MORAL AND CITIZENSHIP

EDUCATION

(MCED 1012)
 Chapter One:
Understanding Civics and Ethics

• A Seed will only become a flower if it gets sun and water.

• Louis Gottschalk.
• Since human being is a social animal and couldn’t live alone,
he/she has to respect certain fundamental principles and values to
live together with his/her fellow beings and consequently build
peaceful society and lead prosperous life.
• As Johan Stuart Mill (1972)
• described it, progressive and peaceful setting subsists in a given
society as far as that society develops the qualities of its members
and generates good citizens.
• Aristotle (1955) also added that citizens of a State should always
be educated to suit the constitution of a State. Accordingly, creating
a good citizen has been the prior concern of many States, including
Ethiopia. This is because good citizens are made not born.
• Though the most cited definition of civic education is an education that studies
about the rights and responsibilities of citizens

• For instance, Patrick (1986) defines civic education

as the knowledge of the constitutions, the principles, values, history and
application to contemporary life.

• Citizenship education can be understood as the knowledge, means, and

activities designed to encourage students to participate actively in democratic
life,

• United Nations Development Program (UNDP, 2004)

defines civic education as a way of learning for effective participation in a
democratic and development process.

• Still the subject matter can be also defined as the process of helping young
people acquire and learn to use the skills, knowledge, and attitudes that will
prepare them to be competent and responsible citizens throughout their lives
 The Definition and Nature of Ethics and Morality
• Ethics is a branch of philosophy that attempts to understand people’s moral beliefs and actions
• ‘ethics’ described the process of thinking about people’s morality).
• Ethics, or moral philosophy, considers theories about
what human beings are capable of doing, alongside accounts of what they ought to do if they are to
live an ethically good life.

• Ethics also explores the meaning and the ranking of different ethical values,

such as - honesty, - autonomy,

- equality and justice, and it considers ethical quandaries

• Ethics may share common ground with

the law, religious belief
popular opinion, professional codes and the dictates of authority figures
•
• Invariably all ethical questions involve a decision about what one should do in a specific instance.

• Ethical questions are not concerned with what one would do (an essentially psychological
concern) but what one ought to do. Judgments about such decisions are generally expressed with
words like right and wrong, should and ought, or obligation and duty

• Occasionally the term ethics is used interchangeably with morals.

• Business or medical ethics, for example, is generally synonymous with morals. Although this is
acceptable, a precise usage would apply the term’s morals and moral to the conduct itself, while
the terms ethics and ethical would refer to the study of moral conduct or to the code that one
follows.

• Thus, the specific act of telling the caller you were home could be described as moral or immoral.
But what makes any act moral or immoral, right or wrong fall within the province of ethics.

• Ethicists often disagree about the nature of those standards and desirable qualities and follow
different paths in establishing standards and discovering which qualities are desirable. For
purposes of understanding, though, we can view ethics as divided into two fields;

• normative ethics and non-normative ethics.

• Generally, Ethics is:
– The critical examination and evaluation of what is
good, evil, right and wrong in human conduct
(Guy, 2001).
– A specific set of principles, values and guidelines
for a particular group or organization (Guy, 2001).
-is the study of goodness, right action and
moral responsibility, it asks what choices and
ends we ought to pursue and what moral
principles should govern our pursuits and
choices (Madden, 2000).
 What is Morality?
• morality is a complex concept.
• Though it is one of most frequently used terms, it can mean different things to different people.

• Morality is a commonly used word in most cultures

• In crucial ways we do not know what morality is. Yet we must teach it because it is of prime
importance and must be learned.

• Moreover, teaching must not be brainwashing; it must be moral. So, in order to understand Moral
and Civics Education, the term “moral” needs to be understood
• Morality can be viewed from different perspectives and let us start with the simple definition of
the word itself. Morality from a dictionary definition (from Latin moralitas “manner, character,
prope

