UNIT 1:
NATURE AND SCOPE OF
ETHICS
Introduction:
Man is the only being endowed with wisdom and reason among other beings that exists, it is also man
´s noble responsibility and duty to maintain order and continue to improve all things in this universe.
That is why it is very important for man to become more aware of his/her actions and conducts toward
other beings.
With this faculties of man, he/she is expected to create a harmonious environment without robbing
other’s freedom and right to live. It is always best to ask ourselves with this question, “What is the
right thing to do?” by asking that very important question daily, we are as well examining our worth as
a human being.
Etymology and meaning of Ethics
The term Ethics is derived from the Greek word ethos which can mean custom,
habit, character or disposition, while the term “moral” is its Latin equivalent.
From this Greek and Latin etymology, we can say that Ethics deals with
Morality.
It is a branch of Philosophy which deals with Moral Standards.
It investigates about the rightness or wrongness of Human behavior or the
goodness or badness of personality traits or character and it deals with ideas,
with topic such as moral standards or norms of morality, conscience moral values
and virtues.
It is based on well-founded standards of right and wrong that prescribe what
humans ought to do, usually in terms of rights, obligations, benefits to society,
fairness, or specific virtues. (Manuel Velasquez, Claire Andre, Thomas Shanks,
S.J., and Michael J. Meyer)
It is the study of the morality of human acts and the moral agents, what makes
an act obligatory and what makes a person accountable.
Ethics is an active process rather than a static condition, so some ethicist use the
expression doing ethics. When people are doing ethics, they need to support
their beliefs and assertions with sound reasoning.
Moral is the adjective describing a human act as either ethically right or wrong
or qualifying a person’s personality and character as either good or bad.
Nature of Ethics
Scientific Nature: Ethics is a normative science which determines norms, moral values
in a person and an individual’s character. It is a systematic explanation of what is right
and what is wrong.
Not Art: Ethics is not an art as art deals with the acquisition of skill to produce objects,
while morality deals with motive, intention, purpose and choice which are considered
right or wrong in the light of goodness.
Variable Nature: Ethics is not static. It is not always the same. Human beings change
and the morality and ethical perspective in them also changes.
Exclusively for Human Beings: Ethics can only be applied to human beings as we are
the ones who have the capacity for moral judgement. We cannot expect ethical behavior
from animals, as they are not as intelligent as human beings are so ethics is exclusively
for human beings.
Objectives of Ethics
Ethical objectives are based on the following factors:
1. Objectivity – decision based on facts not from the mere feelings
2. Impartiality - (also called evenhandedness or fair-mindedness) is a principle of justice holding
that decisions should be based on objective criteria, rather than on the basis of bias, prejudice, or
preferring the benefit to one person over another for improper reasons
3. Accuracy - Accuracy is to be ensuring that the information is correct and without any mistake.
Information accuracy is important because may the life of people depend in it like the medical
information at the hospitals, so the information must be accurate. The quality of information
measured by accuracy, timeliness, completeness, relevance and if it is easy to understood by the
users, so the accuracy important for quality of information. And the accuracy represents all
organization actions. To get accurate information we need the right value.
4. Public Accountability - Accountability is the readiness or preparedness to give an
explanation or justification to stakeholders for one’s judgments, intentions and actions.
5. Fairness - The fairness approach assumes that people should be treated equally
regardless of their station in life, that is, they should not be subject to discrimination.
6. Truthfulness - the quality of being honest and not containing or telling any lies.
The objectives of ethics are to study and assess human behavior. It is also to establish
principles and moral standards of behavior. Ethics is not compulsory in a person’s life and it is
not forced upon anyone but being ethical is one step forward towards being a good person.
There are 3 different scopes of ethics
1. Meta-Ethics
2. Normative Ethics
3. Applied Ethics
1. Meta-Ethics: Meta-ethics comprises the area of situational ethics and deals with
logical questions like ‘What do we mean by ‘freedom’ and ‘determinism’ etc. It delves
into the nature of ethical properties, attitudes and judgements. For example, a media
critic’s description of a TV series as ‘good drama’ does not necessarily denote that the
program is morally sound. It is the function of Meta-ethics to define such vague
concepts in ethical terms. Some of the theories of Meta-Ethics are Naturalism, Non-
Naturalism, Emotivism and Prescriptivism.
2. Normative Ethics: Normative ethics deals with standards or norms by
which we can judge human actions to be right or wrong. It deals with the
criteria of what is morally right or wrong. For example, if someone murders a
person, everyone will agree that it is wrong. The question is: Why is it wrong
to murder someone? There are a lot of different answers we could give, but if
we want to specify a principle that stated why it's wrong, the answer might be:
Murder is wrong because when we kill someone, we violate their right to live.
Another perspective might be – To inflict unnecessary suffering on the person
being murdered or their family is wrong, that’s why to kill a person is wrong.
There are three elements emphasized by normative ethics:
• The person who performs the act (the agent)
• The act
• The consequences of the act
3. Applied Ethics: Applied ethics is the problem-solving branch of moral
philosophy. It uses the insights derived from Meta-ethics and the general principles
and rules of normative ethics in addressing specific ethical issues and cases in a
professional, disciplinary or practical field. Applied ethics is the vital link between
theory and practice, the real test of ethical decision-making. Applied ethics often
requires not only theoretical analysis but also practical and feasible solutions.
Some of the key areas of applied ethics are:
• Decision Ethics
• Professional Ethics
• Clinical Ethics
• Business Ethics
• Organizational Ethics
• Social Ethics
Applied ethics takes into consideration issues such as abortion, euthanasia, capital
punishment, drug decriminalization, gay marriage, etc.
In this sense, ethics talk about how to awaken our conscience. We are becoming
more aware of our duties and responsibilities towards other beings where we are at.
Nowadays, almost anywhere we go through the advance of the technology, we see
CCTV that serves as our static eyes to see of what we are doing. We called it as an
advance invention to see through what had happened when we are not around. But
ever since there is this more advance and more accurate “built in CCTV” in us, that
is our conscience. Even if the world did not see or know what we did but our
conscience always tells us that we did something to others. We may tampered or edit
the CCTV but not our conscience.
The End!!!
