Chapter 1:Chapter 1:

Why Be Why Be Ethical?Ethical?

Comunicación y Gerencia

The happy [person] lives well and does well; for we have practically defined happiness as a sort of good life and good action. -Aristotle

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Definitions and Key TermsDefinitions and Key Terms

• Autonomy: Free self-direction; responsibility

• Ethics: A discipline that deals with the nature of the good, the nature of the human person, and criteria that we use for making right judgments.

• Morality: A system of right conduct based on fundamental beliefs and obligation to follow certain codes, norms, customs and habits of behavior.

• 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 and also reveals Self through people and all creation. The sacred Scriptures are the revealed word of God.

Ethics

• Ethical Experience• Often we feel an obligation to “ do the

right thing” in certain scenarios even though it may seem tedious, or not what we would of liked to have chosen. We may start to feel like these obligations are an imposition on our personal freedom and responsibility, and perhaps even resent the rules and laws that we “ have to” abide by. These feelings are caused by ethical experiences, which define a great deal of what it means to be human. There are four primary examples that identify how ethics is strongly apart of what it truly means to be human

• The Scream• Experience Of Personal Response• The notion that humans act almost

immediately when they feel another human is in danger. It is not a decision merely made by the mind, it is an almost an automatic response.

• The Scream gives the example of someone on a beautiful calm summer day at the beach, relaxing, and basking in the sun when suddenly a cry for help is heard. Immediately the state of relaxation disappears, and your body and mind jump to an worried, panic mode, searching for whom and what caused the scream.This emphasizes what it means to experience an ethical response.

• The beggar- Experience of the other• Proposed by French-Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas. Begins with the

face of someone in need specifically. When we come face to face with another individual which Levinas refers to as an “Other”, something happens to us mentally inside. We have an inclination to feel responsibility over one another’s safety and well-being.

• If a poor person on the street approached you begging for change, whether or not you gave the change to the man is irrelevant. You would still ponder your decision on whether or not to give the poor man change, and whether or not it would be the right justifiable thing to do.

• The person has evoked a response from you.

“ I have to..” The experience of obligationWhen someone of authority, orders you to do something or obey a certain rule

it affects us in a way that we feel an obligation or duty. Our ethical sense becomes heightened when we are aware that someone is expecting something

of us.When our parents instruct us to be home by a certain time when we go out, we become aware of this, and whether or not we obey the rule, the obligation to

abide by it is still in our minds. If we come home late past our curfew we contemplate reasons in our heads to tell our parents in order to justify our

wrong doings.The experience of feeling obliged to obey a rule or law has to do with our

ethical side. Immanuel Kant provides us with an ethical theory that pertaining to this experience of duty and obligation.

• This is intolerable! This isn’t fair!• The experience of contrast• Mass genocide. Racism. Prejudice. War. Discrimination. • These are all concrete examples of blatantly unjust acts that can occur throughout

the world to others and ourselves.• Such atrocities cause us to feel outraged and unveil reactions of anger, revulsion,

and frustration. We cannot comprehend why such things are occurring, and who would have the ability to commit such evil in the world.

• The overwhelming feelings brought upon us by the unjust suffering of others, and the indignation we feel is an experience of contrast with what we feel is the right thing.

• This is another example of an ethical experience. It is called an experience of contrast because the horrifying unjustifiable things that we see occurring contrasts strongly with what we are naturally inclined to believe is the right thing, and what we expect from humanity.

• Early philosophers have noted all four of these experiences and reflected upon them. These philosophers have provided us with many various theories that strive to explain ethical experience, and also translate them into a practical wisdom of living.

• Moral philosophers explain what is an ethical approach to such experiences. They attempt to propose what the human and morally correct thing to do is.

• Ethics attempts to derive answers for such questions like “ How and when does human life reflect what is good? And How do we aim at the good life?

• However, who determines what is good and bad?

Aristotle (384-322 BC)

• The pursuit of happiness: This idea deals with human life being shaped to the fullest in a community. He states that pleasure is only momentary but happiness is an enduring state. This is theological ethics, derived from discovering finality of what we are intended to be.

• Teleology: Aristotle claims that we are rational beings and our greatest capacity is our intelligence. Therefore, to act ethically is to engage our capacity to reason as we develop good character.

• Human excellence: Humans develop virtues so to act virtuously is to act as successfully as human beings. Basically allowing reason to guide our actions.

• The mean: Be moderate in all things by maintaining balance in our actions.

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

• Theoretical reason: the area of reasoning by which we come to know how the laws of nature and the laws of cause and effect influence human behavior. Freedom of choice is not an issue.

• Practical reason: Deals with morality and its effects on human behaviour. It states that we act out of conscious choice according to principles amoung other things. Through this he developed the concept of moral duty.

• Kants’ ethics: He states that our ethics present us with practical certainty based on three areas of interest, God, Freedom and Immortality.

• The good will: states that ethics are to be discovered by the individual in private life. Human action is morally good then when done for duty's sake, which also motivates real moral worth.

• Kant’s use of moral maxims: The use of reason is a central idea. Basically he is saying we should always act the way we would expect the rest of the world to act in a situation.

• The person as an end, not a means: Kant states that people should never be treated only as a means. We should regard their dignity and working conditions, but we cannot say that we should never treat others as a means.

Emmanuel Levinas (1905-1995)

• The sameness of things: perceived the Western philosophical tradition and attempted to overcome all difference and diversity by grouping, everything under an all-encompassing unity called “Being”. Difference is reduced to being accidental which meant not essential in Aristotle’s philosophy.

• Singularity of Things: singularity of things give each thing its identity. It contrasted western notion of totality with the Hebrew notion of infinity. He wascaptured by germans in world war 2, he eventually escaped, unfortunately his family died in the holocaust.This experience of the war within the nazi regime lead Levnias to become more aware of his Jewish roots.

• The Good is infinite: Being in search of the good. Being seeks to name what things have in common when differences are removed, the “Good” is the central question of all philosophy. The concept of being is dangerous because it takes away from reality; uniqueness. The Good is interested in what is unique about each person or thing.

• The face as witness of the Good: lashes out against make up , he sees it as an attempt to hide. He said ones eyes can never be made up or faked and that they penetrate every mask, we make immediate direct contact through our eyes.

• The face as ethical: not referring to a face of an authority figure, superiority of the face comes from elsewhere, someone is who defenseless. Recognizing the Other’s depth of misery or humility is what makes the command or appeal of the face ethical. The face suggests that thee is another order of existence.

• Made responsible by the face: face makes us responsible for our human vocation, our calling, search for God end. Levinas ethics do not steer us in Gods direction, but leans us to the direction of neighbors. Gods infinite goodness touches us with our knowledge, goodness sets no limit