Ethics

• Utilitarianism

  An ethical theory that argues for the goodness of pleasure and the determination of right behavior based on the usefulness of the action's consequences
• Utilitarianism

  • Consequentialist
  • Claims that one's action or behavior are good in as much as they are directed toward the experience of the greatest pleasure over pain for the greatest number of persons
• Principle of Utility


  The motivation of our actions is guided by our avoidance of pain and desire for pleasure
• Pleasure is good if they produce more happiness than unhappiness. It is not enough to experience pleasure but to inquire whether things we do make us happier
• Mill clarifies that what makes people happy is intended pleasure and what makes us unhappy is the privation of pleasure. Things that produce pleasure and happiness are good
• Mill's "Theory of Life"

  The pursuit for pleasure and avoidance for pain are not only important principles- they are in fact the only principle assessing an action's morality
• Felicific Calculus


  A common currency framework that calculates the pleasure that some actions can provide
• Dimensions to consider in Felicific Calculus

  • Intensity and strength of pleasure
  • Duration or length of the experience of pleasure
  • Certainty and uncertainty of the occurrence of pleasure
  • Propinquity, remoteness or how soon there will be pleasure
• Fecundity


  The chance a pleasure has of being followed by sensations of the same kind
• Purity


  The chance a pleasure has of being followed by the opposite kind
• Extent


  When considering the number of persons being affected by pleasure or pain
• Pleasure and pain can only be quantitively differ from other experiences of pain and pleasure
• John Stuart Mill


  The principle of utility must distinguish pleasures qualitatively rather than quantitatively
• Utilitarianism cannot promote the kind of pleasures appropriate to pigs or to any other animals. There are higher intellectual or lower base pleasures. We are the higher intellectual and are capable of searching and desiring higher pleasures more than pigs are capable of
• Human pleasures are qualitatively different from animal pleasures
• Quality is more preferable than quantity
• In deciding over two comparable pleasures, it is important to experience both and to discover which one is actually more preferred than the other
• We prefer the pleasures that are actually within our grasp
• Principle of the Greatest Number

  Utilitarianism is also about the pleasure that can be experienced by the greatest number affected by the consequences of our actions. It cannot lead to a selfish act
• Utilitarianism is interested with everyone's happiness and similar from liberal social practices
• Utilitarianism is about the best consequence for the highest number of people
• Justice and Moral Rights

  Rights are related to the interest that serve general happiness. Our participation in the government and social interactions can be explained by the principles of utility. Mill associates utilitarianism with the possession of legal and human rights
• Mill claims that it is morally permissible to not follow or violate an unjust law. In instances of conflict between moral and legal rights, Mill points out that moral rights take precedence over legal rights
• Moral rights are only justifiable by consideration of greatest overall happiness
• Mill's moral rights and consideration of justices are not absolute
• Justice can be interpreted in terms of moral rights because justice promotes the greater social good
• In October 2016, Pantaleon Alvarez, Speaker of the House of Representatives was intending to draft a bill which would amend the country's Family Code, allowing for the legalization of the same-sex unions. One newspaper report revealed that even before anything could be formally proposed, other fellow legislators had already expressed to the media their refusal to support this initiative
• Reasons: Seeing two men kissing is unsightly. There is something IRREGULAR about belonging to the LGBT community. Relationship with the same sex is UNNATURAL
• Thomas Aquinas


  A Dominican friar who was the preeminent intellectual figure of the scholastic period of the Middle Ages
• Aquinas' "SUMMA THEOLOGIAE" is a voluminous work that comprehensively discusses many significant points in Christian theology
• Aquinas' work is centered at the Christian faith which is: we are created by God in order to ultimately return to him
• Three Parts of Aquinas' Voluminous Work

  • Aquinas speaks of God
  • Deals with man or dynamic of human life which is characterized by our pursuit of happiness
  • Jesus as our savior
• Happiness shouldn't rests ultimately on any particular good thing that is created by God but in the highest good which is God himself
• Christian Life


  Is about developing the capacities given to us by God into a disposition of virtue inclined toward the good
• Conscience


  There is within us a sense of right and wrong that we are obliged to obey. This sense must be informed, guided, and ultimately grounded in an objective basis for morality
• Neoplatonic Good (Plato)


  Plato gave the notion of a supreme and absolutely transcendent good. God creates and thus He cares for, governs the activity of the universe and of every creature
• In his work "The Republic", Plato envisioned the ideal society specifically on providing an ideal basis on striving to be moral
• Plato's idea of the good becomes identified with One and the Beautiful
• The ultimate reality is the ONENESS that will give rise to the multiplicity of everything else in the cosmos. All these beings have the single goal which is to return to that unity
• Aristotelian Being and Becoming (Aristotle)


  Any particular being can be said to have four causes: Material Cause, Formal Cause, Efficient Cause, Final Cause