Chapter VI:
Synthesis: Making Informed Decisions
THE MORAL AGENT AND CONTEXTS
What one ought to do in one’s life is not dictated by one’s physical, interpersonal, social, or historical conditions.
THE MORAL AGENT AND CONTEXTS
What one ought to do is also not abstracted from one’s own specific situation.
- One always comes from somewhere. One is always continuously being shaped by many factors outside of one’s own free will. The human individual thus always exists in the tension between being conditioned by external factors and being a free agent.
Moral Agent...
- The moral agent is not a calculating, unfeeling machine that produces completely objective and absolutely correct solutions to even the most complex moral problems.
CULTURE AND ETHICS
- Ethics should neither be reduced to one’s own cultural standards, nor should it simplistically dismiss one’s unique cultural beliefs and practices. What is important is that one does not wander into ethical situations blindly, with the naive assumption that ethical issues will be resolved automatically by his/her beliefs and traditions. Instead, s/he should challenge himself/herself to continuously work toward a fuller maturity in ethical decision-making.
- Moral development then is a prerequisite if the individual is to encounter ethical situations with a clear mind and with his/her values properly placed with respect to each other.
RELIGION AND ETHICS
- Many religious followers assume that what their religion teaches can be found either in their sacred scripture (e.g. the Bible for Christians, the Qur’an for Muslims, etc.) or body of writings (e.g. the Vedas, including the Upanishads, and other texts for Hindus; the Tao Te Ching, Chuang-tzu, and other Taoist classics for Taoists) or in other forms (other than written texts) of preaching that their leaders had promulgated and become part of their traditions.
- The moral agent in question must still, in full responsibility, challenge himself/herself to understand using his/her own powers of rationality, but with full recognition of his/her own situatedness, and what his/her religious authorities claim his/her religion teaches.
FEELINGS
IN MORAL DELIBERATION
American moral psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg (1927−1987) theorized that moral development happens in six stages which he divided into three levels: pre-conventional, conventional, and post-conventional.
The Value of Studying Ethical Theories and Framework
Moral Deliberation
The significance of studying the different ethical theories and frameworks becomes clear only to the individual who has achieved, or is in the process of achieving, moral maturity. For someone who is still in Kohlberg’s pre-conventional or conventional stages, moral valuation remains a matter of seeking reward or avoiding punishment, or at best, a question of following the dictates of other people.
FEELINGS IN MORAL DELIBERATION
- Aristotle precisely points out that moral virtue goes beyond the mere act of intellectually identifying the right thing to do. Instead, it is the condition of one’s character by which the agent is able to manage his/her emotions or feelings.
- The mature moral agent realizes that s/he is both a product of many forces, elements, and events, all of which shape his/her situation and options for a decision. Instead, a meaningful moral decision is one that s/he makes in full cognizance of where s/he is coming from and of where s/he ought to go.
MORAL PROBLEMS
- Aristotle recognizes the importance of continuous habituation in the goal of shaping one’s character so that s/he becomes more used to choosing the right thing.
- A moral individual is always a human being whose intellect remains finite and whose passions remain dynamic, and who is always placed in situations that are unique. There are no automatic moral decisions; one must continue to manage his/her reason and passions to respond in the best way possible to the kaleidoscope of moral situations that s/he finds himself/herself in.
THE VALUE OF STUDYING ETHICAL THEORIES AND FRAMEWORK
- The ethical theories or frameworks may serve as guideposts, given that they are the best attempts to understand morality that the history of human thought has to offer.
- What the responsible moral individual must instead perform is to continuously test the cogency and coherence of the ethical theory or framework in question against the complexity of the concrete experience at hand.
SELF, SOCIETY, &
ENVIRONMENT
SELF,
SOCIETY, & ENVIRONMENT
- INDIVIDUAL/SELF
- SOCIAL LIFE: IN THE PHILIPPINE CONTEXT AND IN THE GLOBAL VILLAGE
- THE NON-HUMAN ENVIRONMENT
INDIVIDUAL/SELF
- In the realm of the self, as noted earlier, one has to pay attention not just on how one deals with oneself, but also on how one interacts with other individuals in personal relations. One may respond to the demand for an ethically responsible “care for the self ” by making full use of the four ethical theories or frameworks.
- John Stuart Mill’s utilitarianism, though seemingly a hedonistic theory given its emphasis on maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain, elevates the human element above the animalistic and above the merely selfish.
- Thomas Aquinas’s natural law theory states as its first natural inclination the innate tendency that all human beings share with all other existing things, namely, the natural propensity to maintain oneself in one’s existence.
- Kant’s deontology celebrates the rational faculty of the moral agent, which sets it above merely sentient beings.
- Aristotle’s virtue ethics teaches one to cultivate his/her own intellect as well as his/her character to achieve eudaimonia in his/her lifetime.
THE NON-HUMAN ENVIRONMENT
THE NON-HUMAN ENVIRONMENT
- In the case of utilitarianism, some scholars point out that this hedonistic doctrine that focuses on the sovereignty of pleasures and pains in human decision-making should extend into other creatures that can experience pleasures and pains, namely, animals. Thus, one of the sources of animal ethics is utilitarianism.
- Since Kantian deontology focuses on the innate dignity of the human being as possessing reason, it can be argued that one cannot possibly universalize maxims that in the end will lead to an untenable social existence.
THE NON-HUMAN ENVIRONMENT
- Thomas Aquinas, on the other hand, may not necessarily talk about the physical environment and human moral responsibility to it as such, but one can try to infer from his philosophy that certain actions should be avoided because they do not produce a harmonious, peaceful society.
- Lastly, Aristotle’s virtue ethics also pick up on the problem of such shortsightedness and ask how this can possibly lead to becoming a better person.
SOCIAL LIFE: IN THE PHILIPPINE CONTEXT AND IN THE GLOBAL VILLAGE
SOCIAL LIFE: IN THE PHILIPPINE CONTEXT AND IN THE GLOBAL VILLAGE
- One’s membership in any society brings forth the demands of communal life in terms of the group’s rules and regulations. The ethical question arises when the expectations of a particular society come into conflict with one’s most fundamental values.
- Mill’s utilitarian doctrine will always push for the greatest happiness principle as the prime determinant of what can be considered as good action, whether in the personal sphere or in the societal realm. Thus, Filipinos cannot simply assume that their action is good because their culture says so.
SOCIAL LIFE: IN THE PHILIPPINE CONTEXT AND IN THE GLOBAL VILLAGE
- Thomas Aquinas, on the other hand, in his natural law theory has a clear conception of the principles that should guide the individual in her actions that affect her larger society.
- Immanuel Kant argues for the use of the principles of universalizability and of humanity as end in itself to form a person’s autonomous notion of what s/he ought to do.
- Aristotle’s virtue ethics prescribes mesotes as the guide to all the actions that a person has to take, even in his/her dealing with the larger community of people.
A CLOSING THAT IS REALLY AN OPENING
- In the end, there is only a beginning: We do not have a computer program here that can automatically calculate what the right thing to do in a given situation.
- There is only the human individual and his/her community of fellow human beings who need to accept that they must continue to explore the meaning of what is good and right while hoping to arrive at the best judgments they can make at this point in time.
- Realizing he finitude of human understanding and of the capacity to make choices, but at the same time hoping that one’s best attempt at doing what is right does mean something in the end—these are part and parcel of making informed moral decisions.