#29

PAGADOR, EZEKIEL ANN MARIE L.

BSMLS 2 - E

Assessment: Virtue Ethics

Identify the lack or excess of the following mesotes.

Lack Mesotes Excess

TARDINESS Punctuality WASTEFULNESS

DISHONESTY Integrity EXAGGERATION

IRRESPONSIBILITY Commitment RECKLESSNESS

IGNORANCE Knowledge CLOSED – MINDED

ARROGANCE Humility INFERIORITY

UNKINDNESS Charity SELF – CENTERED

CHAOS Discipline EXTREME – STRICTNESS

HATE Love OBSESS

DOWN – TO – EARTH Religiousity SELF – ENLIGHTENMENT

WICKEDNESS Righteousness SELF – PERFECTION

NONCOMPLIANCE Obedience SUBSERVIENT

Reflection

What are the usual tendencies or moments that I either lack or excess of something? In what way or ways
must I overcome these weaknesses?

Whenever we seek expectations in our life, things don’t go the way we want it to be. These
were the times that we don’t eventually gain the things or situations that ease our moment. Challenges do
come in each of our times. But every step of these challenges can’t vary due to what we want the flow would
be. Since every aspects needs to be controlled to know the façade of each person were experiencing, it
doesn’t help a person to do everything ethically, hence, giving them proper practice to enhance their
capability. It creates such habitual exercise of particular actions, which gives result of continuous preference
of good character.

As part of the mechanism, every action done is chosen with equal value of goodness or worse
consequences. Everyone, including me, had done a lot of reflection to whether our actions is either the right
thing to do or not. Take for example, how a student manage to be punctual at all times. Some would
probably able to achieve that means but some would also experience failure and fall short in meeting the
standard or above and risking the excess of the mean. These were the times of rushing into something that
can’t guarantee to meet the expected time to exhibit the said situation. I won’t call myself tardy but since it
is what the situation vary, it makes me one. Some weren’t just lack of management but the things loaded in
what I’ve been doing. Oppositely, time will become wasted whenever I go forward stepping ahead on what
must be done.

We must also see the principle in a simpler way, one who lacks discipline brings chaos to the
world. It gives those unfortunate things happen in the world. Those who lacks this virtue must learn how to
adapt the said mean. Also when there is an excess of discipline, we couldn’t say that there is a lot of worse
consequences than expected. Similarly with the means of love. Too much love can’t guarantee a very much
of the expected chaos, but lack of it would do. These aren’t dependent to the actions or behaviors of a
person. It is how a person would act accordingly to the said principle.

We seem to think about our actions and behaviors on whether they are right or wrong than to
do nothing. It gives us the opportunity to think whether things should go smooth or complicated. Another
example is the means of knowledge. Once you lack it, you are ignorant about things. But being ignorant
doesn’t mean you are doing or being immoral in your actions. Being innocent is not bad at all especially in
thinking non – sense situations. We couldn’t also say that one with excess of this means is too much for the
good of an individual. Because some with too much of means would make chaos especially when someone
knows everything which aren’t good at all. Aristotle adds that these means does not totally depend on what
the person perceives as the mean because it would imply that he adheres to relativism. On top of it,
relativism is the view that truth and falsity, right and wrong, standards of reasoning, and procedures of
justification are products of differing conventions and frameworks of assessment and that their authority is
confined to the context giving rise to them.

In summary, the actions vary upon the behavior and the situation of an individual. This helps
a person distinguish their weaknesses and their strengths upon holding the challenges. I need to satisfy the
smoothness of the situation, hence, I need to adapt in every aspects of what my situation would be. By this,
it helps me see and realize whether I act ethically or immoral based on what I believe. It gives me the
justification that I can maintain the range from what trait I lack of and what trait did I fulfill more making it
an excess to what I have.

Reflection

Do you always follow the voice of reason or the voice of conscience when doing something? How did you
feel having done it? Were there resolutions in your life that you made based on the dictates of your
conscience?