• behavior”) refers to the concept of human action which pertains to matters of right and wrong –
also referred to as “good and evil”.
• Morality has been a topic of discussion for a very long
time.
• According to Socrates “We are discussing no small
matter, but how we ought to live” when issues of
morality are discussed.
• Morality is,
 at the very least, the effort to guide one’s conduct by
reason that is, to do what there are the best reasons for
doing while giving equal weight to the interest of each
individual who will be affected by one’s conduct.
 It is important that in a countries like Ethiopia,
morality is shared as a common goal to ensure
harmony and integrity.
• Terms such as morality and ethics are often used
interchangeably in everyday speech as referring to
justified or proper conduct.
• But ethics is usually associated with a certain conduct
within a profession,
• for example, the code of ethics for the teaching
profession.
• Morality is a more general term referring to the
character of individuals and community.
• In other words, Morality is used to refer to what we
would call moral conduct while ethics is used to refer
to the formal study of moral conduct.
• Those principles and values that actually guide, for
better or worse, an individual’s personal conduct
(Guy, 2001)
• Morality is

• the informal system of rational beings by which they

govern their behavior in order to lesson harm or evil
and do good,

• this system, although informal, enjoys amazing

agreement across time and cultures concerning moral
rules, moral ideas and moral virtues (Madden, 2000)
 Ethics

• Is philosophical study of the code, standards or norm of

human conduct and it is more theoretical and general one.

• Ethics establish the standards, norms, or codes to be

followed by human beings are the study of morality, moral
principles, and moral decision making.
• Is the development of reasonable standards and procedures
for ethical decision-making?

• Is a set of normative rules of conduct, a code, a standards

that govern what one ought to do when the well-being, or
duties to oneself, others or institutions is at stake.
Morality
• refers to the code of conduct one follows while ethics is the
study of moral conduct or  the study of the code that one
follows
• is the conformity of human behavior to the established code of
conduct .If an action conform to the established code, it is
called moral ,if not immoral
• refers to the effort to guide one’s conduct by reason while
giving equal weight to the interests of each individual who will
be affected by one’s conduct
• Has to do with what one should do, all things considered, not
what, in fact, any of us will so in a particular instance
 Ethics and Law
• laws are norms, formally approved by state, power or national or international
political bodies.

• Many laws are instituted in order to promote well-being, resolve conflicts of

interest, and promote social harmony. However, there are several reasons why
ethics is

• Most people would agree that lying is unethical but lying is only illegal under
certain conditions,

• e.g. lying on an income tax return, lying when giving sworn testimony, etc.
Third, laws can be unethical or immoral.
• The United States had laws permitting slavery in the 1800s but most people
today would say that those laws were unethical or immoral. Although we have
moral and ethical obligations to obey the law, civil disobedience can be justified
when immoral or unethical laws exist.
 Goal of Moral and Civic Education
• Civic education is a discipline that deals with virtue traits rooted in values of
respect and culture of tolerance to make individuals responsible and efficient
member of their community.
1 The need to instill citizens about their rights and duties

• the state cannot protect the environment if citizens are unwilling to reduce,
• In short, we need a fuller, richer and yet more subtle understanding and
practice of citizenship, because what the ideal society needs and wants to be
cannot be secured by coercion, but only through its members (citizens) who
have a balanced understanding of rights and duties.
• the State being a nucleus organ needs to take care of the egal interests of all its
individuals.
 2 The Need for Participant Political Culture
• According to the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (1961)
• political culture is the set of attitudes, beliefs, and sentiments which give
order and meaning to a political process and which provide the underlying
assumptions and rules that govern behavior in the political system.

• Taylor (1999) describes political culture as the norms of conduct both of

and between the various political actors operating in society,

• Political culture shapes what people expect of their political system,

• Generally, political culture defines the roles which an individual may play
in the political process.
 3 The Need for Relevant Knowledge, Skills
and Positive Attitudes
• Relevant knowledge is a type of knowledge which is useful in dealing with a
particular problem at a period of time.

• However, knowledge would remain inert knowledge unless it is functional or

put into practice to achieve a certain goal.

• Still knowledge would remain infirm if the person is not equipped with right
attitudes and requisite skills which are basic to enable him/her perform his/her
role as a credible member of a society.

• It is reasonable to claim that skillful manpower is a pre-requisite for every

nation
 4 The issue of fostering intercultural
societies:
• civics and ethics education could move a step forward by
appealing to the notion of inter-culturalism,

• civics and ethics education is a useful instrument not only

towards tolerating or celebrating each other, but also about
nurturing dynamic exchanges based on interaction, openness and
effective solidarity.

