MODULE 1: The Teaching Profession

LESSON 1: Teaching

Objectives:

● Identify the different factors that shape an individual in her moral

decision making;

● Internalize the necessary steps toward making informed moral

decisions; and

● Apply ethical theories or frameworks on moral issues involving the

self, society and the non-human environment.

Introduction

We have been introduced to four major ethical theories or frameworks: utilitarianism,

natural law ethics, Kantian deontology, and virtue ethics. None of them is definitive nor final.
What then is the use of studying them? Each represents the best attempts of the best thinkers
in history to give fully thought-out answers to the questions ``What ought I to do?" and "Why
ought I to do so?" This quest has not reached its final conclusion; instead, it seems that the
human condition of finitude will demand that we continue to grapple with these questions.

The previous chapters clarified several notions:

1. Questions of " what is the right thing to do and why " are questions that all human
beings - regardless of race, age, socio-economic class, gender, culture, educational
attainment, religion, or political association - will have to ask at one point or another
in their lives
2. Neither the laws nor rules of one's immediate community can sufficiently answer
these questions, especially when different duties, cultures, or religions meet and
conflict.
3. Reason has a role to play in addressing these questions, if not in resolving them. It is
the power that identifies the situations in which rules and principles sometimes
conflict with one another. Reason, hopefully, will allow one to finally make the best
decision possible in a given situation of moral choice.

LESSON 1: Teaching as a Profession, Teaching as a Vocation, and Mission

The human individual is tasked to think about what is “right” and why it is so, and to
choose to do so. Who is this individual who must engage herself in ethical thought and
decision-making? Who one is, in the most vital sense, is another major topic in the act of
theorizing. In response to this age-old philosophical challenge, the Filipino philosopher
Ramon C. Reyes (1935-2014), writing in his essay “Man and Historical Action”, briefly
explained that “who one is” is a cross-point. He means that one’s identity, who one, is a
product of many forces and events that happened outside of one’s choice. Reyes identifies
four cross-points:

1. PHYSICAL - “who one is” is a function of physical events in the past and material
factors in the present that one did not have a choice in.

You did not choose to be a human being, nor to have this particular set of
biological parents, nor to be born in and/or grow up in such a physical environment
(e.g., for Filipinos to be born in an archipelago with a tropical climate situated near
the equator along the Pacific Ring of Fire).

2. INTERPERSONAL - an individual is the product of an interpersonal cross-point of

many events and factors outside of one’s choosing.

One did not choose her own parents, and yet her personality, character traits,
and her overall way of doing things and thinking about things have all been shaped by
the character of her parents and how they brought her up. All of these are also
affected by the people surrounding her: siblings, relatives, classmates, playmates, and
eventually workmates. Thus, who one is - in the sense of one’s character or
personality - has been shaped by one’s relationships that affect how one thinks and
feels.

3. SOCIETAL - “who one is” is shaped by one’s society.

The term “society” refers to all the elements of the human groups that one is a
member of. Culture in its varied aspects is included here. Reyes argues that “who one
is” is shaped by the kind of society and culture that one belongs to. Filipinos have
their own way of doing things, their own system of beliefs and values, and even their
own notions of right and wrong.

4. HISTORICAL - the events that one’s people have undergone shaped “who one is”
right now.

CULTURE AND ETHICS

Many people hold that one’s culture dictates what is right or wrong for an individual.
For such people, the saying “when in Rome, do as the Romans do” by St. Ambrose applies to
deciding on moral issues. This quote implies that one’s culture is inescapable, that is, one has
to look into the standards of her society to resolve her ethical questions with finality. How
she relates to herself, her close relations, her own society, with other societies, and with the

natural world.

Generalizations concerning supposed Filipino traits sometimes end up as empty

stereotypes, especially since one may be hard put to think if any other culture does not exhibit
such traits. For instance, in the case of what many assume is a trait that Filipinos possess,
namely hospitality, can we say that Chinese are not hospitable? Most probably, they are
hospitable too, but they may exhibit such hospitality in radically different ways. Thus, to
simply say that there is a “Filipino way” of doing things, including a “Filipino way” of
thinking about what the right to do and why, remains a matter for discussion. Is there really a
Filipino morality that may be distinct from a Chinese morality? We hear claims from time to
time that “Americans are individualistic; Filipinos are communal,” a supposed difference that
grounds, for some people, radically different sets of moral values.

