Clara Mae Barrios, Stephanie Andrade & Veronica Bosco
Chapter 1
HRE4M1-08
Mr. Paroyan
Chapter 1: Why Be Ethical?
1. What actions are “good”?
2. How does one define what is “good”?
3. How do we find the “good life”?
Teleological: having to do with the design or purpose of something. For example, a house is built to live in; a clock is made to keep
time. But what is the “end” to which we as human beings aspire? Try thinking of this “end” not as an end point but as a completion
as fullness.
Teleological Thinking: seeking to understand the ultimate goal, purpose or end to something.
Empiricism: a theory that says that knowledge comes from experience, or from evidence that can be perceived by the senses.
Subjective: relating to a person’s own perception and understanding of a reality; arising from the individual’s own mind, feelings,
and perspective.
Objective: relating to a sensible experience that is independent of any one individual’s thought, and that can be perceived by others.
Ethics: a discipline that deals with the nature of the good, the nature of the human person, and the criteria that we use for making
right judgement. (what we know to be the morally right thing to do).
Morality: a system of right conduct based on fundamental beliefs and obligation to follow certain codes, norms, customs, and habits
of behaviour. A system of ideas of right and wrong conducts: religious morality, Christian morality. (what we choose to do).
Obligation: what one is bound by duty or contract to do.
Responsibility: being morally accountable for one’s actions. Responsibility presumes knowledge, freedom, and the ability to choose
and to act.
Revelation: the ways that God makes himself known to humankind. God is fully revealed in Jesus Christ. The sacred scriptures,
proclaimed within the Church, are revealed Word of God. God also reveals himself through people and indeed through all of
creation.
Autonomy: independence or freedom as of the will or one’s actions: the autonomy of the individual. To be a law unto oneself.
Deontological Ethics: the branch of ethics dealing with the right action and the nature of the duty, without regard to the goodness
or value of motives or the desirability of the ends of any act.
Desire: to wish or long for; crave; want
Duty: something that one is expected or required to do by moral or legal obligation
Good: morally excellent; virtuous; righteous; pious
Passion: any powerful or compelling emotion or feeling, as love or hate
Universal Law: act according to those maxims that are universally accepted. Eg; murder is wrong.
Four ways of Locating the Ethical in You
1.
2.
3.
The experience of personal response:
 Upon hearing a scream for help, one is affected at an intellectual level. It is an appeal – a personal call that requires
a response. It urges one to act automatically through instinct rather than think. One feels a compulsion to respond.
It is a uniquely human experience. (The Scream).
The experience of the other:
 Goodness translates into a responsibility to the other – our responsibility to another human being. Imagine walking
down Yonge Street in downtown Toronto. A beggar sits on the cold concrete; hand raised asking you for spare
change to buy something to eat. You attempt to avoid eye contact. Why? Emmanuel Levinas argued that upon
making eye contact, the “other” face takes you hostage and makes you responsible. The other person evokes a
response from you. The face is ethical and it forces you into a conflict: what to do? This leads to questioning and
rationalization of why or why not give. (The beggar).
The experience of Obligation:
Clara Mae Barrios, Stephanie Andrade & Veronica Bosco
Chapter 1
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Mr. Paroyan
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4.
When one feels obligated to obey a rule or a law is deeply rooted in one’s ethical character. Something in you
obliges you to adhere to the law or do what is considered the right thing to do. Someone who is considered to
have authority over another can convince them to follow his/her wishes or reasoning. The order or wish of the
other invades your consciousness and demands a response. Your response has everything to do with your ethics.
Immanuel Kant (1724 – 1804) believed that a human action is morally good when it is done for the sake of duty.
(The party).
The experience of Contrast:
 We are often outraged at something blatantly unjust or unfair happening to oneself or others. Before evil, the
human heart recoils and is filled with incomprehension. We often have a perspective of what the word ought to
look like and how situations should be. One has an ethical experience of contrast when that perspective and what
one expects from their fellow humans is directly contrasted with what is witnessed: senseless violence, blatant
injustice and abuse. This ethical experience of contrast occurs when what should be differs from what is.
Aristotle (384-322 BCE)
 Teleological Ethics: holds that all things are designed for or directed toward a final result – that there is an INHERENT
PURPOSE or FINAL CAUSE for all that exists. Eg; a clock is created to keep time. Most theology presupposes teleology –
“intelligent design” is a teleological argument for the existence of God.