• The subject helps to integrate the best traditions of multicultural

and intercultural education to develop political and pedagogical
strategies that contribute to overcome discrimination and to
nurture genuine, inclusive dialogue among cultural groups.
 5 The issue of peace-building:

• an environment characterized by increasing

militarization, terrorism, civil wars and genocidal acts,

• it is urgent for citizenship education to advance

pedagogical strategies to promote cooperation, dialogue,
and a sustainable peace that is based on justice.

• It is obvious that civics and ethics alone cannot bring

peace to our planet, yet it can make a valuable
contribution to create the subjective conditions for more
peaceful situations
• Moral and Civics Education is based on and
seeks to promote in students core moral,
ethical, democratic, and educational values,
such as:
– Respect for life
– Respect for reasoning
– Fairness
– Concern for the welfare of others
– Respect for diversity
-Peaceful resolution of conflict
 Chapter Two:
Approaches to Ethics

Normative Ethics
• normative ethics, starting with the theory of obligation and
then going on to the theory of moral value and,
• the theory of nonmoral value.
• The ultimate concern of the normative theory of obligation is
to guide us in the making of decisions and judgments about
actions in particular situations.
• We are not just agents in morality; we are also spectators,
advisers, instructors, judges, and critics. Still, in all of these
capacities our primary question is this:
• how may or should we decide or determine what is morally
right for a certain agent .
 Normative ethics;
• These theories evaluate actions in a systematic way, i.e., they may
focus on outcomes or duties or motivation as a means of justifying
human conduct.

• Includes ethical theories or approaches

such as utilitarianism, deontology, virtue ethics, principlism,
narrative ethics and feminist ethics.
• Normative ethics poses questions of the following kind:

• Are there general principles or rules that we could follow which

distinguish between right and wrong? Or:

• Are there virtues and/or relationships that we can nurture, in order to

behave well?
 Teleological Ethics (Consequentialist)
• It is referred as “the end justifies the means”. It believes in purpose, ends or goals of
an action,

• it stress that the consequences of an action determines the morality or immorality of a

given action.

• Which means an action is judged as right or wrong, moral or immoral depending on

what happens because of it.

• One may have the best intention or follow the highest moral principles but if the
result, moral act is harmful, or bad it must be judged as morally or ethically wrong
act.
• Teleologists have often been hedonists, identifying the good with pleasure
and evil with pain,
• Deontological theories deny what teleological theories affirm.
• They deny that the right, the obligatory, and the morally good are
wholly, whether directly or indirectly
• They assert that there are other considerations that may make an
action or rule right or obligatory besides the goodness or badness
of its consequences

• Teleologists believe that there is one and only one basic or

ultimate right-making characteristic, namely,
the comparative value (nonmoral) of what is, probably will be, or
is intended to be brought into being.
• Deontologists either deny that this characteristic is right-making at
all or they insist that there are other basic or ultimate right-making
characteristics as well.
• Teleologists differ on the question of whose good it is that one ought to try to
promote.

• Ethical egoism holds that one is always to do what will promote his own greatest
good

• This view was held by Epicurus, Hobbes, and Nietzsche, among others.

• Ethical universalism, or what is usually called utilitarianism, takes the position

that the ultimate end is the greatest general good

• an act or rule of action is right if and only if it is, or probably is, conducive to at
least as great a balance of good over evil in the universe as a whole as
 Egoism: Ethical and psychological Egoism

• Ethical Egoism

We usually assume that moral behavior, or being ethical, has to do with not
being overly concerned with oneself .

In other words, selfishness is assumed to be unacceptable attitude.

Even among scholars, there is disagreement about what constitutes ethical

behavior.

Some scholars even hold that proper moral conduct consist of “looking out for
number one,” period.
These viewpoints are known as psychological egoism and ethical egoism
respectively.  
• You should look after yourself

 Ethical egoist insisted that if you don’t take advantage of a

situation,
 you are foolish. The claim that it makes good sense to look
after yourself, and morality is a result of that self –interest.

 If I mistreat others, they mistreat me, so I resolve to behave

myself.

 version of the Golden Rule (Do un to others as you would

have them do unto you).
More formally the argument is this:

1 We all always seek to maximize our own self-interest

(definition of psychological egoism).