James Rachels (1941-2003), American philosophers, argued against the validity of cultural
relativism in the realm of ethics. Rachels defines cultural relativism as the position that
claims that there is no such thing as objective truth in the realm of morality: since different
cultures have different moral codes, then there is no one correct moral code that all cultures
must follow. The implication is that each culture has its own standard of right or wrong, its
validity confined within the culture in question. However, Rachels questions the logic of this
argument: first, that cultural relativism confuses a statement of fact (that different cultures
have different moral codes), which is merely descriptive, with a normative statement (that
there cannot be objective truth in morality). Rachels provides a counter-argument by analogy:
Just because some believed that the Earth was flat, while some believe it is
spherical, it does not mean that there is no objective truth to the actual
shape of the Earth.

Rachels also employs a reductio ad absurdum argument. It is an

argument which first assumes that the claim in question is correct, in order
to show the absurdity that will ensure if the claim is accepted as such.

He postulates three absurd consequences of accepting the claim of cultural relativism.

a. If cultural relativism was correct, then one cannot criticize the practices or beliefs of
another culture anymore as long as the culture thinks that what it is doing is correct.
But if that is the case, then the Jews, for example, cannot criticize the Nazis ’plan to
exterminate all Jews in World War II, since obviously the Nazis believed that they
were doing the right thing
b. If cultural relativism was correct, then one cannot even criticize the practices or
beliefs of one’s own culture. If that is the case, the black South African citizens under
the system of apartheid, a policy of racial segregation that privileges the dominant
race in a society, could not criticize that official state position.
c. If cultural relativism was correct, then one cannot even accept that moral progress can
happen. If that is the case, then the fact that many societies now recognize women’s
rights and children’s rights does not necessarily represent a better situation than
before when societies refused to recognize that women and children even had rights.

Rachels argues that a hypothetical culture that promote murder would cease to exist
because the members would start murdering each other. Rachels ends his article on cultural
relativism by noting that someone can recognize and respect cultural differences and still
maintain the right to criticize beliefs and practices that she thinks are wrong, if she performs
proper rational deliberation.

Ethics, therefore, should neither be reduced to one’s own cultural standards, nor
should it simplistically dismiss one’s unique cultural beliefs and practices. The latter can
possibly enlighten her toward what is truly ethical. What is important is that one does not
wander into ethical situations blindly, with the naïve assumption that ethical issues will be
resolved automatically by her beliefs and traditions. Instead, she should challenge herself to
continuously work toward a fuller maturity in ethical decision-making.

Moral development is a prerequisite if the individual is to encounter ethical situations

with a clear mind and with her values properly placed with respect to each other. We shall
discuss moral development further but let us now focus on the relationship between one’s
religion and the challenge of ethical decision-making.

RELIGION AND ETHICS

Many “religious” people assume that it is the teachings of their own religion that
define what is truly “right” or “wrong”, “good” or “bad”. The question of the proper
relationship between religion and ethics, therefore, is one that demands philosophical
exploration.

Different religions in the world.

● Christianity
● Islam
● Hinduism
● Buddhism

The Philippines is predominantly Roman Catholic, yet many other religions continue
to flourish in the archipelago. Beyond all the differences, however, religion in essence
represents a group’s ultimate, most fundamental concerns regarding their existence. For
followers of a particular religion, the ultimate meaning of their existence, as well as the
existence of the whole of reality, is found in the beliefs of that religion. Therefore, the
question of morality for many religious followers is reduced to following the teachings of
their own religion.

Many religious followers assume that what their religion teaches can be found either
in their sacred scripture (e.g., the Bible fo Christians, the Qur’an for Muslims, etc.) or body of
writings (e.g., the Vedas, including the Upanishads, and other texts for Hindus; the Tao Te
Ching, Chuang-tzu, and other Taoist classics for Taoists) or in other forms (other than written
texts) or preaching that their leaders promulgated and become a part of their traditions.

LESSON 2: Moral Deliberation

Introduction

There is a big difference between a young child’s reasoning on the right thing to do
and the manner a morally mature individual arrives at an ethical decision. This necessary
growth, which is a maturation in moral reasoning, has been the focus of study of many
theorists.

