardice, rash), deficiency is confidence. - **Pleasure:** excess is pleasure, deficiency is pain. - **Prodigality:** excess is prodigality, deficiency is meanness. - **Honor (empty vanity):** excess is honor (empty vanity), deficiency is undue humility. - **Irascibility: ** excess is irascibility, deficiency is inirascibility. - **The mean from the standpoint of intercourse between words and actions:** - **Boastfulness:** excess is boastfulness. deficiency is truthfulness - **Buffoonery: **excess is buffoonery, deficiency is ready-willedness. - **Obsequiousness/Flatterer: **excess is obsequiousness or a flatterer. deficiency is friendliness. - **Envy: **excess is envy, deficiency is righteous indignation. - **Quarrelsomeness: ** excess is quarrelsomeness, deficiency is modest. - **Boorishness: ** excess is boorishness, deficiency is ready-willedness. - **The mean from the standpoint of passions:** - **Spite: **excess is spite, deficiency is righteous indignation. ## Aristotle's Ethics - We can say that one can morally actualize their life through one's indispensable observance of virtue. - Man actualizes their distinctive power which is reason. - The end of ethical life is the cultivation of reason. - The gateway to ethical life is premised on one's rational development. ## Ethical Teaching of Jesus Christ - His moral paradigm is similar to Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle: a personal call towards self-realization. - His ethics contains different nuances: - It is radical. - It is demanding. - It is fair. - It is addressed to everyone: - King. - Prince. - Rich man. - Pauper. - Slave. - He teaches one universal Ethics that cuts across everything. - His moral teaching recognizes no social stratification. - He does not discriminate: - Between a slave and a freeman. - The rich and the poor. - The powerful and the weak. - He did not write anything, but we can follow His teaching through the Sacred Scriptures. - His radical ethical ideal. ## The ethics of Jesus shows more preference to the poor and the oppressed: - The ethics of Jesus is an ethics of love. - The ethics of Jesus demands honesty and authenticity. - The ethics of Jesus is an ethics which teaches faith in the Father. - The ethics of Jesus espouses peace and reconciliation. - The ethics of Jesus demands sacrifice and suffering. - Jesus manifests a preferential option for those who are: - Poor. - Abandoned. - Disadvantaged. - Exploited. - Unprivileged - Persecuted. - Oppressed. - They are promised heaven. - Those who are reconciled with the Father are enticed to bear their lot and develop hope for their glorious future. - Filipinos have affinity with Jesus. - Filipinos bear poverty because Jesus says: **"Blessed are the poor, theirs is the kingdom of God."** - The core of ethics lies in man’s heart, not in man’s observance of the law. - The moral man is he who loves their neighbors and thus loves God because you cannot love God and hate your neighbors. - The commandment of Christ requires Christians to love all people, not just the lovable. - The good ones: - Rich - Famous - Powerful - Good-looking - Dignified. - The bad ones: - Corrupt officials - Prostitutes - Criminals. ## The ethics of Jesus is not easy for an ordinary Christian. - Nietzsche said: “There is only one Christian; and He died on the cross." - We in general have not as yet complied with His teaching of loving the unlovables. - Jesus' ethics seeks no hypocrisy. - He teaches honesty and sincerity. - He does not like people who seek affirmation or approval from the common public or mainstream society. - He says, “When you pray, you should not be like the hypocrites, for they like to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners in order to be noticed. When you pray go to your own room and close the door and pray to your Father who is unseen; your Father sees you in secret will repay you”. - He says, “When you are going to give alms, for example, do not blow a trumpet before yourself, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and the streets to make people praise them… But when you give to charity your left hand must not know what your right hand is doing so that your charity may be in secret, and your Father who sees what is secret will reward you”. - The ethics of Jesus teaches faith in the Father. - A believer should not worry about tomorrow. - He should develop complete trust in the Father. - Jesus asks, “Which of you with all his worry can add a simple hour to his life? Why should you worry about clothing? See how the wildflowers grow. They do not toil or spin, and yet I tell you even Solomon in all his splendor, was never dressed like one of them. But if God so beautifully dresses the wild grass which is alive today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, will He not much more surely clothe you? You who have so little faith?" So do not worry and say, "What shall we have to eat?" or "What shall we have to drink?” or “What shall we have to wear?” For these all the heathen are in pursuit of and your heavenly Father knows