2 If one cannot do an act, one has no obligation to do

that act (ought to implies can).
3 Altruistic acts involve putting other people’s interests
ahead of our own (definition of altruism).
4 But, altruism contradicts psychological egoism and
so is impossible (by premises 1 and 3).
5 altruistic acts are never morally obligatory
The following are some method to apply the
principle of ethical egoism to a particular
situation.
• List the possible acts
• For each act, see how much net good it would
do for you.
• Identify the act that does the most net good for
you
• Some important things to notice about
ethical egoism:
 Some important things to notice about ethical egoism:

• It does not just say that, from the moral point of view, one’s own
welfare counts as well as that of others. Rather, it says that, from the
moral point of view,
• only one’s own welfare counts, and others’ does not, when one is
making a moral decision about how to act.

• Ethical egoism does not forbid one to help others, or require one to
harm others. It just says that whatever moral reason you have to help
others, or not harm them, must ultimately stem for the way in which
helping them or not harming them helps you.

• Ethical egoism does not say that one ought always to do what is
most pleasurable, or enjoyable. It acknowledges that one’s own self–
interest may occasionally require pain or sacrifice.
Psychological Egoism

 an argument from human nature

 We are all so constituted, it is said, that one always
seeks one's own advantage or welfare, or always does
what he thinks will give him the greatest balance of
good over evil.
"self-love" is the only basic "principle" in human nature
 in one set of contemporary terms, it means that "ego-
satisfaction" is the final aim of all activity or that "the
pleasure principle" is the basic "drive" in every
individual.
 In dealing with this ethical theory;
– That the desire for one's own good presupposes or builds
upon the existence of more basic desires for food, fame, sex,
etc.
– It follows, that the object of these basic desires is not one's
own welfare; it is food, fame, sex, etc., as the case may be.
One's own good is not the object of all of one's desires but
only of one of them, self- love.
– in some cases the object of a basic desire is something for
oneself, for example, food or the eating of food. But there is
no necessity about this; the object may be something for
someone else, for example, enjoying the sight of the ocean
– As a matter of fact, there are such altruistic interests in the
welfare of others (sheer malevolence, if it exists, is a desire
that another experience pain for its own sake), as well as a
desire to do the right as such.
 Utilitarianism: Producing the best consequences

• Another principle urged on us is “Do whatever is most loving”;

• when there is a conflict of interest? “Love is blind,” it has been said, “but reason,
like marriage, is an eye-opener.” Whom should I love in the case of the
disbursement of the millionaire’s money—the millionaire or the starving people?

• It’s not clear how love alone will settle anything. In fact, it is not obvious that we
must always do what is most loving.

• Should we always treat our enemies in loving ways?

• Or is it morally permissible to feel hate for those who have purposely and
unjustly harmed us, our loved ones, or other innocent people?
• Should the survivors of Auschwitz love Adolph Hitler? Love alone does not solve
difficult moral issues.
 Classic Utilitarianism
• The classical expressions of utilitarianism, though,
appear in the writings of two English philosophers and
social reformers Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) and John
Stuart Mill (1806–1873).
• They were the nonreligious ancestors of the twentieth-
century secular humanists, optimistic about human
nature and our ability to solve our problems without
recourse to God.

• Engaged in a struggle for legal as well as moral reform,

they were impatient with the rule-bound character of law
 Jeremy Bentham: Quantity over Quality
• There are two main features of utilitarianism, both of
which Bentham articulated:
• The consequentialist principle (or its teleological
aspect):
• states that the rightness or wrongness of an act is
determined by It is the end, not the means that counts;
then
• the goodness or badness of the results that flow from it.
• The utility principle (or its hedonic aspect): states that
the only thing that is good in itself is some specific type
of state (for example, pleasure, happiness, welfare).
• Hedonistic utilitarianism views pleasure as the
sole good and pain as the only evil.

• An act is right if it either brings about more

pleasure than pain or prevents pain, and an act
is wrong if it either brings about more pain than
pleasure

• There is something appealing about Bentham’s

utilitarianism. It is simple in that there is only
one principle to apply: Maximize pleasure and
minimize suffering.
 John Stuart Mill: Quality over Quantity
John Stuart Mill, sought to distinguish happiness from mere
sensual pleasure.

He defines happiness in terms of certain types of higher-

• Mill argued that the higher, or more refined, pleasures are
superior to the lower ones:

• They want the lower pleasures, but they also want deep
friendship, intellectual ability, culture, the ability to create and
appreciate art, knowledge, and wisdom.