Lawrence Kohlberg (1927- 1987), American moral psychologist theorized that moral
development happens in six stages, which he divided into three levels.

1. Pre-conventional - it corresponds to how infants and young children think.

Reasoning is centered on the consequences of one’s actions, and is divided into
stages.
a. The first stage of reasoning centers around obedience and the avoidance of
punishment: to a young child’s mind, an action is “good” if it enables one to
escape from punishment; “bad” if it leads to punishment.
b. The second stage of reasoning and learning to act according to what she thinks
will serve her self-interest: thus, what is “good” at this stage is what the child
thinks can bring her pleasure.
2. Conventional - this is the stage in which older children, adolescents, and young
adults learn to conform to the expectations of society. This is the time when one
learns to follow conventions of her group. This is the time when one learns to follow
conventions of her group.
a. One begins to act according to what the larger group she belongs to expects of
her. The general tendency at this age is to conform first to the values of one’s
immediate group, such as her family, playmates, or later on, barkada.
b. Conform first to the values of one’s immediate group, such as her family,
playmates, or later on, barkada. The individual at this stage values most of the
laws, rules, and regulations of her society, and thus her moral reasoning is
shaped by dutifulness to the external standards set by society.
3. Post-conventional - The third and the highest level of moral development in which
the morally responsible agent recognizes that what is good or right is not reducible to
following the rules of one’s group.
a. An agent who acts on what she has understood, using her full rationality, to be
what is right, regardless of whether the act will bring the agent pleasure or
pain and even regardless of whether the act is in accordance with one’s
community’s laws or not.
4. Rational principles - An agent has attained full moral development if she acts
according to her well thought-out.
5. Social contract - Agreements that rational agents have arrived at whether explicitly
or implicitly in order to serve what can be considered the common good are what one
ought to honor and follow.
a. This notion of common good is post-conventional in the sense that the moral
agent binds herself to what this theoretical community of rational agents has
identified as morally desirable, whether the agent herself will benefit from
doing so or not.
b. This notion of the common good is not reducible to pre-existing communal
rules, traditions, or laws since even these must be weighed using rational
discourse.

The sixth and highest stage of moral development exists even beyond the fifth stage
of the social contract is choosing to perform actions based on universal ethical principles that
one has determined by herself. One realizes that all the conventions (laws, rules, and
regulations) of society are only correct if they are based on these universal ethical principles,
they must be followed only if they reflect universal ethical principles.

FEELINGS IN MORAL DELIBERATION

Emotions or feelings have long been derided by purely rationalistic perspectives as

having no place in a properly executed moral decision. This prejudice, however, needs to be
re-examined thoroughly. Although some emotions or feelings can derail one from a clear-
minded decision in an ethical situation, it is also not possible that human choice can be
purged of all feelings; the moral agent, after all, is neither robot nor computer. A more
realistic attitude toward decision-making is to appreciate the indispensable role emotions
have on an agent’s act of choosing. Aristotle precisely points out that moral virtue goes
beyond the mere act of intellectually identifying the right thing to do. Instead, it is the
condition of one’s character by which the agent is able to manage her emotions or feelings.
Aristotle accepts that feelings cannot be set aside in favor of some illusory, purely
intellectual acceptance of the good. Instead, he sees moral virtue as a matter of habit to worry
about managing one’s feelings in the right manner.

The responsible moral agent then as a supposedly “dispassionate” moral decision-

maker is an unrealistic ideal. The passions or feelings do not necessarily detract from making
an informed moral decision. One can even argue that making a moral decision, because it is
all about what she values, cannot but involve her most serious feelings.

The mature moral agent realizes that she is both a product of many forces, elements,
and events, all of which shape or situation and options for a decision. She also realizes that
she is not merely a puppet of external causes. Instead, a meaningful moral decision is one that
she makes in full cognizant of where she’s coming from and of where she ought to go. At this
point, we are ready to identify the steps in making informed moral decisions.

MORAL PROBLEMS

A morally mature individual does when she is confronted with a moral problem? In
order to answer this question, we must first understand that there are different types of moral
problems, each one requiring a particular set of rational deliberations.

Moral judgment on a particular case, but one that does not necessarily involve
ourselves. We may just be reading about a case that involves other people but we are not part
of the case.

Being a moral agent specifically refers to the latter situation. We must therefore
identify which activity we are engaged in, whether we are making a judgment on a case that
we are not involved in or if we truly need to make a decision in a situation that demands that
we act.

