ETHICS - 2ND SEM MIDTERMS - MORAL CHARACTER AND DEVELOPMENT

• Scripture passages abound in relation to respect for one's parents
• Respect for one's parent


  Associated with filial piety in Buddhism
• Buddhist teachings on respect for parents

  • Children must repay the pains their parents took
  • Children should take care of their parents the same way
• Ways to take care of parents

  • Provide for their needs
  • Listen to the advice of elders since they have accumulated wisdom over a long lifetime
  • Practice of filial piety to senior citizens so that elderly people can still be productive in their twilight years
• Confucian philosophy on filial piety

  • Be good to one's parents
  • Take care of parents
  • Engage in good conduct not just towards parents but also outside the home so as to bring a good name to one's parents and ancestors
  • Perform the duties to one's job well so as to obtain the material means to support parents as well as carry out sacrifices to the ancestors
  • Not be rebellious
  • Show love, respect and support
  • Display courtesy
  • Ensure male heirs, uphold fraternity among brothers
  • Wisely advise one's parents, including dissuading them from moral unrighteousness
  • Display sorrow for their sickness and death
  • Carry out sacrifices after their death
• Unlike other animals, humans do not leave the infirm behind when they move
• There is no corresponding commandment telling parents how to treat a child because the minimum requirements do not need to be spelled out
• If parents didn't care for their children, there would be no future generations
• Without adult protection, children could not survive, and without children, the human race would disappear
• The 4th Commandment finds its validation not in the biological necessity but in the ethical sense
• It is a rule that raises society to a human level; as long as our parents are alive, we should honor them – that when they can no longer take care of themselves, we as children, must take care of them
• This attitude is a mark of human civilization – serving not the needs of the species but our personal, religious and social sense of what it means to be human
• Family obligations


  The obligation we have for our elderly parents is voluntary, at least under certain circumstances, but generally, we are required to ensure that our parents live as long and as comfortable as possible
• Families are drawn together by ties that are more that what they can do for one another
• The ideal is to have both economically independent grown children, who want to take care of their parents, even live with them
• Family life, everything else being equal, is better than institutional life; being in a caring community is better than living alone
• Principle of reciprocity


  Entails the idea of returning something to the person who has given you something
• Love


  A sentiment, and feelings can't be conjured on command
• Honor


  A set of actions, and behavior is a subject to direction and is sustainable whatever one's emotional state
• The honorable thing for grown children to do is at least to assure minimal care for elderly parents who cared for them, as a way of sustaining ties that make us more human
• Moral character


  From the Greek word "CHARAKTER" which originally used to refer to mark impressed upon a coin
• Moral character


  In contemporary usage, the term often refers to a set of qualities that can be used to differentiate between persons
• Moral character


  In philosophy, the term is typically used to refer to the moral dimension of a person
• Arete


  The Greek word used by Aristotle, commonly translated as "virtue" which is better translated as goodness or "excellence"
• Excellence


  A quality that makes an individual a good member of its kind
• Excellence is a property whereby its possessor operates well or fulfills its function
• Aristotle sometimes speaks of a good moral character as "human excellence" or an "excellence of soul"
• Factors affecting moral character development

  • Family
  • Biological constitution (age, sex, gender)
  • Peer (friends, classmates, colleagues)
  • School (teachers, lessons)
  • Community (shared beliefs and practices)
• Moral reasoning happens in 6 stages (how to justify behavior)
• Levels of moral development

  • Pre conventional
  • Conventional
  • Post conventional
• Stage 1: Obedience and punishment


  Moral judgments based on obedience and punishment
• Stage 2: Self-interest


  Motivated by self-interest
• Stage 3: Interpersonal accord and conformity

  Interpersonal accord and conformity guide or moral judgment
• Stage 4: Authority and maintaining social order


  We value authority and want to maintain social order
• Stage 5: Social contract


  We understand rules as a social contract as opposed to a strict order
• Stage 6: Universal ethical principles


  All those involved now have to face the headmaster. He first explains the school rules and why they exist. He then clarifies that rules are valid only if they are grounded in justice. The commitment to justice carries with it an obligation to disobey unjust rules. The headmaster's highest moral principle is compassion.
• Pre conventional level


  • Finn is driven by fear, and Mary by self interest. Both judged what is right and wrong by direct consequence they expect for themselves and not by social norms. This form of reasoning is common among children.
• Conventional level


  • Betty responds to peer pressure, and the teacher follows the rules. Their morality is centered around what society regards as right. At this level, the fairness of rules is seldom questioned. It is common to think like this during adolescence and adulthood.
• Post conventional level


  • Jessie knows that things are complicated because individuals may disobey rules inconsistently with their own morality. The headmaster follows a universal ethical idea to completely disconnect with what society thinks or the rules say. To him, everything is solved through compassion. The right behavior in his opinion, is therefore never a means to an end, but always an end itself. Not every person reaches this level.
• Lawrence Kohlberg was an American psychologist, he based his work on Piaget's cognitive development theory