ETHICS 2

• Moral problem


  Involves valuations that belong to the sphere of human actions characterized by certain gravity and concern the well-being or human life itself
• Moral problems


  • Pre-meditating or making a plan to kill someone
  • Deciding whether to allow passive euthanasia
• Open pit mining is an activity that seriously damages nature resulting in environmental catastrophe sometimes beyond imagination and seriously affecting the lives of people living close to the mining site
• Disrespectful attitudes towards the elderly are judged as wrong in Filipino culture
• Respecting the elderly is ethically right, disrespecting them is ethically wrong
• The religious conviction that it is a call to assist someone in need is a moral demand and maybe a moral imperative
• Non-moral problems


  Rules formulated by authorities for the common good or for improvement but are not moral precepts
• Moral assumptions


  Assumptions that are essential in ethics to determine if acts are moral or immoral, ethical or unethical, acceptable or unacceptable
• Without reason, freedom and voluntariness, an act is not moral or ethical
• Assumption


  A belief that something is true, whether or not it is actually true
• Illustration of assumption


  • Company assumes employee will do their job when they report to work
• Significance of assumption


  If the assumption is not true, the company has no reason to pay the employee's salary
• Reason is the first element of a human act
• Reason


  The ability to make judgments about the rightness or wrongness of an act
• Acts performed without reason cannot be ascribed moral responsibility
• Freedom


  The ability to act according to one's own choice or free will
• Moral action can only come from individuals acting according to their free will
• Forced actions cannot be considered morally responsible
• An act is considered a human act with moral responsibility when it is undertaken on the basis of free choice
• Without the element of freedom, no amount of explanation can declare someone morally responsible
• Filipinos often blame others for actions, using the word "kasalanan" which has strong moral and religious connotations
• There is a need to be cautious about accusing someone of moral guilt, as it requires the assumptions of reason and freedom to be present
• One who acts with complete reason and freedom has full moral responsibility for the consequences of their actions