MMSU CAS =>hilo 01: Ethics 1

Le5:son 2: If we are moral, why is there evil?

Les.son lnstructions
for the Learner

Lesson Overview

In lesson 1, you learned that human beings are moral by nature as moral agents who have
the innate capacity and natural concern for the distinction between good or bad, right from
wrong, in matters tr at could potentially harm or benefit others. We can do this because we have
a set of moral standards as basis for our moral discernment and deliberation. We call this
personal set of moral standards as morality. Our moral nature is actively using these moral
standards every time we are confronted with moral situations when actions or choices have to
be discerned as eith 2r good or bad. Remember that we all are taught to do good and avoid evil ...

The important question that has to be raised now is, if we do have these set of personal
moral standards cal ed morality that guide us in making moral judgments, and if we are moral by
nature, such that, we can always identify what is wrong from what is bad using these moral
standards, then wh•/ is the world still plagued by evil persons and evil deeds?

The only poi sible answers to this question are the following:

• There ar2 evil or bad persons who do evil or bad things.

• Maybe morality-your personal set of moral standards-is not perfect.
• Maybe your morality is guided by standards that have nothing to do with what is
morally right or wrong at all.
• Maybe there are times when your idea of good or bad is not the same with another
person? That means what you consider good may be bad from another's view, or what
they corsider as bad may be good for you.
• If this is :he case, then whose morality is the right one? Yours? Mine? Theirs?

In this lesso 1, we will explore the answers to these questions by clarifying what morality
really is and by ide11tifying the sources of our moral standards. First, this lesson will discuss how
we acquired and d ~veloped these standards. Second, this lesson will identify the basic factors
that determine these standards. And third, clarify the difference between moral standards and
non-moral standards

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Glossary of Term!;

1. Standarc - a criterion, a rule, or a model established by an authority, custom, or a

consensus to be a guiding measure for something (Merriam-Webster Dictionary
2014).

2. Statements-a verbal declaration, report, or remark of facts or opinions, usually done

orally (Merriam-Webster Dictionary 2014 ).

3. Sentenct•s-a group of words, clauses, or phrases that form a syntactic unit which
expresses a complete thought in the form of an assertion, a question, a command, an
exclamation, or the performance of an action (Merriam- Webster Dictionary 2014).
c.,pA.v \~ ~ ,, ~~
r- 4. Cult Sr:e -·the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, rel igious,
or social group; the characteristic features of a unique way of life-attitudes, values,
goals, practices, and conventions-shared by the people in a certain community.

5. Tradition-an inherited, established, or customary pattern of thought, action, or

behavior. body of beliefs or stories that are handed down from one generation to
another.

6. Etiquette -a set of standards on proper conduct required by good breeding or

prescribed by authority to be observed in social or official life.

..... 7. Religion - -an assembly of people bound together by on e creed, faith, worshipping
together and practicing a set of rites and rituals under the rule of a legitimate pastor
or leader.

8. Conscience-the sense or consciousness of the moral goodness or blameworthiness

of one's own conduct, intentions, or character t ogether with a feeling of obligation to
do the gc,od and avoid evil.

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How did I come to know that something is good or bad?

Did you know what actions are good or bad from birth, or you gradually learned the
difference as you gr•~w up? You were taught since you were a child that there are acts which are
good and there are those that are bad. That means, while we, as moral agents (Lesson 1), do have
a built-in mechanism that enables us to distinguish what is good from bad, it does not followthat
we also have a built-in set of standards that guide our moral discernment. You, rather, acquired
these set of standards in one way or another as you grew up.Perhaps, you will still learn some
more of this as you grow older.

If you noticed, there were acts in the past which you considered to be clearly bad but now
you consider to be, in some ways, acceptably right in certain situations and conditions. The
distinction was so cl=ar cut when you were younger. A bad act, like telling lies, is and will always
be bad all the time, and there could be no instances when it can be considered good. A good act,
like helping your mother clean the house, is and will always be good all the time, and there could
be no times when hE:lping another is bad. But as you grew older, good or bad is no longer as clear
as white or black. There is a grey area that eventually expands as it were. Right? There are white
lies, so to speak, w~ en lying to a killer can save a friend's life. Or helping another is not always
right as in the case c,f giving alms to street children who work for crime syndicates.

