MAN & ETHICS

By Mr. Ezekiel Rodriguez

MAED

“A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon this world”. - Albert Camus

Definition of Terms

1. ethics [éthiks]

Study of morality's effect on conduct: the study of moral standards and

how they affect conduct.

2. morality [mə rállətee]

accepted moral standards: standards of conduct that are generally

accepted as right or proper

how right or wrong something is: the rightness or wrongness of

something as judged by accepted moral standards

3. conduct [kón dùkt]

Behavior: the way a person behaves, especially in public.

Aristotle and Nature Based Ethics (Nicomachean /nɪˌkɒmæˈkiːən/ Ethics)

Nicomachean /nɪˌkɒmæˈkiːən/ Ethics is the name normally given to Aristotle's

best-known work on ethics. It is the work, which plays a pre-eminent role in

defining Aristotelian ethics, consists of ten books, originally separate scrolls, and

is understood to be based on notes from his lectures at the Lyceum, which were

either edited by or dedicated to Aristotle's son, Nicomachus.

According to Nicomachean Ethics, by nature man is blind to morality

suggesting that man is naturally an amoral creature. A creature amoral at birth

and then corrupted as we age and that man is hedonistic - a term meaning to

pursue pleasure and avoid pain by nature and a feature which later shaped the

works of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill when drawing up their moral

theories of utilitarianism.

Aristotle once said “If man is to become moral, we must learn to go against our

nature and control our impulses so that reason and rational judgment can guide

us accurately towards being moral agents’. He believed that each man has a

unique nature belonging to that individual alone and it is this individuality within

nature that compels us towards certain vices over others, so some are likely to be

more idle and/or some more ignorant.

According to Dr. Huei-hsia H, Area Chair/Lead Faculty of Strategic Planning,

Analysis & Law. Research & Leadership Consultant, Human nature-based ethics

is a belief system rooted in the dichotomy of human behavior, both good and bad,

without the direction of an outside authority; Dichotomy is defined as separation of

different or contradictory things: a separation into two divisions that differ widely

from or contradict each other. She also stressed that “Human nature-based ethics

stresses the importance of virtue, integrity, persons' character in determining

individual behavior/actions.” However, “It stresses self-interest, selfishness,

entitlement, and ego (called the self) that are defined by the training of

communities or organizations such as religion (Treviño & Nelson, 2007).

In summary, Human nature ethics are the universally accepted natural ways of

how human beings do live their life. Human nature ethics include how people

think, feel and act naturally without the influence of other factors like science or

technology and that Man is Essentially Body and Soul.

Saint Augustine (Love of God as the Highest Good)

In his book, De libero arbitrio, II. xiii. 36., St. Augustine expressed that “The

man who enjoys the supreme good is indeed happy”. He exemplifies that the Love

of God as the Highest Good. According o him, God is the absolute spirit, absolute

will, absolute intelligence, absolute freedom, absolute good, absolute power,

absolute holiness, cannot will evil, no beginning and no end and transcendent. St.

Augustine asserts that God is creator. God created the world out of nothing.

However, creation is not necessary on the part of God, because for Augustine,

God created the world out of love.

St. Augustine also stated that God created man in mortal body with an

immortal soul and gave man free will. To have free will is the assumption of his

nature and it is in that nature where the fact of evil is possible. Evil comes to the

world not because it is part God’s creation, but because of man’s free will.

Furthermore, Augustine stressed that God created man good, but the good in

man ceases to be good when man turns himself away from God. God created

man in his image, God, being the absolute freedom, gives man free will and that

the man who is the recipient of God-given free will is man because he is wholly

body and soul. Augustine once said that man “is not a body only nor a soul….

Only when body and soul are in union can we speak of man”.

Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism - Latin utilis, “useful”)

Utilitarianism is defined as believing value lies in usefulness: relating to,

characteristic of, or advocating the doctrine that value is measured in terms of

usefulness. It began with the philosophies of Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) and

John Stuart Mill (1806-1873). Utilitarianism gets its name from Bentham's test

question, "What is the use of it?” then he conceived of the idea when he ran

across the words "the greatest happiness of the greatest number" in Joseph

Priestley's Treatise of Government.

Utilitarianism is characterized by the greatest good for the greatest number.

According to John Stuart Mill, "In the golden rule of Jesus of Nazareth, we read

the complete spirit of the ethics of utility. To do as one would be done by, and to

love one's neighbor as oneself, constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian

morality.“

Jeremy Bentham developed his ethical system around the idea of pleasure.

