Good Bad

ME AND MORALITY?

Right

?Wrong

True False

How we grow to understand our being moral?

What are our challenges as moral person?

5 Ways of Looking at Morality

Reference: What is Morality? By; Donal Harrington

Morality as Law

Morality is something external

Associated with authority figure

Person’s role is seen in terms of duty or obedience (obedience is the fundamental value) obedience may often become blind subservience particularly in culture of hierarchy and uniformity

Sanctions: Obedience = REWARD Disobedience = PUNISHMENT

Morality as Inner Conviction

Morality has been internalized

Arises from within, not simply an imposition by some authority demanding obedience but is a requirement arising from person’sconviction

When we think out right and wrong for ourselves, then we make the law our own

Inner law is our conscience

Words like integrity and authenticity are appropriate to describe what it means to be moral or not

We describe the outcome of the moral behavior in terms of inner peace versus inner disquiet

Peace of mind?

Guilt?

Morality as Personal GrowthAttention shifts to what is happening the person as a result of the action

Ex. A person telling lies becomes a liar or dishonest

This way of seeing things is represented by the language of virtue and vices

Virtues and Vices (moral habits) are the good and bad dispositions or qualities that result from our actions

This perspective allows us to speak of change in the person, be it development or regression.

This also speaks of the language of moral conversion. It gives us the dynamics of challenge and change, of what it is like for people to try to change for the better.

In this view we can speak of the contrast of wholeness and fragmentation

Morality as Love

Speak of what happens to a relationship

Idea that we are primarily relational beings

Being moral is a matter of being faithful to the fact of our interrelatedness and to the demands of relationship

It is about going beyond ourselves, transcending our own egoism and egoistic horizon

Outcome of being moral is expressed in terms of communion versus isolation

Morality as Social Transformation

Morality as relationship but goes out beyond the small world of interpersonal relationships to the larger world that is the society

Being moral is about being personally affected by suffering and injustice and being motivated to do what one can in response

Justice and Solidarity are words that stand for this perspective

Outcomes of morality could be described in terms of social peace versus division.

PERSPECTIVES SANCTIONS Failure of Integration

Morality as Law(Duty, Obedience)

Reward versus Punishment

Legalism

Morality as Inner Conviction(Conscience, Integrity)

Inner Peace versus Disquiet (Guilt)

Subjectivism

Morality as Personal Growth(Virtue, Conversion)

Wholeness versus Fragmentation

Search for personal fulfillment that has little reference to others

Morality as Love(Faithfulness, Response)

Communion versus Isolation

“Situation Ethics”, a theory which holds that morality has only one absolute, namely to do the loving thing

Morality as Social TransformationJustice, Solidarity

Social Peace versus Division

Commitment to justice is distorted if seen in isolation