GE 108
Name: Gatela, Lester Rey R.
Year &Section: SF 4-3
ACTIVITY 2:
What is ethics? In your own words why you should Study Ethics?
Ethics is based on well-founded standards of right and wrong that prescribe what humans
ought to do, usually in terms of rights, obligations, benefits to society, fairness, or specific virtues.
It is basically a branch of philosophy dealing with the issue of morality. Moreover, ethics consist of
the rules of behavior. It certainly defines how a person should behave in specific situations.
For me, we study ethics for us to learn about morality, integrity, responsibility, conscience,
dignity, respect, and honor, as well as to learn about the difference between right and wrong or
good and evil. Ethics, as a field of moral philosophy, is essentially a system of moral principles
and rules of behavior.
Civilizational progress and social and cultural growth and development cannot happen
without the existence of ethics, as the people would mainly focus on self-growth and selfinterest; this might not seem like such a bad thing, however, it's important to know if those
interests are morally good or morally bad. If we focus only on ourselves and our own mindsets,
we won't have the patience or the opportunity to see the points of view of other people and
analyze their systems of beliefs and values to determine if we should praise them or criticize
them. Most importantly, we won't be able to analyze or question our own personal beliefs,
opinions, and choices, which in turn would make us narrow-minded at best and immoral, evil,
and intolerant at worst.
Thus, it could be argued that studying ethics is inevitable; we need to have a way to
determine whether our behavior is good or harmful, and we need to have a moral code which
will guide us through life and help us make the right choices, both for ourselves and the society.
This is why ethics is so important in pretty much all social, cultural, economic, and political
spheres; if the individual and/or collective mentality and system of values is "wrong" or "flawed,"
then we cannot move forward and live harmoniously and achieve great things, neither as
individuals nor as a community.
Activity 3
Come up with an answer to these questions by yourself.
1. Developing a car that can travel 100 miles per gallon of gasoline is a
matter of:
a. Ethics
b. Science
c. Design
2. How much money we should donate to charity is a matter of:
a. Ethics
b. Science
c. Design
3. Whether we should choose a more fuel-efficient car is a matter of:
a. Ethics
b. Science
c. Design