At an early ,.ge, you most likely received quite a list of what is right and wrong. Try to
recall why these actions are labeled as right or wrong. One basic reason is, you somehow grew
up in a community that says so and you simply accepted this as such without question. In Tagalog,
"Nakalakihan mo na ito." In llokano, "Nakadakkelanyon dagitoy a kadawyan." Another

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reason you may think of is, you obeyed persons in authority regarding these matters and you
trusted them to tell the truth about these matters. These persons are usually your elders including
your parents and relatives who tell you how things are ought to be done according to tradition;
the police who can put you to prison; the teacher who can punish you at school as cleaners in the
afternoon; the priest or the pastor who quotes verses in the Bible to tell you howGod punished
evildoers; and many rnore. Let us further identify these factors in the following:

First, your rrorality was formed from the family you grew up in. At home, your parents
and relatives taugh': you what is good and what is bad. This was your first education in good
manners, right conduct, and principles of etiquette. As a consequence, you learned here the
unique values your family adheres to, including the cultural values of the people you are born
into. In our case, we refer to Filipino values and llokano values to be more specific.

Second, your personal morality was reinforced by your teachers, by your friends, and by
the books you have 'ead at school. Recall here the values education (or religion) classes you had,
and the points given to you for good behavior. Perhaps you even received the Conduct Award or
the Most Behaved Pupil of the year award.

Tl i * the m,Jvies you loved to watch, your favorite K-dramas, the social media posts you
came across with or your newsfeeds, your exposure to different types of people as you continue
to grow, the kind o·: friends you hang out with, and the like are all contributory factors to the
development of your personal morality.

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t he religion you adhere to. Religion is a very
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of what is good and what is bad. The standards
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Empfhasis oii·tht t1Ctlve project: ensure the salvation of your soul after death,
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the fires of hell. But no t wo religions have the
same standards. In f act, other religions claim that non-members cannot be saved until they get
baptized to their fai th, which they also claim as the true faith, as it were.

What about your conscience? Is it God's voice that speaks to you in the depths of your
soul? Is it a perfect ;tandard on its own that guides our actions? On the contrary, this is not truly
the case. Conscience can be formed as well by various factors and hence can be wrong
sometimes. Notice that when you were younger, it was so difficult for you to lie to your parents.
But as you grew older, you managed to silence that inner voice you call conscience whenever
lying seems to be an acceptable option to save you from further complications in telling the truth. ·

Therefore, we do not just have a personal standard acquired from our family and relatives.
We also share common standards with other people. You share common standards of
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good and bad with your friends. A people who belong to the same culture and tradition share
common standards and laws as well. Religious groups as well have their own set of moral
standards.

But that alsc means that there are persons who do not share your standards of what is
good or bad. There 3re cultures which have different standards, tradition, norms, and even laws.
The same goes wit1out saying regarding how religions differ with other religions. History is
replete with record~ of atrocities committed in the name of religion already.

These factors are the major contributors to the development of your set of standards
which you always use or refer to whenever you make value judgments on whether a certain
action or behavior i:; good or bad, right or wrong. It is obvious that we may have, at times, used
a non-moral standard in making our value judgments about what is good or bad.

But not all standards are about morality. It is therefore important to differentiate moral
standards from other standards out there that are not about being moral. The following
discussion will identify the various standards that we use and show you that these are not moral
standards art all. Th =n, the following discussion will also identify standards that seem to be moral
but not really.

Moral vs. Non-moral Standards

The set of standards you have acquired in time that guide you about what is right or
wrong is called morality (Mabaquiao and Evangelista 2020, 1). How you judge an act as good or
bad, how you consider whether a person is virtuous or not, and how you decide what is ought to
be done, depend on these set of standards that you have. But you may not notice that there are
times when you judge an action or even decide which course of action you ought to take based
on other standards that are not moral. It is therefore important to identify which standards are
moral and which are not.

A standard s a criterion, a rule, or a model established by an authority, custom, or a

consensus to be a gL iding measure for something (Merriam- Webster Dictionary 2014). Standards
are not easily spott1:·d as an object along the way which can be seen, heard, touched, smelled, or
tasted to say the least. You encounter standards expressed as statements or written as
sentences. But ther ? are different types of statements or sentences that we use or encounter.
Statements are informative, expressive, imperative, and normative.

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Morality and some related Norms

Standards in sports, in school, in grading an essay, in rating movies, for acquiring a driver's
license, and the like 1·or examples are obviously far from being moral (although these may have
moral implications n1?vertheless). The closest and usually confused with morality are standards
of etiquette, law, and religion. While these have something to do with proper or improper
behavior, morality and moral standards are different from these.