I would like to begin by affirming that the End does not justify the Mean. We have all the reasons to
think, to do or to feel something. In other words, a father could steal food because the family would starve.
The end is feeding a family yet the mean of stealing is unacceptable. The voice of reason can drive you to do
such thing, yet stealing is not the only option to justify your reason. Stealing something which is not yours is
definitely against a good conscience. That is why, the legend of Robinhood who steal from the rich for the
sake of the poor does not justify a good conscience. Robinhood has the reason beyond doubt, yet it cannot
be acceptable. Otherwise, if we steal everyone, then the world will be in chaos. Everybody owns what is not
yours and vice versa.
 The dictates of conscience can spark a lot of implications when it comes to Laws of nature, Moral
Law, Natural law and Divine Law. To be hungry is a call to the Laws of nature. We have to eat, otherwise
you die. Yet we are bounded with the Moral law. We have to be in conformity with the human standard of
human law. Thus, no one is above the law. Ignorance of the law excuses no one. Henceforth, every society
has to abide the conscience according to the dictates of their faith religion which is the Natural law. When a
church law opposes death penalty because life is sacred, then, you adhere to that particular law of teaching.
However, each religion has their interpretation of Divine law. Catholic religion is monogamous when it
comes to marriage, yet others are polygamous. Of course, Divine law is the ultimate measurement of our
good conscience. When we experience catastrophe, calamity, tragedy, war, violence, etc., we are surrounded
with endless confusion and puzzlement. No one not even religion can satisfy our hunger for truth and
solution. That is why, we say, it is a Divine Will or God’s Will. We present all our worries and problems to
God and gradually can quench out thirst for acceptance amidst the pressing issues of our times. When,
where and how the Divine law would intervene remains creeping in our hearts and minds.

To have a good conscience entails a holistic character of integrating the Laws of nature, Moral Law,
Natural law and Divine law. Conniving or helping someone to become dishonest like cheating, killing,
plagiarizing, stealing, oppressing, exploiting, name them all, does not justify the character of a person. Good
conscience is interwoven with correct reasoning yet blended with right conscience. When you abort a child
for a reason, then, you have to face the consequence of a remorse guilty conscience for the rest your life.
Killing a child in the womb of a mother is against the sacredness and author of life. Anything that you
intentionally and deliberately harm or hurt somebody can extinct good conscience. Thus, the principle is still
bounding, do not do unto others what others do not want to do unto you. Good conscience is our full
expression of freedom. Of course, we have all the freedom to do good or bad or to know what is right or
wrong. Yet the principal author of good science would always linger in the deeper level of well-being.
Doing well is the exact aim of freedom. When you are dictated to do badly, then you have no freedom. You
are a robot with a remote control by someone. You go left or right, then you are not happy after all.
Happiness is being human with full good conscience of doing well.

Indeed, this ultimate happiness can only be experienced by struggling and journeying to become
human together. Let us wrestle all the time to integrate these various laws of our lives. At the end of the
tunnel in the cradle of time, light will spark to a greater height of fulfillment.

Assessment
True or False. (5 points). Determine whether or not the following statements are true or false. Write
Aye for truthful statements and Naye for your answer on the space provided before the number.

AYE 1. The perfect duty is the duty that is well accomplished.

AYE 2. To oblige someone to perform an act is what is known as categorical imperative.

NAYE 3. According to Kant’s ethics, preference is the basis of the wrongness or rightness of an act.

AYE 4. If you will that an act should be followed by all rational people, it has the characteristic of
universalizability of the act.

AYE 5. To be charitable is a perfect duty.

 Reflection
When deciding to perform an act, what were my considerations? Did I make the decision only on the basis
of my personal interests and the consequences of the act? Have I considered reflecting on my intentions or
motives for doing it?

As based in ethical theory or Kant’s ethics, performing an act is based from the root of why
the action must be done. The mere meaning action is the intention of the responsible moral agent to always
do his or her duty to do what is good. It drives the aspect of ethical value to centralize the moral motive of
the action rather than the consequences that resulted the situation. It gives the action as the subject and the
motive as the root to determine why it gives an individual to think of doing it. This is what my
considerations do belong and how I act needs to be derived by my perspective and not because I am needed
to. I always thought about how the act would be and why did I intended to act as such. Just as Timberza
stated, motive or intention also refers to the motive of doing what one ought to do which of course is the
duty to do what is good.