well that you need all these. But you must make His kingdom, and uprightness before you, your greatest care, and you will love all these other things besides. So, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will have worries of its own. Let each day be content with its own ills. ## The moral teaching of Jesus demands peace and reconciliation. - Jesus compares His ethical system with the Jewish Law. - He says, "You have heard that the men of old were told ‘You shall not murder’ and ‘whoever murders will have to answer to the court’, but I tell you that anyone who gets angry with their brother will have to answer to the court, and anyone who speaks contemptuously to their brother will have to answer to the great council, and anyone who says to their brother ‘You cursed fool’ will have to answer for it in the fiery pit" - You cannot find peace if you are not at peace with yourself. - If you are not at peace with yourself and others, you cannot be at peace with God. - Jesus says: - “when you are presenting your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother has grievance against you, leave your gift right there before the altar and go and make up with your brother, then come back and present your gift. Be quick and come to terms with your opponent while you are on the way to court with him, or he may hand you over to the officer and you will never get out again until you have paid the last penny." ## The moral teaching of Jesus demands suffering and sacrifice. - This connects to the first heading. - To be poor is to suffer. - To accept one's dire lot is to accept a lot of poverty. - This is more than enough sacrifice. - This is the most crucial demand in Jesus' Ethics. - The road to heaven is thorny. - It is wrapped up with sorrow, pain, and tribulations. - Jesus says, “If you want to follow me, you must deny yourself, take up your cross and begin to follow in my steps”. ## Ethical Teaching of St. Augustine - The focal point of Augustine's moral imperative is God. - Love is the highest attribute of God. - Love is considered by Augustine as the basis and central point of Augustine's moral teaching, which is Medieval Philosophy. - God is the starting point and the terminal point of everything in existence. - God created everything out of love. - Love is the impetus for God to create. - God expects His creation to come back to Him. - God showed much favor to man because He gave man free will. - Man has the power to choose between good and evil. - Man’s free will, or freedom, is the primordial basis of the existence of evil. - It is man who authors evil. - Evil, for Augustine, is the negation or absence of good. - A man lacks goodness if he does evil. - A man who does evil is immoral. - Human acts are nothing else but gestures of man’s free will. - The moral idealistic “ought" remains the same: for man to strive to do good. - Man is imperfect. - Man can author evil. - Man is capable of attaining perfection on condition that they keep themselves good. ## Medieval ethics, in general, and Christian ethics, in particular, dispose the moral imperative towards salvation. - An immoral man cannot save himself. - A man is saved by their faith in God. - God's words, and the grace of God. - Only God redeems man. - Augustine suggests some contributory factors that help man attain salvation: - Five cardinal virtues: - Prudence. - Justice. - Temperance. - Fortitude. - Charity or love. - To be good is to desire God. - Man desires happiness. - Man should desire for God because He gives perfect happiness and ultimate satisfaction. - Beauty, power, honor, fame, health, and the like cannot give man perfect happiness and ultimate satisfaction because they are by themselves finite and mutable. - Only the cardinal virtues can give man sure assurance towards his reunification with God. - Man should practice wisdom and virtue so that they can become morally alive. ## Augustine's understanding if God as love drives him to take love as the basis and central point of his ethics. - Augustine suggests that man should practice the cardinal virtues in the name of charity or love because love is the foundation of all virtues. - Love is the greatest virtue. - Love is the center of moral injunction in Augustinian moral teaching. ## Ethical Teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas - Aquinas is a follower of Aristotelian philosophy, in general, and of Aristotelian Ethics, in particular. - He Christianized the pagan moral philosophy of Aristotle. - We cannot appreciate Thomistic ethics if we do not appreciate Aristotelian ethics. - Aquinas takes the concept of virtues taught by Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics and integrates his theological virtues to complement Aristotle’s virtues. - Aristotelian Ethics is incomplete because it needs his theological virtues. - Aristotelian virtues should be given room for a point of convergence with the supernatural or theological virtues of Aquinas. - Aquinas added his concept of Beatific Vision, which is the wedding of the two sets of virtue. - They