Etiquette refers to "the set or rules or customs that

determine the accepted behaviors in a particular social
group" (Mabaquiao and Evangelista 2020, 9). As such,
these rules or standard vary from one culture to another.
Following these rules when you are a tourist or guest in a
certain country or with their people is an act of respect or
*Use proper pu"c:tuafion. courtesy even if you do not subscribe to these cultural
(No r-cp••t•d pu11cha ion m1rkt or practices. Thus, to follow these rules of etiquette is proper
r•p,.1lad t<01t•rs)
behavior as a sign of respect but not moral. lf you violate
*Be encour15ins in your
re,ponse fo ot ,ers. them, your behavior would rather be ill-mannered or
*Use plea,e and thank you. impolite at best but not immoral. A good example here is
slurping when eating soup in our culture maybe bad table
~ontrlbute to 1he ~~ manners but in Japan doing so is a sign of appreciation for
conversation b·, shar1n:rffl •fl the food . Be that as it may, for some people, w hen a
your ideu and thou9hts.
custom is adopted, it takes the form of a moral norm.

Law is also regarded as similar to morality as it regulates human conduct as well. A lot of
human behaviors are considered both immoral and illegal such as deceiving another, killing a
person, stealing another's property, and the like. Moreover, laws are actually derived from
various moral laws as well. But law is different from
morality because th,:!re are instances when breaking the
law are not immoral. Beating the red light when you are
rushing your mothe1 to the hospital may be breaking the
law, but it is morally right to save your mother's life.
There are also instarces when an act is legal but immoral.
Death penalty for e>:ample is legal in some countries but
to kill another is immoral regardless of the reasons.

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Religion has been a great influence on the moral lives of individ uals to the extent that it
is almost indistingui~ hable from morality. In fact, whenever good or bad behavior is concerned,
people normally refer t o religion as their ultimate guide. Morality is usually conceived as derived
from religion since God is the main source of all

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goodness. For this reason, what is good is
obedience to God's laws and w hat is bad is
disobedience to these same laws. But religion
and morality are not an easy ·relation of sameness
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and religion, then what is morality? Now recall the

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two cases you tried 1o resolve before- the case of ba by Theresa and the case of Jodie and Mary.
What standards were in conflict in those cases? Did you notice how cultural concepts interfered
with their decisions? Did you see how law was used to interfere with the decisions in both cases?
Remember also how religion determined the choice of the parents in Jodie and Mary's case. Were
you able to make a 11alue judgment that is based on morality and not merely on customs, law,
and religion 7

The following discussion will clarify to you what morality is.

What is Morality?

A normative statement contains a moral standard if all of the following conditions are
present:

(1) "Moral H andards deal with matte rs that we think can seriously harm or benefit
human beings" (Mabaquiao and Evangelist a 2020, 8). Standards that govern human
conduct ·:hat can harm and degrade or benefit and respect another human are moral
standards. We might say that there are ot her standards that are not moral which are
concerne·d with this as well. Standards of etiquette, law, and religion are concerned
about th~ same thing. Even standards that grant a person a license to drive a vehicle
or to ov.n firearms have human welfare and harm as top priority for that matter.
While th s condition to morality is shared with other standards, the following second
condition differentiates morality further from other normative standards.

(2) "Moral jtandards have universal 110/idityH (Mabaquiao and Evangelista 2020). That
means, rnoral standards apply to all. This also means that whateve r standard applies
to a Pedro by virtue of his being human also applies to anyone who are humans as
well reg,1rdless of any property aside from being human. This condition is now st rictly
about morality. Standards of etiquette, law, and religion are applicable only to
members of the same social, people, or religious group.

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(3) Moral st,,ndards are generally thought to have a particularly overriding importance
and hen1:e prevall over other values (Mabaquiao and Evangelista 2020). M oral rules
against k;lling prevails over the cultural rules of "sibrong" (believed to be human blood
offering --o make bridges sturdy and strong). A moral judgment also has more weight
over aes·:hetic judgment. Moral claims as well have more weight compared to legal
claims a~ when we question the legal procedure that appears to be unjust by moral
standards. That is why you feel sorry for poor street vendors whose products were
overturn ?d by public officials with restraining order ang legal backing that order the
vendors ·:o vacate the premises immediately. We feel bad when we see a poor victim
of a pow,~rful family who can win any legal debacle over a piece of land and the like.

(4) "Moral standards are not established by the decisions of authoritarian bodies, nor
are they solely determined by appealing to consensus or tradition" (Mabaquiao and
Evangeli~ta 2020). Standards that govern sports are established by the Sports
Commission. Standards of etiquette are established by culture and tradition.
Standards of law are established by the authority of the legislature and the executive
power. Standards of religion are established by the authority of the Church. Moral
standard:; however have no such authorities, consensus, or tradition to enforce them.
The ultirr ate validity of moral standards lies on the adequacy of reason that support
or justify them.

Using these four conditions therefore, you must be able to distinguish properly now what
standards are moral and which ones are non-moral.

The next question here now that we must raise and reflect upon is, granted that we have
different family baCJCgrounds, or even different cultural values from other people, is it possible
that each person may have different standards of what is good or bad? Is it possible that each
person can have diff?rent morality?

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