 The search for good is the ultimate aim of human life. According to Aristotle, the only true justification of a kingdom is to
create an ideal environment for its people to achieve greatness.
 Community takes precedence over the individual. It is in community that one seeks happiness.
 Pleasure is not the same as happiness – happiness is the good. Happiness is achieved by frequently performing with
success the most perfect of typically human acts. Ethics=to live well, morality=to do well.
 Teleological ethics: everything in nature has a distinctive end or purpose to achieve. For humans, that end is to achieve
happiness. That happiness can only be realized by striving to develop a good, ethical character. When one performs certain
tasks to the point where they become habitual, then one attains happiness. Eg; people become just by performing just acts.
Our habits build our ethical character.
 Teleology: happiness is what we want, but we struggle with how to achieve it.
 Humans are intended to be rational; our greatest capacity is our intelligence and our ability to reason: therefore, this must
be developed not just in science but also in practical life if one hopes to develop one’s character
 To act ethically is to encourage our capacity to reason as we develop good character. Aristotle believed that we need to
maintain balance in our action and avoid excess. We must be moderate in all things and develop self-control – morality is
destroyed by excess.
 Moral virtue becomes a state of character enabling people to perform their functions by aiming at intermediary points
between opposing extremes of excess and deficiency.
 Human excellence: when people search to find who they are intended to be they develop habits that represents what it
means to be human (virtues).
 To act virtuously (excellently) is to do things well and act successfully, guided by reason. These virtuous acts must
become habitual
 Reason must control desire
Immanuel Kant (1740-1804)
 Born and raised in Konigsberg in east Prussia/Germany
 He experienced immense poverty and a strict upbringing within a religious household
 His parents were devout members of the Pietism sect of the protestant religion – puritanical upbringing (literal Bible –
black and white)
Clara Mae Barrios, Stephanie Andrade & Veronica Bosco
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 He spent his whole life near his home and was always characterized by routine of study and work
 THEORETICAL REASON
 Primary concern was clarifying how humans come to know things
 Can we know things beyond our immediate experience?
 These types of questions pertain to the area called theoretical reason
 This is the area of reasoning where we come to know how the laws of nature, the laws of cause and effect,
govern human behaviour
 PRACTICAL REASON
 Practical reason moves beyond scientific and empirical knowledge to the moral dimension guiding human
behaviour
 Within the realm of knowledge, humans act not only on impulse as affected by the laws of nature, but also out of
conscious choice based on principles
 Through theoretical reason, we can understand what people actually do
 Using practical reason, we can understand what we ought to do
 It is the concept of moral duty that Kant contributed to our understanding of ethics
 Ethics has to be based on laws of freedom and not on laws of nature (facts about the world) – if ethics were just based on
facts about the world, we wouldn’t have control over it and hence there would be no value in acting morally
 But ethics is not empirical; it must be founded on entirely a priori principles. Eg; principles that are based on reason, not
on experience
 For example, if we were to say that “one should not lie” is a moral principle, it would have to hold true for all people and
not depend on the circumstances of the situation. We likely get such ideas based on experience at first however, and
indeed, in order to effect our will we need a sharpened experience and good knowledge of the world in order to do so. But
for our ideas to be moral laws, they must pass through our reason and judgement and not merely be based on our
experience. In analysing ideas such as ‘one should not lie’, we are using our reason (a priori knowledge). Therefore he also
thinks that ethics itself is also an a priori matter, because we must consider rationally what principles are absolute and true
for everyone.
 Good is the aim of the moral life
 Kant was primarily concerned about the certainty of the principles of ethical reasoning.
 Ethics doesn’t present us with rational, cognitive certainty, but with practical certainty
 There are 3 main interests in the practical area; God, freedom, and immortality. We need these practical principles to be
able to pursue and attain the supreme good.
 GOD: Humans cannot achieve supreme good. Kant proposes the existence of God to allow us to achieve the supreme good.
 FREEDOM: If the supreme good is to be, in part, our achievement, then what we ought to do, we can do. Therefore, Kant
argues, humans are by nature free
 IMMORTALITY: It is impossible to obtain supreme good in this life time. That is why there is immortality, a life beyond, in
which we can achieve the supreme good.
