ETHICS

• If we are off on how we understand human freedom, our moral compass is inaccurate from the very start
• True freedom


  The ability to choose the best possible good
• Acting freely (autonomously)


  Acting morally are one and the same thing
• An individual's action is free


  His own reason generated the maxim (principle)
• Individual motivated by bodily desire (ex. Hunger or desire)


  • His actions are not free and he would not be morally praiseworthy, even if he did the right thing
  • Going to church in order to get the promised one sack of rice and groceries given during Sunday service
  • Obeying the teacher to get high grades
• Only the motive of duty, acting according to the law I give myself


  Confers moral worth to an action
• I am only free

  When my will is determined autonomously, governed by the law I give myself
• Categorical Imperative


  Commands that you must follow, regardless of your desires
• Hypothetical Imperative


  Commands based on reason
• Categorical Imperative


  • Not conditional; it is concerned not with the matter of the action and its presumed results, but with its form, and with the principle from which it follows
• Universalizability Principle


  • Acting in accordance with what REASON dictates; at the same time, will that it can become a universal law (something that must always be done in similar situations)
• Moral Actions should not bring about contradiction
• Formula of Humanity


  Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person, or in that of another, always as an end and never as a MERE MEANS
• Mere means


  Using it only for your own benefit, with no thought to the interest or benefit of the thing you're using
• Proper rational application of the categorical imperative would lead us to moral truth that is fixed and applicable to all moral agents
• Freedom


  • Human's greatest quality and it is a reflection of our creator
  • Rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, to do this or that and so to perform deliberate actions on one's own responsibility
• Whenever man deliberately chooses, he is the "father of his acts"
• These freely chosen acts can be morally evaluated as good or evil
• A good intention can never turn an evil act into a good one
• A good purpose cannot justify evil means
• An evil intention can make a good act into an evil one, such as giving alms to gain praise
• Only the act and the intention make an act good or bad
• The circumstances can increase or diminish the goodness or evil
• Stealing a large amount of money increases the evil, while fear of harm can lessen a person's responsibility
• Circumstances can never make an evil act into a good one
• An act is good when the object, the intention, and the circumstances are all good
• Some acts are evil in themselves as fornication and are always wrong to choose
• The person's intention and the circumstances, such as pressure (duress), cannot change a morally evil act, such as murder, blasphemy, or adultery, into a morally good act
• We cannot do evil so good will come from it