• Mill is clearly pushing the boundaries of the concept of

“pleasure” by emphasizing higher qualities such as knowledge,
intelligence, freedom, friendship, love, and health.
 Act- And Rule-Utilitarianism
• There are two classical types of utilitarianism:
1 act- and
2 rule-utilitarianism.
• act-utilitarians, such as Bentham, say that ideally we
ought to apply the principle to all of the alternatives
open to us at any given moment.

• Act-utilitarianism argues that an act is right if and only

if it results in as much good as any available alternative.
• The alternative to act-utlitarianism is a view called rule-
utilitarianism
 Rule-utilitarianism
• An act is right if and only if it is required by a rule
• that is itself a member of a set of rules whose acceptance would
lead to greater utility for society than any available alternative.

• Human beings are rule-following creatures. We learn by

adhering to the rules of a given subject, whether it is speaking a
language, driving a car, dancing, writing an essay, rock
climbing, or cooking.

• We want to have a set of actionguiding rules by which to live.

The act-utilitarian rule, to do the act that maximizes utility, is
too general for most purposes.
The Comparative Consequences Objection
a superhuman ability to look into the future and survey a mind-boggling
array of consequences of actions.

we normally do not know the long-term consequences of our actions

because life is too complex and the consequences go on into the indefinite
future.

The Consistency Objection to Rule-Utilitarianism

An often-debated question about rule-utilitarianism is whether, when

pushed to its logical limits, it must either become a deontological system
or transform itself into act-utilitarianism.

• We could always find a case where breaking the general rule would
result in additional hedons without decreasing the sum of the whole.
 The No-Rest Objection
• According to utilitarianism, one should always do that act that
promises to promote the most utility. But there is usually an
infinite set of possible acts to choose from, and even if I can be
excused from considering all of them,

• When I am about to go to sleep, I should ask myself whether I

could at that moment be doing something to help save the ozone
layer. And, why not simply give all my assets (beyond what is
absolutely necessary to keep me alive) to the poor to promote
utility?

The Publicity Objection

• It is usually thought that moral principles must be known to all
so that all may freely obey the principles
 The Relativism Objection
• Sometimes people accuse rule-utilitarianism of
being relativistic because it seems to endorse
different rules in different societies.

• In one society, it may uphold polygamy, whereas

in our society it defends monogamy.

• In a desert society, it upholds a rule “Don’t waste

water,” whereas in a community where water is
plentiful no such rule exists.
 The Justice Objection
• The utilitarian response was that we should reconsider
whether truth telling and personal integrity are values that
should never be compromised.

• Let’s look at two examples, each of which highlights a

different aspect of justice.

• First, imagine that a rape and murder is committed in a

racially volatile community.
• you have spent a lifetime working for racial harmony. Now,
just when your goal is being realized, this incident occurs.
•
• As a second illustration, imagine that you are a
utilitarian physician who has five patients under your
care.
• One needs a heart transplant, one needs two lungs, one
needs a liver, and the last two each need a kidney.
• Now into your office comes a healthy bachelor
needing an immunization.
• You judge that he would make a perfect sacrifice for
your five patients.
Through a utility-calculus, you determine that, without
a doubt, you could do the most good by injecting the
healthy man with a fatal drug and then using his
organs to save your five other patients.
Three-Step Action Formula:
• Utilitarianism might be construed as offering a three-
step action formula for action:
1 On the basis of what I know, I must project the
consequences of each alternative option open to me
2 Calculate how much happiness, or balance of
happiness over unhappiness, is likely to be produced
by anticipated consequences of each action or none.
3 Select that action which, on balance, will produce the
greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number
of people affected
 The principle of utility
• The morally right action is the one that
produces the best overall consequences

• Jeremy Bentham’s slogan: The right act or

policy is the one that causes ‘the greatest
happiness of the greatest number
 Altruism

• In altruism an action is right if the

consequences of that action are favorable to all
except the actor.

• Altruists are people who act so as to increase

other people’s pleasure.
• They will act for the sake of someone else
even if it decreases their own pleasure and
causes themselves pain.
 Deontological Ethics (Non- Consequentialist)
• What makes a ‘right’ act right?
• The utilitarian or consequentialist answer to this
question is
• that it is the good outcome of an act which makes it
right.

