ETHICS

• Since culture is the totality of learned, socially transmitted customs, knowledge, material objects and behavior, it is only right to comprehend and appreciate its impact in the overall understanding of people of who they are and in their decision makings
• Functions of Culture


  • Provides identity to the people in the society
  • Mirrors the laws of the land
  • Unifies people in ways that only those who belong in that society understands
  • Influences our concept of morality
• A startling fact about the United States and perhaps in most developed countries, is that for most their citizens, the last person who will literally touch them will be a stranger – a nurse, an aide, a doctor
• For Filipinos, believe that children must personally take care of their elderly parents
• With contemporary sociological reality that a good number of Filipino parents are leaving their families to work abroad, we must recognize that for some of our elderly parents, a nursing home is the be best choice available
• Frail people can get better care when all the proper equipment is right at hand
• 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 than what they can do for one another
• The ideal is to have both economically independent elderly and 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
• Character


  A set of qualities or characteristics that can be used to different between persons
• Arete


  Commonly translated as virtue, which is perhaps better translated as "goodness" or "excellence"
• Excellence is a quality that makes an individual a good member of its kind
• During our early life, we had no or not much control over the encounters or people we were exposed to. But, now that we are in the adult stage of our life, we need to realize and accept that we have the power to choose, change, filter and make our own decisions regarding the people and encounters we would want to focus on and use for own moral growth
• Agencies of Values Formation

  • Family
  • Biological Constitution
  • Peer
  • School
  • Community
• Developing moral character does not happen overnight. If we are award or made aware, we have the potential to choose and control our actions through repetition until they become habits embedded in our character
• Stages of Moral Development (Kohlberg)


  
  

  • Premoral Stage 1: Punishment And Obedience Orientation
  • Premoral Stage 2: Self-gratification orientation
  • Conventional Stage 3: Approval-of-others orientation
  • Conventional Stage 4: Law-and-order orientation
  • Principles Stage 5: Social-contract orientation
  • Principles Stage 6: Universal-Ethical-Principles orientation
• Moral conflict is a fact of moral life. It is something that we can never do away with. It is embedded in the crucial decisions that we make, particularly in moments that we are faced with what is and what should be
• Levels of Moral Dilemma in the Workplace

  • Individual
  • Organizational
  • Systemic
• Immanuel Kant pointed out the moral rightness and wrongness apply only to free agents who have the capacity to regulate their behavior and have it in their power, at the time of their action, either to act rightly or not
• When we make choices, we must act "under the idea of freedom". Free will then become the foundation of our moral act, which is done also out of our moral responsibility
• Human Acts


  An action that proceeds from the deliberate free will of man, it is an act that is deliberate and knowingly performed by one having the use of reason, both intellect and will are in play, it is an act proper to man as man
• Attributes of Human Acts

  • It must be performed by a conscious agent who is aware of what he is doing and of its consequences
  • It must be performed by an agent who is acting freely, that is, by his own volition and powers
  • It must be performed by an agent who decides willfully to perform the act
• Free will


  The capacity to regulate one's behavior and have the power, at the time of action, to either act rightly or not
• Moral act


  An act done out of moral responsibility, under the idea of freedom
• Human acts


  • Proceed from the deliberate free will of man
  • Are deliberate and knowingly performed by one having the use of reason
  • Involve both intellect and will
  • Are proper to man as man
• Human acts must be knowing, free and willful. The lack of any of these attributes renders an act defective and less voluntary
• Acts of man


  Not dependent upon intellect and will
• In judging the morality of acts, we are concerned only with human acts. The moral law has nothing to do with acts of man
• Elements determining morality


  • The act of itself (object)
  • Purpose (intention of the agent)
  • Circumstances (factors distinct from the act itself and purpose)
• A physician decides not to inform a patient that his illness is grave. Along the medical judgment the physician also judges that this is the morally good thing to do in the circumstances. Another person interested in the case disagrees, claiming that the physician has a moral obligation in this case to let the patient know the true gravity of his illness. In response, the physician gives reasons why it is morally good to withhold that information
• Judgment


  The physician judges that in this case, it is morally good to withhold the information from the patient. The judgment of what is morally good or bad in the particular case is the judgment of conscience
• Choice


  The physician chooses to withhold the information. The choice is something distinct from the judgment of conscience. The physician could make the same judgment of conscience but then choose to act against this judgment by giving the information to the patient
• An act may have an indefinite number of effects. A word to one's friend affects his actions, which changes a situation, which influences someone else, and so on
• You are free to make your choices but you are not free to choose the consequences
• Steps for moral reasoning process


  • Stop and think
  • Clarify goals
  • Determine facts
  • Develop options
  • Consider the consequences
  • Choose
  • Monitor and modify
• Moral courage


  The ability to take action for moral reasons despite the risk of adverse consequences
• Steps to recognize an act as courageous

  • The person believes it is dangerous to do the act
  • The person believes their doing the act is worth the risks
  • The person believes it is possible for them to do or not do the act
  • The danger the person sees is sufficiently formidable that most would find it difficult
  • The person is not coerced by threats of punishment
  • The person is under self-control
  • The person at least believed they were doing good
• Stages of Moral Development (Kohlberg)


  • Premoral Stage 1: Punishment And Obedience Orientation
  • Premoral Stage 2: Self-gratification orientation
  • Conventional Stage 3: Approval-of-others orientation
  • Conventional Stage 4: Law-and-order orientation
  • Principles Stage 5: Social-contract orientation
  • Principles Stage 6: Universal-Ethical-Principles orientation