When someone does something out one’s pleasure for doing it or it is based on one’s
inclination to do it, it does not reflect a moral act. It is the sense obligation or duty that makes an act moral
or ethical. As part of the article, it bounds the journey of taking considerations of one’s action. Duty or the
intention to do what is good is that which one ought to do. However, these actions doesn’t only contribute to
the moral principle of ethics through intentions, also consequences is needed for judgement. The real
acquisition of moral principle is the good intention as well as the consequences of the action that has taken
place. Hence, the basis of my actions depends on both the intention as well as the consequences. My
intentions always fall upon the good contributions and neglecting the temptations that arises. I am assured
that these will result as my happiness and others as well.

Each formulation such as the formula of the law of nature, the intention to do well to another
and the act of doing it is first acted upon by the moral agent which signifies that the intention of the actions
is needed for the moral judgement; formula of the end in itself, act in such a way that you always treat
humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always as an end, never simply use the
other as a means, which argues the principle of Kant; formula of autonomy, it does not require another
evidence or proof of goodness, hence, the intentions is independent, making it another argument to Kant’s
principle; formula of the Kingdom of Ends, an act is expressive of this principle when it is motivated by
absolute recognition of the sanctity and dignity of person for whom the act is done, which develops the
foundation of wisdom that a person must dwell. This also determine the principle of the perfect and
imperfect duty. It molds the virtue of an individual to act upon the laws of ethics and these includes the
intentions of these actions.

Every time I manage these actions, I always reflect for a moment and weighed the
consequences which should be proportionate to my intentions as well. Sometimes these can’t be balanced,
so I prefer to get my intentions higher in good thoughts and accept the consequences whether I could get the
essence of happiness or just satisfaction. Sometimes we also fail to evaluate certain things. However, we risk
on nurturing the nature of its principle, and hence managing the consequences rather than the intention.
Sometimes we don’t need have the intention to do the act, but just by gaining the good consequences, we
tend to do so.
 Assessment
True or False. (5 points). Determine whether the statement is correct or false. Write your answer on the
space provided before each item.

Correct 1. Utilitarianism is a moral theory anchored on the consequence of an act.

False 2. Every act of kindness is a utilitarian act.

False 3. According to Utilitarianism, “The end justifies the means”.

Correct 4. The goodness of an act can only be determined by its result.

Correct 5. A good intention is good because consequences emanating from it is good.

Reflection
Did you always favor utilitarianism? Why or why not? Can you cite an experience? What is your ultimate
basis of a moral or ethical act, the intention, the consequence or both?

An act is a cause of certain consequences. An act determines the consequent functions or result
through judgements of its means. An act gives the key principle to the foundation of each value of an
individual. Some would let these actions at fault when negative approach were detected and some would
make it as motivation when expected outcomes were met. These were the approaches and considerations
that I often act accordingly. It gives me guidance and support to determine that my actions are appropriate or
if I need to continue it or not. This is how utilitarianism manage to elaborate and depict every aspect of
actions to an individual. By nurturing the foundation of the effect we should manage well the root of the
consequences. It may reflect to a person and may contribute to the impressions of others as well. What is
“good” or “positive” refers to the happiness an act brings to people as a result of the benefit brought about
by the act. From this statement, it mold me to do according to the virtue of ethical principle.

As a mere fact, things aren’t what I seem to be. Those actions I tend to do, and those actions
that are required to do, were similarly acted upon but the consequences were lifted. “Consequences, effects,
results are most important.” It is being emphasize on what the principle is mending to us, and I agree to it.
No actions are valuable when its result or consequences aren’t acceptable to the means of ethics, and it is
how we judge every action whether we gain happiness or just another problem from it. It is also agreed upon
by the principle of Bentham and Mill suggested an alternative formulation of the utilitarian principle
popularly known as the “principle of the greatest happiness.” Whatever actions you set, once it produces the
positive experiences, greater number of good rates will vary upon it, and vice versa.

With this, and in summary of the article or aid learnings, one doesn’t only refer their actions
through the intention or consequences, rather they need to value and evaluate the capacity of each means.
We neglect the root of evil as well as the immoral beatitudes, hence, the real deal to this imperatives, is the
actions and cause of it in making good things out of our decisions.