Several types of ethical problems or issues:

1. A situation in which we need to clarify whether a certain action is morally right or

morally wrong. This is where the different ethical theories or frameworks can serve.
2. Involves determining whether a particular action in question can be identified with a
generally accepted ethical or unethical action.
3. Points to the presence of an ethical dilemma. Dilemmas are ethical situations in which
there are competing values that seem to have equal worth. The problem can be
concerned either with a choice between two competing moral goods or between two
evils.

THE VALUE OF STUDYING ETHICAL THEORIES OR FRAMEWORKS

These ethical theories or frameworks may serve as guideposts, given that they are the
best attempts to understand morality that the history of human thought has to offer.
Utilitarianism pays tribute to the value of impartiality, arguing that an act is good if it will
bring about the greatest good for the greatest number of those affected by the action, and each
one of those affected should be counted as one, each equal to each.

The natural law theory, on the other hand, puts more emphasis on the supposed
objective, universal nature of what is to be considered morally good, basing its reasoning on
the theorized existence of a “human nature”. This theory has the advantage of both
objectivity and a kind of intuitiveness. The latter pertains to the assumption that whatever is
right is what feels right, that is, in the innermost recesses of one’s being or of one’s
conscience (and not just in some shallow emotional level) because what is good is imprinted
in our very being in the form of natural inclinations.

Kantian deontology puts the premium on rational will, freed from all other
considerations, as the only human capacity that can determine one’s moral duty. Kant focuses
on one’s autonomy as constitutive of what one can consider as moral law that is free from all
other ends and inclinations – including pain and pleasure as well as conformity to the rules of
the group.

Aristotle’s virtue ethics in the end indicates the need for the habituation of one’s
character to make any and all of these previous considerations possible. To weigh the
collective happiness of human beings, to choose to act on what one’s innermost nature
dictates, and to practice one’s autonomy regardless of all other considerations especially
those that impinge on one’s will: these are lofty enough goals for human reason and will.
LESSON 3: Self, Society, and
Environment

Individual/self. In the realm of the self, as noted earlier, one has to pay attention not
just on how one deals with oneself, but also on how one interacts with other individuals in
personal relations. One may respond to the demand for an ethically responsible “care for the
self” by making full use of the four ethical theories or frameworks.

John Stuart Mill’s Utilitarianism

● Seemingly a hedonistic theory given its emphasis on maximizing pleasure and

minimizing pain.
● Raise the human element above the animalistic and above merely being selfish.
● Stresses the difference between kinds of pleasure and remarks that “It is better to be
Socrates dissatisfied rather than a pig satisfied.” This important distinction raises the
individual above her purely physical, material feelings or emotions.
● What is good or right does simply reduce to what “I feel is good for me” but which
would be of benefit to the greatest number affected. One’s ethical responsibility to
herself then is to make sure that what she does will be for the greatest happiness, not
just in number but in kind, and not just for but for everyone affected by her acts.

Thomas Aquina’s Natural Law Theory

States as its first natural inclination the innate tendency that all human beings share
with all other existing things; namely, the natural propensity to maintain oneself in one’s
existence. Any action therefore that sustains and cultivates one’s biological or physical
existence is to be deemed good, while all actions that lead to destruction of one’s existence is
to be called bad or evil. Thus, specifies that taking care of one’s being is a moral duty that
one owes to herself and to God. Part of one’s responsibility to herself then is a dedication to
the truth (and thus to cultivate an aversion for lies and ignorance) and to live a peaceful social
life. And teaches that a person cannot remain within her own selfish desires since doing so
might lead her to harm herself, to dispense with the truth, or to destroy harmony in her
community. Hence, the moral philosophy of Aquinas calls on a person to go beyond what she
thinks she wants and to realize instead what her innermost nature inclines her to do, which is
the promotion of life, of the truth, and of harmonious coexistence with others.
Kant’s Deontology

It celebrates the rational faculty of the moral agent, which sets it above merely
sentient beings. Kant’s principle of universalizability challenges the moral agent to think
beyond her own predilections and desires, and to instead consider what everyone ought to do.
His principle of humanity as an end in itself teaches one to always treat humanity, whether in
her own self or in any other individual, as the end or goal of all human actions and never
merely as the means. Kant goes beyond simply telling people to not use others as
instruments. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with using a human being as a means or a
tool for one’s own purposes because human interaction is not possible without that
happening.