• Moral rightness or wrongness is calculated by

determining the extent to which the action promotes
values such as pleasure, well-being, happiness, etc

• It is referred as “the means justifies the end”.

Performance of One’s own Duty
• The 17th century German philosopher Samuel Pufendorf, who classified dozens of duties under three
headings:
duties to God,
duties to oneself and duties to others!

duties towards God

(1) a theoretical duty to know the existence and nature of God, and
(2) a practical duty to both inwardly and outwardly worship God.

• duties towards oneself;

(1) duties of the soul
(2) duties of the body

duties towards others.

between absolute duties, which are universally binding on people, and conditional duties.
Absolute duties are of three sorts: (1) avoid wronging others; (2) treat people as equals, and (3)
promote the good of others.

• Conditional duties involve various types of agreements, the principal one of which is the duty is to
keep one's promises.
 The Divine Command Theory
• According to one view, called the divine command theory
(DCT), ethical principles are simply the commands of God.
• They derive their validity from God’s commanding them,
and they mean “commanded by God.” Without God,
there would be no universally valid morality. We can
analyze the DCT into three separate theses:
• Morality (that is, rightness and wrongness) originates with
God.
• Moral rightness simply means “willed by God,” and moral
wrongness means “being against the will of God.”
• Because morality essentially is based on divine will, not on
independently existing reasons for action, no further reasons
for action are necessary.
• Problems with the Divine Command Theory

• There are two problems with the DCT that need to be faced by those who hold
it.
• DCT would seem to make the attribution of “goodness” to God redundant.

• When we say “God is good,” we think we are ascribing a property to God;

• Our statement “God is good” merely means “God does whatever he wills to
do” or “God practices what he preaches,” and the statement “God commands us
to do what is good” merely is the logically empty statement “God commands us
to do what God commands us to do.”
• DCT is that it seems to make morality into some-thing arbitrary.
If God’s decree is the sole arbiter of right and wrong, it would seem to be
logically possible for such heinous acts as rape, killing of the innocent for the
fun of it, and gratuitous cruelty to become morally good actions—if God
suddenly decided to command us to do these things
 Rights Theory

• A second duty-based approach to ethics is rights theory.

• Most generally, a "right" is a justified claim against another person's behavior - such as my
right to not be harmed by you. Rights and duties are related in such a way that the rights of
one person imply the duties of another person.
For example, if I have a right to payment of $10 by Smith, then Smith has a duty to pay
me $10. This is called the correlativity of rights and duties.

The most influential early account of rights theory is that of 17th century British philosopher
John Locke, who argued that the laws of nature mandate that we should not harm anyone's
life, health, liberty or possessions.

For Locke, these are our natural rights, given to us by God. Following Locke, the United
States Declaration of Independence authored by Thomas Jefferson recognizes three
foundational rights:
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Jefferson and others rights theorists maintained that we deduce other more specific rights
from these, including the rights of property, movement, speech, and religious expression.
• There are four features traditionally associated with
moral rights.
• First, rights are natural insofar as they are not invented
or created by governments.
• Second, they are universal insofar as they do not
change from country to country.
• Third, they are equal in the sense that rights are the
same for all people, irrespective of gender, race, or
handicap.
• Fourth, they are inalienable which means that I cannot
hand over my rights to another person, such as by
selling myself into slavery.
 Kant’s Categorical Imperative
• A Kant’s duty-based theory is emphasizes a single principle of
duty.
Kant agreed that we have moral duties to oneself and others,
such as developing one’s talents, and keeping our promises to
others..”
• A categorical imperative,
he argued, is fundamentally different from hypothetical
imperatives that hinge on some personal desire that we have.

For example, “If you want to get a good job, then you ought to
go to college.” By contrast, a categorical imperative simply
mandates an action, irrespective of one’s personal desires, such
as “You ought to do X.”
 The Principle of Universality
• The first maxim
states that we should choose our 'codes of conduct' only if
they serve perfect / imperfect duty and are good for all.
"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the
same time will that it should become a universal law without
contradiction.”
• The Principle of Humanity as an End, Never as Merely a
Means
• The second maxim
states that we should not use humanity of ourselves or others
as a means to an end. “Act in such a way that you treat
humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any
other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the
same time as an end.”
 The Principle of Autonomy
• The third maxim states that we should consider ourselves to be
members in the universal realm of ends.
• Therefore, every rational being must so act as if he were
through his maxim always a legislating member in the
universal kingdom of ends.

