Ethics Midterms Module 1

Culture, Moral Behavior

What is Culture?
 from the word “cultus,” which means to cultivate
 the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group
 the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterize an institution or organization
 It is the characteristics and knowledge of a particular group of people, encompassing language, religion,
cuisine, social habits, music, and arts.
Classification of Culture
Material Culture
 refers to the physical objects or artifacts that humans created by altering the natural environment.
 These are concrete and tangible things that man creates and uses.
 Examples are dwelling units, tools, weapons, clothing, stone tools, houses, medicines, cooking utensils,
and other tools and machines.
Non-material culture
 consists of words people use, the habits they follow, the ideas, customs, and behavior of any society
profess and to which they strive to conform.
 Laws, techniques, lifestyle, and knowledge are included too.
 This covers all those creations of man that are used to explain, guide his actions, and give meaning to
man's behavior.
Kinds of Non-Material Culture
 Norms – refers to the standards, guides, or prescriptions about how one should act or behave in society.
These tell us what appropriate or inappropriate behavior is in a given situation.
Three Types of Norms:
1. Folkways
 These are people's customary, repetitive, and habitual behavior patterns.
 considered as the traditional and old ways but are not strictly enforced (e.g., eating three times a day,
good manners, kissing the hands of parents, taking a bath every day, etc.).
2. Mores
 refers to the vital ideas of right and wrong, which require specific actions and forbid others and has a
more substantial moral component than folkways. They are compulsive and strictly enforced and are
usually accompanied by lighter sanctions.
 An example is having only one wife, Christian.
3. Laws
 Refers to the written and formalized social norms enacted by the people vested with political power
and enforced through the machinery of the state by a person or organization whose role or function is so
defined.
Language
 refers to a system of symbols that have specific and arbitrary meanings in a given society. The symbolic
communication or language that sets human beings apart from other species. With language, we can go beyond
transmitting simple feelings and emotions in the here and how. Through language, we can transmit our learning
to others.
Characteristics of Culture
1. Culture is learned –
 culture is not instinctive or innate; it is not part of the biological virtue of his group membership.
 As a social being, every individual is born into a cultural group that imposes the same on each individual
member.
2. Culture is transmitted from one generation to the next
 Man is an heir to a social tradition
 represents our social legacy as contrasted with our organic heredity
 no one is born with or equipped with something that guides him to develop culture; culture is developed
through time and spaces by the chain of generations out of their experiences of trial and error.
3. Culture is socially shared
 People in organized groups share culture and are kept relatively uniform by social pressure.
4. Culture represents the ideal form of behavior
 the group habits that comprise the culture are viewed as ideal patterns of behavior. The members of the
group are expected to conform to them; they are group expectations.
5. Culture is gratifying
 Culture satisfies human needs, both biological and moral.
 The fulfillment of biological needs is provided by culture with a recognized pattern.
 We do need to discover ways to make ourselves warm, to satisfy our hunger and thirst to fulfill our
sexual desires, and to get some rest. Our culture provides us with the pattern that controls these basic
functions from infancy onward.
6. Culture is adaptive
 the culture of any society represents an adaptation or adjustment in the various conditions of life,
including physical, social, and supernatural environmental change that may occur due to discoveries,
invention, and cultural borrowing. This acceptance of change depends on the exposure of its members to
new ideas and ways through diffusion.
7. Culture is integrative
 the parts of a given culture tend to form a consistent, integrated whole.
 In the words of William Graham Summer, the parts are subject to strain of consistency with each other.
However, perfect integration is never achieved because historical events constantly exert a disturbing
influence.
Now, knowing people's traits is sufficient. Two cultures could have identical inventories of extremely
different characteristics.
THE MORAL AGENT: DEVELOPING VIRTUE AS A HABIT
Moral Character refers to the existence or lack of virtues such as integrity, courage, fortitude, honesty, and
loyalty. To say that a particular person has character means that he/she is a good person and a good citizen with
a sound moral compass.
1.​ MORAL CHARACTER AND VIRTUES The term “Character” is derived from the Greek word
'charakter' which was initially used as a mark impressed upon a coin. The word “character” later came to
 mean a distinct mark by which one thing was distinguished from another and then chiefly to mean the
assemblage of qualities that distinguish one person from another. This stress on distinctiveness or
individuality tends to merge “character” with “personality” in modern usage. For instance, when
thinking of person's distinctive mannerisms, social gesture, or habits of dress, we might say that “he has
personality or that “he's quite a character.”
However, the use of ethics of the word “character” has a different linguistic history. The Greek
Philosopher Aristotle tells us that there are two distinct human excellences: (1) excellences of thought
and (2) character. His phrase for excellence of (moral) character, 'ethical area,' is often translated as
“moral virtue(s) and moral excellence(s).” The Greek 'ethikos' (ethical) is the adjective cognate with
'ethos' (character). So when we speak of a 'virtue' or excellence of moral character, the highlighting is
not on mere distinctiveness or individuality, but on the blend of qualities that make a person the ethically
admirable individual he/she is “Moral character,” therefore, in philosophical sense, refers to having or
lacking moral virtue. If one lacks virtue, he/she may have any of the moral vices or he/she may be
marked by a condition somewhere in between virtue and vice, such continence or incontinence
Moreover, philosophers usually think that moral character traits, unlike other personality or
psychological traits, have an irreducible evaluative dimension; they involve a normative judgement. The
agent is morally responsible for having the moral character trait itself or for the outcome of that trait.
Hence, a certain character trait is a trait for which the agent is morally responsible.
2. THE CIRCULAR RELATION OF ACTS AND CHARACTER
In the process of moral development, there is the circular relation between acts that build character and moral
character itself. Not all acts help to build moral character, but those acts which emanate from moral characters
certainly matter in moral development. Hence, there appears the apparent circular relationship between
individual acts and moral character. A person's actions determine his/her moral character, but moral character
itself generates acts that help in developing either virtue or vice.
• This goes to show that moral development should also be understood in the sense of human flourishing. This
flourishing is attained by habitual practice of moral and intellectual excellences, or 'virtue.' In the context of
developing morally which also brings about self-realization and happiness, acting in line with virtue is acting in
accordance with reason. Indeed, philosophers like Aristotle hold that the function of human being consists of
activities which manifest the best states of his rational aspect, that is, the virtues.
Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development
Level 1(Pre-Conventional)
Stage #1: Obedience and Punishment Orientation (age 2 – 5)
Morality is based upon the physical punishment that follows an action, rather than right or wrong.
The concern is for self - "Will I get into trouble for doing (or not doing) it?" Good behavior is
associated with avoiding punishment. Ex. : The child won’t grab the candy at the supermarket for
fear of being spanked.
Stage #2: Relativist Orientation (age 5 – 7)
The concern is, "What's in it for me?" Action is judged right if it helps satisfy one's needs or
involves a fair exchange. For example, a mother tells her child, “If you are quiet at the mall, I will
buy you an ice cream.”
Level 2 (Conventional)
Stage #3: Good Boy/Nice Girl Orientation (age 7 – 12)
People should live up to the expectations of the family and community and behave in "good" ways.
Good behavior means having good motives and interpersonal feelings such as love, empathy, trust, and
concern for others. EX: Volunteering at a nursing home is the right thing to do.