Kant’s principle of autonomy teaches one that no one else can tell her what she ought
to do in a particular situation; the highest authority is neither the king nor the general nor the
pope. The highest authority, that which is self legislating in the realm of moral law, is none
other than the rational individual herself. Her moral or ethical responsibility to herself is to
maintain her dignity as a rational agent, and thus become the self-legislator in the realm of
morality.

Aristotle Virtue Ethics

Teaches one to cultivate her own intellect as well as her character to achieve
eudaimonia in her lifetime. For Aristotle, one’s ethical or moral responsibility to herself is
one self-cultivation. Aristotle is quite forgiving when it comes to individual actions, knowing
full well the difficulty of “hitting the mark” in a given moral situation. What the thinker is
more concerned with is whether one’s actions lead one to become a better person in terms of
cultivating her character. One may make mistakes from time to time, but in the end, the
important question to ask is whether the person learned from such mistakes and therefore
constructed a more or less orderly life. If the person’s life in the end is one big mistake, then
the person has not become eudaimonia or a “happy” (that is, “flourishing”) person.

Life for Aristotle is all about learning from one’s own experiences so that one
becomes better as a person. But make no mistake about this, one must become a better person
and not just live through a series of endless mistakes. The realm of the personal also extends
to one’s treatment of other persons within one’s network of close relations.
SOCIAL LIFE: IN THE PHILIPPINE CONTEXT AND IN THE GLOBAL VILLAGE

One’s membership in any society brings forth the demands of communal life in terms
of the group’s rules and regulations. The ethical question arises when the expectations of a
particular society come into conflict with one’s most fundamental values.Philippine society,
for example, is made up of many ethnolinguistic groups, each with its own possibly unique
culture and set of traditions. The demands of the nation- state, as seen in the laws of the land,
sometimes clash with the traditions of indigenous culture. One example is the issue of land
ownership when ancestral land is at stake: Can members of an indigenous group lay claim to
a land that they do not technically own because they do not have a legal title for it? As we
had seen earlier in this chapter in the discussion of cultural relativism, it is problematic for an
individual to simply accede to her group’s given set of beliefs and practices. How would each
ethical framework discuss this problem?

Mill’s utilitarian doctrine will always push for the greatest happiness principle as the
prime determinant of what can be considered as good action, whether in the personal sphere
or in the societal realm. Thus, Filipinos cannot simply assume that their action is good
because their culture says so. Instead, the fundamental question ought to be, “Will this action
bring about the greatest happiness for the greatest number?” Anindividual must therefore
think carefully whether her action, even if her culture approves of it (whichever it might be “
–Filipino culture”, Ibaloi culture, and Maranaw culture, among others), will truly benefit
everyone affected by it. The notion of the “greatest number” can also go beyond the borders
of one’s own perceived territory.

Thomas Aquinas, on the other hand, in his natural law theory, has a clear conception
of the principles that should guide the individual in her actions that affect her larger society.
Once more, human life, the care and education of children, and the promotion of truth and
harmonious social living should be in the mind of an individual when she performs actions
directed to the larger whole. For Aquinas, no harmonious social life will be possible if
individuals that comprise such a society do not value human life, telling the truth and
peaceful coexistence. Thus, contemporary social issues that have to do with the dissemination
of “post-truth”,” alternative facts”, and “fake news” in the realm of social media are rightful
targets of a Thomistic criticism of what ought and ought not to be allowed in our dealings
with each other. On the other hand, the demand of the natural law for a peaceful and orderly
social life can be put in danger by acts of criminality and terrorism. The morally responsible
agent must therefore guard against committing any act that can go against this twofold
requirement of the third natural inclination of human nature.

Immanuel Kant argues for the use of the principles of universalizability and of
humanity as an end in itself to form a person’s autonomous notion of what she ought to do.
These principles can and should apply directly to the construction of ethical duty in one’s
social life. Thus, no manner of heteronomous rules and expectations should dictate one’s
choice of actions, whether they be laws of the state or international treaties, cultural norms
and customs, or even the laws of one’s religion. Thus, Kant is not saying that a person ought
not to follow any heteronomous laws. Instead, she must make sure that if she were to follow
such a law, that she understands why it is truly the right thing to do. More positively, citizens
of a particular society ought to make sure that the laws and rules that they come up with are
actually in line with what universalizable moral duty will prescribe.