• Thus Kant presents the notion of the hypothetical Kingdom of

Ends of which he suggests all people should consider themselves
both means and ends.
• We should consider our actions to be of consequence to everyone
else in that our actions affect not only ourselves but that of others.
• Everything we do should not only be of benefit to ourselves, but
benefit each other universally
 Ross’s Prima Facie Duties or Moral Guidelines
• A fourth and more recent duty-based theory is that by British philosopher W.D.
Ross, which emphasizes prima facie duties.

• The term prima facie means “at a first sight” or “on the surface.” By prima facie
duties, Ross means duties that dictate what we should do when other moral
factors are not considered.

• An actual duty is the action that one ought to perform after considering and
weighing all the prima facie duties involved.

• The prima facie duties are understood as guidelines, not rules without exception.

• If an action does not correspond to a specific guideline, one is not necessarily

violating a rule that one ought to follow.
Ross’s list the following categories of prima facie
duties
• Duties of Fidelity: the duty to keep promises and the obligation not to lie.
 Duties of fidelity are duties to keep one’s promises and contracts and not to
engage in deception.
• Duties of Reparation: This is a duty to make up for the injuries one has done to
others.
• Ross describes this duty as "resting on a previous wrongful act".
• It is the duty to compensate others when we harm them.
• If, for example, I damage something that belongs to someone else, I have an
obligation to make restitution.

• Duties of Gratitude: the duty to thank those who help us.

• for example, an especially good friend is suddenly in need of assistance,

• I am duty bound to do all I can help this individual, who in the past had acted
so selflessly toward me.
• Duties of Justice: The duty of justice requires that one act in
such a way that one distributes benefits and burdens fairly.

• Duties of Beneficence: the duty to improve the conditions of

others.
• The duty to do good to others: to foster their health, security,
wisdom, moral goodness, or happiness.

• Duties of Self-improvement: The duty of self-improvement is to

act so as to promote one’s own good,
• i.e., one’s own health, security, wisdom, moral goodness, virtue,
intelligence and happiness.

• Duties of Non-maleficence: The duty of non-injury

• the duty not to harm others physically or psychologically:
 Virtue Ethics
• Virtue Ethics: Challenging the adequacy of rule-based theories
Virtue ethics”
is a technical term in contemporary Western analytical moral philosophy,
used to distinguish a normative ethical theory focused on the virtues, or
moral character, from others such as deontology (or contractarianism) and
consequentialism.

Imagine a case in which it is agreed by every sort of theorist that I should,

say, help someone in need.
A deontologist will emphasize the fact that in offering help, I will be acting
in accordance with a moral rule or principle such as “Do unto others as you
would be done by”;
a consequentialist will point out that the consequences of helping will
maximize well-being; and a virtue ethicist will emphasize the fact that
providing help would be charitable or benevolent – charity and benevolence
being virtues
• TheGoodCharacter

People have a natural capacity for good

character, and it is developed through practice.

• The capacity does not come first--it's developed

through practice.
• Pleasure
 pleasure is something positive and its effect is
to perfect the exercise of activity.
• Pleasure cannot be directly sought--it is the
side-product of activity. It is only an element
of happiness.
• The good person, the one who has
attained eudaemonia, is the standard as to
what is truly pleasant or unpleasant.
 Non-Normative Ethics/Meta-ethics

• Meta-ethics tries to answer question, such

as:
– What does “good,” “right,” or “justice” mean?
– What makes something good or right?
– Is moral realism true?
– Is morality irreducible, cognitive, or overriding?
• Do intrinsic values exist
 Meta-ethics, rather, concerned with questions about the following:
• Meaning: what is the semantic function of moral discourse? Is the function of moral discourse
to state facts, or does it have some other non-fact-stating role?
• Metaphysics: do moral facts (or properties) exist? If so, what are they like?
• Are they identical or reducible to some other type of fact (or property) or are they irreducible
and sui generis?
• Epistemology and justification: is there such a thing as moral knowledge? How can we know
whether our moral judgements are true or false? How can we ever justify our claims to moral
knowledge?

• Phenomenology: how are moral qualities represented in the experience of an agent making a
moral judgement? Do they appear to be 'out there' in the world?

