LECTURE 9: FREEDOM AND CHOICES: DUTY AND

THE CONSEQUENCES OF OUR CHOICES

VIS--VIS APPLICATION OF MORAL REASONING IN
MORAL SITUATIONS

By: Kim Jayson G. Villezca

City College of San Fernando, CSFP
September 21, 2016

O Hindi mabigkas na misteryo, at pinagmumulan ng

lahat ng pagmemeron, pakinggan ang bawat
sasambitin;
Palayain nawa kami ng liwanag ng katotohanan sa
mapangakit na kahungkagan;
Turuan mo kami sa oras na to, at sa habang buhay na
bigkasin Ka, na Bigkasin ang MERON.

ANALYSIS OF MORAL
REASONING
The process of examining moral arguments.
ARGUMENTS- is defined as the search for a
statement or a set of statements that can be
made to yield a new statement, which is its
conclusion.

 Moral arguments contain the analysis of what is

considered right or wrong; good or evil.
By analyzing our moral arguments, the strengths of their
premises can question the claim or assumption of a
certain moral theory.

ETHICS IS THE BRANCH OF PHILOSOPHY

THAT DEALS WITH THE RIGHTNESS OR
WRONGNESS OF AN ACTION.

DEONTOLOGY
Deontological ethics or deontological reasoning is an ethic based
on duty. It came from the Greek word dein, meaning duty.
Deontological ethics recognizes that there are moral principles that
we follow which we consider as universally correct and should be
applicable to all of humanity.

CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE
This fundamental moral principle is known as the
categorical imperative or the law of the morality. This
is something that we are unconditionally obliged to do,
without regard to the consequences. Moreover, this could
be described as doing something from duty or for dutys
sake alone, without regards to feelings, emotions or
inclinations. When you do something that is correct, you
do this without conditions attached or without counting
the effects or beneficial consequences of doing an action.

IMMANUEL KANT
He was a German philosopher from Konigsberg, who made an
exhaustive elaboration of deontological ethics in his article
entitled, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785).
The Human Mind is gifted with 2 faculties:
a. Pure Reason a priori (prior to experience)
b. Pure Intuition of Space and Time a posteriori (from
experience)

PRACTICAL REASON
The merging or working together between these
two faculties, will pave the way for the emergence
of practical reason. It is practical reason that
makes it possible for us to have knowledge of
phenomena. This includes knowledge of the
objective foundation of morality, the categorical
imperative.

A BRIEF INTRODUCTION ON
KANTS EPISTEMOLOGY
A.Phenomena ERSCHEINUNG - that which
appears.
B.Noumena DAS DING AN SICH the thingin-itself.

GOODWILL AND FREEDOM

Practical reason is responsible for our capacity to
recognize what is good through the will, which he called
the Goodwill, which he claimed as the only thing good
in-itself, without qualification.
Once this will is fully functioning, according to Kant, this is
the point where freedom is truly exercised because this
is also when out reason is working to tell us what we
ought to do.

UNIVERSALIZABILITY PRINCIPLE
universalizability principle: Act only on that
maxim, through which you can at the same time
will that it should become a universal law.
asking the question: Can everyone do the same
thing? Or Can this decision be applied to every
human being?

DEONTOLOGY

We could now recognize that there

are things that we have to do, even
if we do not want to do them.

DEONTOLOGY
Kant says that the objective form of the action, whether it is right
or wrong could only be determined and examined objectively once
you remove all emotions and inclinations attached to your
willingness to do the act. In other words, when you are doing
something that you do not want to do, and still you do it, there
must be an objective basis that you could recognize. This must be
the law of morality, which is the reason for doing it. This makes it
universal. One other example would be the act of making a
promise and not keeping it. When you make a promise, is it
universalizable not to keep your promise? If everyone else would do
the same thing, what do you think would happen? We might as well
not make any promises because no one will ever believe in the act

TELEOLOGY
Teleology came from the root word telos, meaning end,
goal or purpose. Thus, a teleological believes that the
end, goal or purpose of an action must be based on its
consequences.
The most common, though extreme form of
consequentialism is the use of the dictum, the end
justifies the means.

TELEOLOGICAL ETHICS
As against deontological ethics which looks at the nature
or intrinsic value of the act itself, teleological or
consequentialist ethics aims to examine the instrumental
value of the act for the attainment of the desired
consequences or purpose. According to Dupre, In
choosing between various available courses of action,
consequentialism will merely weigh up the good and bad
consequences in each case and make their decisions on
that basis. There would come a point where you would
have to choose the least evil or bad option to bring about
the greatest good.

 A deontologist would say for example, that the act

of lying is wrong because of its nature, which is
not universalizable.
A teleologist, on the other hand, would examine
the actual consequences of the act of lying, which
could, at times, become good or right, if the act is
proven to bring about good consequences like
saving a life.

UTILITARIAN ETHICS
The most popular form of teleological reasoning is
based on utilitarian ethics.
Utilitarianism is construed as the maximization of
pleasure and the avoidance of pain in order to
promote happiness. Happiness, becomes the
summum bonum or the ultimate goal for
utilitarian morality.

THIS IS THE PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY OR THE

GREATEST HAPPINESS PRINCIPLE.

Actions are right in proportion as they

tend to promote happiness; wrong as
they tend to produce the reverse of
happiness. By happiness is intended
pleasure and absence of pain.
-John Stuart Mill

JOHN STUART MILL

An English philosopher and a child genius named John
Stuart Mill made a very profound contribution to the
development of teleological ethics through his major
article entitled Utilitarianism (1861) where he made an
important distinction from prevailing versions of utilitarian
thought during that period. The original version of
utilitarianism before Mill came into the picture was from
Jeremy Benthams assumption that pleasure is
quantifiable. That is, what is good in any situation can
be demonstrated and quantified in terms of the amount
of pleasure than it could bring about.

BENTHAMS HEDONIC
CALCULUS

intensity (the more intense it is, the better),

duration (the longer it lasts, the better),
certainty (how certain its occurrence will be),
propinquity (how near at hand it is),
fecundity (how likely it will be followed by other
pleasures),
purity (how likely it will not be followed by pain),
and extent (the number of people affected by it).

MILL VERSUS BENTHAM

Mill made a different distinction and refused to agree with
Benthams calculus. Mill proposed that there must be a
difference not just in its quantity but, what is more important
to consider, is the quality of pleasure. He, therefore,
distinguished between two kinds of pleasure, intellectual or
mental pleasure and bodily or physiological pleasure. He
pronounced that intellectual or mental pleasures must be
superior that bodily pleasures. Thus, he claims, It is better
to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better
to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

Tara nat
MAMILOSOPIYA!