Aristotle’s virtue ethics prescribes mesotes as the guide to all the actions that a person
has to take, even in her dealing with the larger community of people. Virtues such as justice,
liberality, magnificence, friendliness, and rightful indignation suggest that they are socially-
oriented Aristotelian virtues. A person ought to be guided by them in her dealings with either
the local or the wider global society. She must also be aware that none of these virtues are
fixed points; rather, each one will have a mesotes that is determined by the particular
context. Temperance once again presents itself as one Aristotelian virtue that will be vital
here: In the name of other virtues such as justice, much temperance is needed in dealing with
the other participants in social intercourse.
THE NON-HUMAN ENVIRONMENT

It was only in the 20th century when questions of environmental ethics, of the ethical
or moral responsibilities human beings have toward the non-human world appeared. Earlier,
most ethical theorists focused more on inter-human relations rather than human to non-human
relations. Consequently, some argue that you think any of the four ethical theories or
frameworks may be an exercise in anachronism, that is, enforcing together elements that
belong to different time periods. We will, therefore, really suggest beginning possibilities for
further exploration ration into an environmental ethics based on any of the four classical
ethical theories.

Mill’s Utilitarianism some scholars point out that this is hedonistic doctrine that
focuses on the sovereignty of pleasures and pains in human decision making should extend
into other creatures that can experience pleasures and pains; namely, animals. Thus, one of
the sources of animal ethics is utilitarianism. Though only humans can make moral decisions,
animal ethics proponents argue that humans should always take into account the potential
pleasure or pain that they may inflict on animals. To extend the argument, though the other
members of an ecosystem (e.g., plants) may not have the capacity for pleasure and pain,
humans still go to perform actions that will not lead to their destruction, that in turn might
lead to pain for the animals that live off them. There is a general call for actions that do not
just benefit humans but the whole ecosystem as well, since it is possible that non-human
creatures might be harmed by neglecting the ecosystem.

Kantian Deontology focuses on the innate dignity of the human being as possessing
reason, it can be argued that one cannot possibly universalize maxims that, in the end, will
lead to an untenable social existence. Can one accept the following maxim as something that
everyone ought to follow: “One ought to not worry about environmental destruction, as long
as it produces economic wealth for my society?” Such as thinking is shortsighted and, in the
end, does not produce universalizable maxims.
Thomas Aquinas, on the other hand, may not necessarily talk about the physical
environment and human moral responsibility to it as such, but one can try to infer from his
philosophy that certain actions should be avoided because they do not produce a harmonious,
peaceful society. One can argue that neglecting the physical environment because of
shortsighted economic goals (e.g. overfishing the waters off the coast of our islands or
cutting down trees in our mountains and hills) will eventually lead to disasters such as
flooding or famine‘s that will affect society in a detrimental fashion.

Aristotle‘s virtue ethics also pick up on the problem of such shortsightedness and ask
how this can possibly lead to becoming a better person. One may actually invent a neo-
Aristotelian vice here: the vice of myopia. This is nearsightedness, not a physical one, but in
one’s understanding of the implications of her actions. This problem is therefore connected to
a lack of intellectual virtue, to a deficiency in foresight. Aristotle would support the argument
that a person has the moral responsibility to see beyond what is immediate. If so, one must
see beyond the satisfaction of immediate economic needs and make sure that harming the
environment for the sake of such will not eventually lead to something much worse.

A CLOSING THAT IS REALLY AN OPENING

We should already have a more or less clear idea of how to make informed moral
decisions. At this point, you should have sufficient mental and affective equipment to arrive
at sound judgments for cases in discussion or for enacting real-life decisions.

We do not have a computer program here that can automatically calculate what is the
right thing to do in a given situation. It seems safe to assume that there can never be such a
thing. There is only the human individual along with her community of fellow human beings
who need to accept that they must continue to explore the meaning of what is good and right
while hoping to arrive at the best judgments they can make at this point in time. Realizing the
finitude of human understanding and of the capacity to make choices, but at the same time
hoping that one’s best attempt at doing what is right does mean something in the end - these
are part and parcel of making informed moral decisions.