Understanding Ethics: Definitions, Scope, and Importance
1. Some Definitions of Ethics and Scope
A practical treatise regarding human actions and moral life aims not only to know them but mainly to direct them.
Studying the free behavior of individuals addresses universal problems.
Science provides criteria to order the free acts of man, guiding each person toward their ultimate goal: happiness.
Ethics calls for the election of decent behavior, the effort to do good, and the science and art to achieve it.
Scope
Wherever a person moves, their good or bad actions shape them and can lead to change.
2. The Need for Ethics
Ethics seeks to establish, through reason, the rules governing human behavior to resolve the problems that affect our lives, providing real solutions.
3. Material Object of Ethics
The purpose of ethics is human acts—those that are voluntary, reasoned, and free.
4. Formal Object of Ethics
This is the standpoint from which we view the morality of human acts (beyond the natural qualities of intelligence) as desirable or not.
It is the perspective from which we study the material subject. Good and evil affect the whole person, making individuals better or worse.
5. Concept and Characteristics of Voluntary Action
A voluntary action is one that comes from an intrinsic principle and has formal knowledge of its end.
Features:
- Intrinsic Principle: The internal appetite of the person, the most intimate aspect of the individual.
- Contrary to Coact Action: External actions that oppose the will.
- Formal Knowledge: Clear awareness of what is desired.
- End: What we aim to achieve when feelings or needs arise.
- Intentional: Aware of what will happen, active, and guided by reason.
6. Types of Human Events
Elicit Acts: Those that come directly from the will, such as love and hate, are internal.
Acts of Requirement: Power exercised by a different will, pursuing other faculties. These are external because they can be observed and use the senses.
Perfectly Voluntary: Involves warning (awareness of what one does and its consequences) and consent (the will’s act of saying yes or no).
Imperfectly Voluntary: Lacks the previous two (warning or consent), for example, acting hastily.
Involuntary Action: Ignorance about something one should know; it is voluntary, but one was unaware.
Non-Voluntary Action: Doubts cause these actions; when in doubt, one should abstain and resolve the uncertainties.
7. Will Direct Object
The direct object of the will is good and the end.
The good is what the subject finds desirable; it can be genuinely good or merely apparent.
The end is what is seen as good and desirable in itself.
There are two types of objectives: honest (which objectively has value) and delightful (all that is presented as pleasurable).
8. Last End
We understand the ultimate goal as what one desires in absolute terms, regarding other things one wants. To reach it, one must navigate multiple purposes to achieve ultimate, supreme happiness and fulfillment.
9. Indirect Object of the Will
Also called indirect voluntary action.
It is the result of direct action that does not matter at all; it is neither an end nor a means, but it is inevitably attached to it.
For an indirect object, it cannot be the cause of what we truly want.
Example: I pull a tooth, but it is not for the tooth’s sake but to improve oral health.
10. Different Levels of Voluntary Action
- First Apprehension of an End: The satisfaction of desire: love.
- Effective Basic Intention: Wanting an end distant from us, but not immediately achievable through finished actions.
- Decision or Choice: Elicits an act of will intended to be immediately operable in view of the intended end.
- The Means: Concrete actions identified and implemented to achieve an end (having instrumental value).
11. Exemplary Influence
This is the influence acquired or planned for my actions in the will of others (popular characters) and can be positive or negative. Positive influence leads to good actions, while negative influence can lead to scandal.
12. Different Concepts of Freedom
- Stoicism: Not feeling constrained by the cosmic order; accepting the inevitability of fate. Freedom is accepting the predetermined destination in the universe.
- Sufism: Introduces the idea of responsibility in concepts of disease, violence, and passion, affecting freedom.
- Responsibility is linked to freedom.
- Socrates and Plato: Freedom is a virtue rooted in science and knowledge, which are conditions of freedom.
- Aristotelian Philosophy: Refers to freedom as a condition of the voluntary act, representing a radical change; freedom is an inner change.
- Christian Thought: Speaks of grace; freedom from domestic slavery is a characteristic of rational beings.
- Modern Thought: Considers freedom a property of the will, the power to act as one wishes.
- Current Concept: Freedom is the ability of the will to move itself toward reason rather than being presented.
13. Dimensions of Freedom
It has two dimensions:
Self-Determination: The most important aspect; I decide what to do on my own, representing the science of free action.