 THE GOOD WILL:
 Kant’s ethics about a “good person” is more individual. His ethics is to be discovered in private life, in the inner
convictions and autonomy of the individual
 Kant believes our most prized possession is good will
 “Good will” for Kant is the will to do our duty for no other reason than that it is our duty. That is why his theory is
known as deontological – meaning duty
 It is hard for us to attain our purposes in life, because impulses and desires draw us away from our duty
 Helping a friend might be praise worthy however it is not a moral act. It becomes moral when you are kind to
someone when you don’t feel like being kind, or are busy. Moral worth is measured not by the results of one’s
actions, but by the motive behind them.
 MORAL MAXIMS:
Clara Mae Barrios, Stephanie Andrade & Veronica Bosco
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First maxim: duty is determined by principles according to which we act
To be ethical, an action must have a more objective principle
To be a principle it must apply to everyone
An ethical maxim is one on which every rational person would necessarily act if reason were fully in charge of his
or her actions
 Principles tell us how we ought to act. But reason determines how this duty is universally applicable.
 I should act in a way that I would want everyone else in the world to act
Person as an end.........not as a means to an end
Kant intended that people never be treated only as a means, that is, without regard to their dignity or their working
conditions
Kant was a utopian dreamer. He came up with the concept of a “kingdom of ends”
In this kingdom, everyone would treat each other according to his second maxim: treat another as an end not just as a
mean.
Everyone must act out of respect. No one would act on principle that could not be made universal
Kant valued the autonomy of the good will. He challenged people not to act like children under control of another
He started the slogan of the eighteenth century: dare to know!
DEONTOLOGY VS UTILITARIANISM
 Deontology defines good or right conduct in terms of universality, duty, and what we call intrinsic value.
Consequentialism or utilitarianism defines good or right action in terms of effects on the greatest number of
people.
Emmanuel Levinas (1905-1995)
 Born in 1905 in Kaunas, Lithuania to pious Jewish parents
 Levinas became a naturalized French citizen in 1930. When France declared war on Germany, he was ordered to report for
military duty
 He was put into a concentration camp and survived
 The search for the good is foundin one’s responsibility to other human beings
 At the center of the work is the claim that the Other is not knowable, but calls into question and challenges the
complacency of the self through desire, language, and the concern for justice.
 Levinas’ phenomenological account of the “face-to-face” encounter serves as the basics for his ethics and the rest of his
philosophy. For Levinas, “Ethics is the first philosophy.” Levinas argues that the encounter of the Other face reveals a
certain poverty which forbids a reduction to Sameness and, simultaneously, installs a responsibility for the Other in the self.
 The face in its nudity and defencelessness, signifies: “Do not kill me.” This defenceless nudityis therefore a passive
resistance to the desire that is my freedom. Any exemplification of the face’s expression, moreover carries with it this
combination of resistance and defencelessness: Levinas speaks of the face of the other who is “widow, orphan, or
stranger.”
 In the face-to-face encounter we also see how Levinas splits ethics from morality. Ethics marks the primary situation of the
face-to-face whereas morality comes later, as some kind of, agreed upon, set of rules.
 Community doesn’t take precedence over the individual. Levinas’ philosophy focuses on the singularity of things. Levinas is
in search of the good, which goes beyond being
 Being seeks to name what things have in common when you take away all the differences.
 Levinas wants to maintain the uniqueness of each thought and act.
 The uniqueness in each person is called “traces” of the good.
 Similar to the cover of the textbook, God is like the sun. We see traces of the sun in the picture; but we only see a glimpse
of the grandeur that is there. The sun is beyond the point of vision.
Clara Mae Barrios, Stephanie Andrade & Veronica Bosco
Chapter 1
HRE4M1-08
Mr. Paroyan
 Our face is the most naked part of our body and Levinas is completely against make up because he believes we try to
cover up and hide.
 The eyes penetrate every mask, looking directly in someone’s eyes we make immediate and direct contact.
 The face is an authority, “highness, holiness, divinity.”
 We are made responsible by the face
 Recognizing the Others depth of misery or humanity is what makes the command or appeal of the face ethical.
 The face of a stranger demands that you recognize it and provide hospitality.
 The face is not authoritative. One is not forced by duty to respond. The face shows us that we are not as innocent as we
think we are, and we realize that we are only concerned with ourselves.
 The face is what makes us responsible. This responsibility is our human vocation, calling. Here is where the search for the
good ends.
 God touches us through the faces of others, he gets his message to us indirectly.