Ethical values. 1st ESO. Department of Philosophy UNIT PERSONALITY AND ETHICAL VALUES Personality and its construction process When we meet someone in depth and know how he will react to a situation, we wonder why his reaction is different than we expect. We believe that people have a habitual way of acting, as most of the time they behave. "Habitual" is derived from "habit" which means custom. Typically what we usually do because we repeat it. This habitual way of being of each person is what we call personality and what differentiates us from the rest. As we have seen in the previous unit, although humans belong to the same species, have the distinction of being different from each other. The animals, are determined by their instincts, they all behave the same way. On the contrary, men do not possess instincts and we have to learn almost everything we do throughout our lives. As a result of this learning each person has a way of being or behave differently and unrepeatable. That is, each has a personality. Thus we differentiate between temperament and character. Temperament is the set of abilities, emotional tendencies, qualities, etc. we receive by inheritance through genetics. For example, some people have a tendency to be nervous or calm, to be good at mathematical reasoning or to be good cartoonists because their parents also had these capabilities. However, education and learning can make us change these inherited tendencies and build our character, our particular way of being. Thus, studying, learning, striving, we can become great mathematicians or artists even though our parents have not transmit on to us 1
these capabilities. In this acquisition of skills through learning it is what we call character. Unlike animals, for humans learning is essential to become who we really are. Thus, in the personality of each individual character it is the essential element and temperament is a secondary one. Self-determination and acquisition of virtues and ethical values In the previous unit we have distinguished between "freedom from" and "freedom to". We said that being free is not only not have coercion (freedom FROM) but also be able to decide what we want to be (freedom TO). Our character thanks to the "freedom" is formed, because we create ourselves, making decisions for what we want to be. Habits or habitual modes of behaviour are learned by repetition of acts. For example, when we are children we learn to use cutlery after many attempts, learn to speak after a long time in which we try to imitate the words we hear. When we become adults we learn to do certain exercises of maths after practicing a lot or to drive after many classes at the driving school. But habits are of many kinds, some are purely personal, as gait or gestures we do. There are intellectual habits like our way of studying or solving the problems in different subjects. But there are some habits that are particularly important to become a good person: moral habits or virtues. The term "virtue" comes from the Greek arete, meaning "excellence". The Greeks used the term to refer to any type of excellence. A dog could be virtuous if it is an excellent guardian of the house, the eye could be virtuous if he had a perfect visual acuity. People can also be virtuous. For example, an architect could be virtuous if he constructed perfect buildings, a teacher was virtuous if he gave very good classes. But most important is that a person is virtuous not because he 2
is very good as an architect or as a teacher but because is very good as a person. Then the Greeks said that the person had the moral virtue. The virtuous man is one who acts excellently in his relationship with others and with himself. The opposite of virtue is vice, for instance, a vicious person is one who seeks only the particular benefit without thinking of others. It is what we normally call a bad person. For the Greek philosopher Aristotle (4th century A.C.) one becomes morally virtuous through practice, doing good deeds. Based on practice we become good people. Many times we make mistakes but if we reflect on what we have done we can improve the next time. Through effort and reflection we can achieve moral virtue and therefore create our own character based on what are called moral values. Regardless our inherited temperament wet can become really good people if we propose. We all have intelligence to analyse our actions and will to decide what we think is right. When we find selfish, deceitful, disloyal people we value their behaviour negatively because they cause evil and suffering to others. However, virtuous people from a moral view base their behaviour on solidarity, tolerance, respect, equal rights, loyalty, etc. To these ideas we call moral values: ideas that people want to be good people and where they back their daily behaviour. So when we try to be virtuous repeating actions, we try to implement these ideas that guide us to be a good person. Consequently, virtuous people try to put into practice the moral values they consider are the best. 3
This implementation is the result of our freedom. We decided to follow to build values and virtues to be good people or, on the contrary, we can decide to follow the "anti-values" (selfishness, inequality, intolerance...) and become bad people. If we want to live in a happy society we should make the effort to be good people, to forge a system based on moral values and, as a result, to practice moral virtue. To do this we need to think for ourselves and try to be critical of those behaviours that we see around us and go against moral values. For example, in the media through the advertising we see daily how we receive the message that the most important and what makes us happy is to have a lot of money and become rich without thinking about others, we see how certain politicians lie, corrupt and steal to benefit regardless of the common good, etc. We have to think about these attitudes and think if we really lead to individual happiness and happiness as a society. 4
ACTIVITY 1 (Standard ) Make a list of five traits you think part of your temper five think part of your character. TEMPERAMENT CHARACTER ACTIVITY 2 (Standard 1) Humans share with chimpanzees 98 per cent of our genes. That is, we are genetically very similar. However we behave differently. Expound three qualities that humans have but do not have chimpanzees. Why do you think that despite being so similar genetically have such different attitudes? Explain your answer 5
ACTIVITY 3 (Standard 2) Virtues and vices Write a list of ten positive habits or virtues and a list of ten bad habits or vices. VIRTUES 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. VICES 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 6
ACTIVITY 4 (Standards 1 and 2) MAFALDA: be critical. MAKE A COMIC. Mafalda is a comic book character created by Quino. Its main features are tenderness and his tendency to make constructive criticism of our society. Carefully read these two comic strips and answer the questions: Who is addressed criticism of Mafalda in each of the strips? Do you dare to design a comic? a) Think of an unfair situation you want to report. b) Design some characters and write a little script c) Draw it and expose it in class 7