Intention: What I aim to achieve on a personal level; the intention directs the object.
14. Passion and Affection
This refers to the affection related to all acts of the appetitive powers of human sensibility (passions, emotions, feelings, etc.). It is the idealization we produce regarding something, representing affection in its most restrictive form.
Passions: Acts, trends, or movements of sensitive or appetitive nature arise from previous knowledge captured by the senses, which becomes an asset.
15. Affectivity’s Influence on Freedom
Affection is not a condition of freedom but plays a role. Freedom is always guided by reason, knowledge, and will; otherwise, it is not.
Passion can distract a person’s imagination and thought regarding certain objects, conditioning practical reason.
Reason must temper passion. The domain of passions is what is called virtues.
Warning and Consent
Warning:
It is the influence of knowledge regarding the human act, involving intelligence to understand what one is about to do and its consequences. It can be:
- Current: at the same time the action is performed.
- Virtual: prior to the completion of the act.
- Full: perfect knowledge of what is done and its morality; the event is a perfect human (voluntary) act.
- Prima Facie: Imperfect knowledge.
Consent:
It is the acceptance or rejection of the order, conscious action, activity, and guided by reason. It can be:
- Direct Volunteer: wanting the same action.
- Voluntary Indirect: anticipating possible secondary effects directly linked to what is intended.
- Coact: originating from outside and contrary to the will.
- Internal: arising from a spiritual power and freedom.
- External: can be free or coact.
1. Charged:
It is the state of man as a subject of action under which such action can be attributed to him as its author.
When the powers are merit or moral guilt, it is ethical or moral accountability, which pertains to free human acts.
3.1 The Moral Purpose: Proportionalism and Consequentialism
The moral order is a behavior that follows a free choice: to deliberate, so the pursued action is something objective that tells us what the act is.
This moral order depends primarily on the conformity of the object or the act of willing the good of the person, as judged by the line of reason. Only if the act is good for its purpose can it be directed toward the ultimate end.
There are acts that are inherently bad due to their subject, as they are always wrong in themselves, regardless of the intentions of the perpetrator and the circumstances.
However, we find two errors:
- Proportionality: The moral object of the action is determined by the balance between good and evil to be achieved.
- Consequentialism: The moral object of the action is determined by the consequences that may result.
3.2 The Intention of Human Events
It is a movement of the will toward the end. The intent is subjective, representing what the subject wants to achieve through action.
It tells us the “why” and points to the good.
However, a bad intention renders an act evil in itself, even if it was good. For example, stealing from the rich to give to an orphanage.
3.3 Circumstances: Some Examples
The circumstances are accidents that change the moral order. They can be seen as the children of the moral act.
These circumstances may increase or decrease the goodness or badness of an act, potentially making an act evil that would not be without them, but they can never make good an intrinsically evil action. They can also diminish or increase the responsibility of performing the action.
Some examples of circumstances include:
- The lack of warning.
- Ignorance.
- Moral habits.
- Coercion or violence.
- Mental illness.
- The passions.
4. The Three Principles of the Elements of Morality
The elements or sources of morality act in unity according to three principles:
- The moral purpose: it gives the action its intrinsic morality and essence.
- The line of intent: it is necessary for a good action by object.
- The circumstances, which may increase or decrease the goodness or evil.
Item 3.2
5.1 Problems Raised by Passions and the Task of the Person
The main problem of the passions is that a person who is unable to dominate them has something of themselves beyond their control, and their free decision is not fully possessed or can decide freely on themselves or on others.
The task of the person is to not extinguish, moderate, or direct them to act appropriately.
5.2 Ethical Assessment of the Passions
Stoics and Kant believed that passions are incompatible with proper ethical and moral purity.
Aristotle and Aquinas believed that actions are tempered by the passions characteristic of the virtuous act.
However, human passions are neither good nor bad in themselves; they depend on the object (action) and how one acts or does not conform to the line of reason.
Charged:
It is attributable if it is consistent with the will. On the other hand, it is not considered responsible and disclaims dims if antecedent to the will.
5.3 The Control of the Passions
The passions of man are governed by the rule of reason and the will, which influence each other.
The virtuous person does not act out of passion but maintains a proper balance between passion and reason, meaning they do good with the appropriate passion.
A person who is unable to control their passions has something of themselves beyond their domain, and their free decision is not fully possessed or can decide freely on themselves or on others.