According to Bentham, the most moral acts are those, which maximize pleasure

and minimize pain. This has sometimes been called the "utilitarian calculus." An

act would be moral if it brings the greatest amount of pleasure and the least

amount of pain. John Stuart Mill modified this philosophy and developed it apart

from Bentham's hedonistic foundation. Mill used the same utilitarian calculus but

instead focused on maximizing the general happiness by calculating the greatest

good for the greatest number. This objective is also considered the aim of all

legislation and is the ultimate criterion of all social institutions. The utilitarian

theory of ethics is generally opposed to ethical doctrines in which some inner

sense or faculty, often called the conscience, is made the absolute arbiter of right

and wrong.

Why did utilitarianism become popular?

• First, it is a relatively simple ethical system to apply. To determine

whether an action is moral you merely have to calculate the good and

bad consequences that will result from a particular action. If the good

outweighs the bad, then the action is moral.

• Second, utilitarianism avoids the need to appeal to divine revelation.

Many adherents to this ethical system are looking for a way to live a

moral life apart from the Bible and a belief in God. The system replaces

revelation with reason. Logic rather than an adherence to biblical

principles guides the ethical decision-making of a utilitarian.

• Third, most people already use a form of utilitarianism in their daily

decisions. We make lots of non-moral decisions every day based upon

consequences.

• At the checkout line, we try to find the shortest line so we

can get out the door more quickly.

• We make most of our financial decisions (writing checks,

buying merchandise, etc.) on a utilitarian calculus of cost

and benefits. So making moral decisions using

utilitarianism seems like a natural extension of our daily

decision-making procedures.

There are also a number of problems with utilitarianism. One problem with

utilitarianism is that it leads to an "end justifies the means" mentality. The end

never justifies the means. The means must justify themselves. A particular act

cannot be judged as good simply because it may lead to a good consequence.

The means must be judged by some objective and consistent standard of

morality. Second, utilitarianism cannot protect the rights of minorities if the goal is

the greatest good for the greatest number. Americans in the eighteenth century

could justify slavery on the basis that it provided a good consequence for a

majority of Americans. Certainly the majority benefited from cheap slave labor

even though the lives of black slaves were much worse. The third problem with

utilitarianism is predicting the consequences. If morality is based on results, then

we would have to have omniscience in order to accurately predict the

consequence of any action. But at best we can only guess at the future, and often

these educated guesses are wrong. The fourth problem with utilitarianism is that

consequences themselves must be judged. When results occur, we must still ask

whether they are good or bad results. Utilitarianism provides no objective and

consistent foundation to judge results because results are the mechanism used to

judge the action itself.

Emmanuel Kant (Categorical Imperative)

Emmanuel Kant once said, “There is no possibility of thinking anything good in

this world or out of it, which can be regarded as good, except for good will itself”.

Instead of starting with his point about the final cause, our purpose or the results

of our actions, he placed his principle purely in good will. The main idea of other

philosophers was based on consequentialism, which place more importance on

the result of an action, rather than the intention of it. Kant believed in doing one’s

duty, therefore, he looked for an ‘objective’, a purpose set in certain guidelines

that needed to be considered moral to do one’s duty for the right reason. He also

believed that it was not good enough just to do one’s duty because you had to, or

it benefited you in some way, but said that you need to want to do it because it is

the right thing to do. The term Categorical Imperative means that you should do

something. It is in contrast to the hypothetical imperative that says if you want

something, you need to do this action to get that result. The Categorical

imperative is you should do this, not because it will benefit you in this way, but

because it is the morally right thing to do. In other words, you are not doing a

good thing for your own self-interest, but because you know, it is morally right.

This is ‘good will’.

Three Forms of Bases of Categorical Imperative

• The first being: So act the maxim of your will could always hold at the

same time as a principle establishing universal law.

• In simple terms, this means that you can only call something

morally just, if it can be turned into a universal maxim, on which

everybody should uphold in a similar situation. 

• If you make a promise with no intentions of keeping it, then it is

only morally just if it can be applied to everyone. This would

mean that not everyone who tells a promise would intend to keep

it. Thus would make “promises” pointless, as no one would keep

them and there would be no reason for them to.

• His second basis is: Act in such as way that you always treat humanity,

whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply

a means an end.

• What Kant is saying here is that, he does not believe that people should

use other people as a means to achieve a personal goal. One should

be used by someone else to meet their purpose, which they want to

fulfil. Act as if a legislating member in the universal kingdom of ends.

This follows on from the second basis and means that you ought to act

in a way that is considered morally right within the society you are in.

Your moral choices should be compatible with those around you.