Stage #4: Law and Order Orientation (age 12 – 15)

 While stage three actions are more concerned with pleasing your family, stage four is associated
with following society. Emphasis is placed on obeying laws to maintain social order. For example,
if you drink and drive, you endanger the lives of others on the road, not just yourself.
Level 3 (Post-Conventional) (15 – onwards)
Stage #5: Social Contract Orientation
At stage 5, people ask, "What makes for a good society?" They begin to think about society and
consider the rights and values a society should uphold. EX: The world needs to stop the killing in
Darfur because we are morally obligated to prevent genocide.
Stage #6: Universal Ethical Principle Orientation (adulthood)
As human beings we are obliged to live by the principle that “all men are created equal” regardless
of race, religion, sexual orientation, or political belief. Justice is universal, so unjust laws must be
broken. EX: Rosa Parks refused to sit in the back of the bus because it was an unjust law
discriminating against African Americans.
• VALUES or good moral values once they are habitually practiced, they turned into virtues.
• VALUE comes from the Latin word ‘VALERE’ which means ‘to be of worth.’
• VALUE means primarily, to price, to esteem, to appraise, to estimate.
• It is an act of cherishing something holding it clear and also the act of passing judgment upon the nature and
amount of its value as compared with something else.
• HUMAN VALUES are the virtues that guide us to take into account human element when one interacts with
one other human being. They are our feelings for the human essence of others. It’s both what we expect others
to do to us and what we aim to give to other human beings. These human values give the effect of bonding,
comforting and reassuring.
MORAL VALUES
a. Acceptance: having an objective attitude toward others’ ideas and practices that differ from your own.
b. Compassion: understanding the suffering of others or self and wanting to do something about it.
c. Courage: willingness to do difficult things.
d. Equality: believing everyone deserves equal rights and to be treated with respect.
e. Fairness: acting in a just way, sharing appropriately.
f. Generosity: willingness to give resources, help or time to others.
g. Honesty: being truthful and sincere.
h. Integrity: sticking to your moral and ethical principles and values.
i. Kindness: being considerate and treating others well.
j. Perseverance: persisting in a course of action, belief or purpose.
k. Politeness: using good manners, acting in socially acceptable way.
l. Respect: showing consideration for the worth of someone or something.
m. Responsibility: being reliable in your obligations.
n. Self-control: staying in control of your words and behavior.

CARDINAL VIRTUES
a. Prudence is the virtue of knowing what to do under peculiar circumstances
b. which enables one to see the best means to approach a given situation.
c. Justice is a virtue of giving anyone his/her due under no condition.
d. Temperance is the virtue of curbing or managing sensitive appetites.
e. Fortitude is the virtue of keeping resolute in the face of overwhelming odds.
THEOLOGICAL VIRTUES
a. Faith is believing in God’s word without seeing.
b. Hope is the virtue of keeping trust in Divine Providence.
c. Charity is the virtue of loving God and His creatures.