• Moral psychology: what can we say about the motivational state of someone making a moral
judgement?
• What sort of connection is there between making a moral judgement and being motivated to
act as that judgement prescribes?

• Objectivity: can moral judgements really be correct or incorrect? Can we work towards
finding out the moral truth?
 Cognitivism and Non-Cognitivism
• Consider a particular moral judgement, such as the
judgement that murder is wrong.
• What sort of psychological state does this express?
• Some philosophers, called cognitivists, think that a
moral judgement such as this expresses a belief.
Beliefs can be true or false:
• non-cognitivists think that moral judgements express
non-cognitive states such as emotions or desires.
• Desires and emotions are not truth-apt. So moral
judgements are not capable of being true or false.
Strong Cognitivism: Naturalism
A strong cognitivist theory is one which holds that moral
judgements
(a) are apt for evaluation in terms of truth and falsity, and
(b) can be the upshot of cognitively accessing the facts which
render them true. Strong cognitivist theories can be either
naturalist or non-naturalist.
According to a naturalist, a moral judgement is rendered true
or false by a natural state of affairs, and it is this natural
state of affairs to which a true moral judgement affords us
access. But what is a natural state of affairs? G. E. Moore's
characterization: “By 'nature', then, I do mean and have
meant that which is the subject matter of the natural
sciences and also of psychology.”
 Strong Cognitivism: Non-Naturalism
• Non-naturalists think that moral properties are not identical to or
reducible to natural properties.
• They are irreducible and sui generis. We will look at two types
of strong cognitivist non-naturalism: Moore's ethical non-
naturalism, as developed in his Principia Ethica (first published
in 1903),
• according to which the property of moral goodness is non-
natural, simple, and unanalysable; and the contemporary version
of non-naturalism that has been developed by John McDowell
and David Wiggins (roughly from the 1970s to the present day).
• Again, both types of non-naturalist are moral realists: they think
that there really are moral facts and moral properties, and that
the existence of these moral facts and instantiation of these
moral properties is constitutively independent of human opinion.
 Strong Cognitivism without Moral Realism: Mackie's
'Error-Theory'
• John Mackie
has argued that although moral judgements are apt to be
true or false, and that moral judgements,
if true, would afford us cognitive access to moral facts,
moral judgments are in fact always false.
• Mackie finds this idea utterly problematic.
• He concludes that there are no moral properties or moral
facts, so that (positive, atomic) moral judgments are
uniformly false:
• our moral thinking involves us in a radical error. Because
Mackie denies that there are moral facts or properties, he
is not a moral realist, but a moral antirealist
 Weak Cognitivism about Morals without Moral
Realism: 'Best Opinion' Theories
• A weak cognitivist theory is one which holds that moral
judgements
• are apt for evaluation in terms of truth and falsity, but
• cannot be the upshot of cognitive access to moral properties
and states of affairs.
• Weak cognitivism thus agrees with strong cognitivism on
• (a), but disagrees on
• (b). An example of a weak cognitivist theory would be one
which held that our best judgements about morals determine
the extensions of moral predicates, rather than being based
upon some faculty which tracks, detects or cognitively
accesses facts about the instantiation of moral properties.
 Non-Cognitivism
• Non-cognitivists thus disagree with both weak and strong cognitivism.

• We shall look at a number of arguments which the non-cognitivist uses

against cognitivism. An example of such an argument is the argument from
moral psychology.
• We shall look at three versions of non-cognitivism which give different
answers to this question:
• J. Ayer's emotivism (1936), according to which moral judgements express
emotions, or sentiments of approval or disapproval;

• Simon Blackburn's quasi-realism (1984), according to which moral

judgements express our dispositions to form sentiments of approval or
disapproval; and

• Allan Gibbard's norm-expressivism (1990), according to which our moral

judgements express our acceptance of norms
• Generally, Meta-ethics:
• Examines the meaning of moral terms and concepts and the
relationships between these concepts.
• Explores where moral values, such as ‘personhood’ and
‘autonomy’, come from.
• Considers the difference between moral values and other
kinds of values.

• Examines the way in which moral claims are justified

Meta-ethics also poses questions of the following kind:
• What do we mean by the claim, ‘life is sacred’?
• Are moral claims a matter of personal view, religious belief
or social standard, or, are they objective in some sense?
• If they are objective, what make them so