equip man towards his well-being on earth and eternal life in heaven. ## The Aristotelian virtues and the supernatural virtues (Faith, Hope, and Love) help man attain Beatific Vision: - St. Thomas's term for salvation in which man sees God face to face. ## The Angelic thinker's concept of human actions: - Every agent acts for an end. - Human actions are always geared towards ends. - They also become the means for the attainment of other ends. - There is a series of ends in human actions. - For example, A eats – to satisfy their hunger. - Once A has eaten, they make use of the energy brought about by the food. - The achieved end of A becomes the means of A’s attainment of further ends. ## There should be a final end of all these ends. - Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle call this final or ultimate end of human actions happiness. - Aquinas takes the same term. - It is difficult to know how an end can be called final. - Aquinas sketches some criteria: - Desirable to us for its own sake. - Sufficient in itself to satisfy us. - Attainable by the wise among us. - Offers happiness to us. ## Human actions are always directed towards ends. - If this is the case, human actions are voluntary. - Aquinas speaks of the will in relation to human actions. - Human actions are voluntary because they are willed by the agent. - The agent intends an end as they perform an act. - Voluntary or willful actions are performed according to the following conditions: - The act is in itself overt (externally manifested). - The agent acts because of a motive that prompts them to act. - The agent is responsible for the consequences of their actions. ## Aquinas contends that man's will can only intend what is good. - This is what Socrates asserted earlier. - The agent does an act because they see the end in the act itself. - By doing so, they are gratified. - This is understandable because anything good is something that fits or satisfies a lack. - An agent does an act because the action itself fits into their need. - The agent is satisfied after performing it. - The motive of any agent’s act is the acquisition of a good. - Every agent acts for good. ## We will intend to discuss the views of Aquinas concerning circumstances of human actions like concupiscence, fear, ignorance, and the like, and also conscience. - Aquinas's moral philosophy is the basis of our discussion on "human acts" in Chapter 2 of Part II. - We will only discuss Aquinas's view on law, in general, and relate it to the moral law. ## Our discussion on law, in a way, would complete our investigation of Aquinas’s moral philosophy. - There is no chasm between Ethics and law. - They are closely associated. - Aquinas’s concept of law cannot be dissociated from his moral philosophy. - Thomistic ethics is centered on the concept of the Natural Law and the Eternal Law. - God, in his divine providence, plans for all things and directs all things to their proper order, to their proper purpose, or to their proper ends. - All things have a purpose and end. - This plan and direction is what Aquinas calls the Eternal Law. - The natural order of things (which is nothing else but the attainment of God’s plan and direction of these things – the natural order of things) is what Aquinas calls the Natural Law. - When the Natural Law is applied to man, Aquinas says it is called Natural Moral Law. - The Natural Moral Law refers to the natural order of man – as a being of action, as a rational being, and as a free being. - The Natural Moral Law can only become valid when it is applied to man in relation to man’s actions. ## The Natural Law and the Natural Moral Law are manifestations and reflections of the Eternal Law. - The Natural Law is the reflection of Eternal Law. - They are one.. - The Natural Moral Law is the Eternal Law acquired and understood by man through their reason. - Reason serves as a medium for the Eternal Law to be known by man in the context of the Natural Moral Law. - The Natural Moral Law is made comprehensible in the presence of conscience. - It binds man to do good, avoid evil, do what is right, and to avoid wrong. ## The Eternal Law of God rules all things in their order and purpose (end). - Man, in their intrinsic nature, is not exempted from the governance of the Eternal Law. - Man's actions are subject to the Eternal Law through the Natural Moral Law. - Man's actions should be duly correlated with God's Eternal Law. - Man can and will only do that which is good. - The Natural Law is the voice of nature, written in man’s heart. - Reason is called the Natural Law in the sense that it ordains that good ought to be done and evil must be avoided. - Reason is the voice that speaks to us so that we can distinguish between good and evil.. - The Eternal Law of the Natural Moral Law can be understood. ## Aquinas admits that sometimes, though the will does good acts, they also do evil acts. - The evil act appears as an apparent good to the agent. - The voice of conscience is the guide of the Eternal Law in man through the Natural Moral Law.