Ethical values. 1st ESO.Department of Philosophy

UNIT 2. PERSONALITY AND ETHICAL VALUES

1. Personality and its construction process

When we meet someone in depth and know how he will react to a situation, wewonder why his reaction is different than we expect. We believe that people havea habitual way of acting, as most of the time they behave. "Habitual" is derivedfrom "habit" which means custom. Typically what we usually do because werepeat it. This habitual way of being of each person is what we call personalityand what differentiates us from the rest.

As we have seen in the previous unit, although humans belong to the samespecies, have the distinction of being different from each other. The animals, aredetermined 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 dothroughout our lives. As a result of this learning each person has a way of beingor behave differently and unrepeatable. That is, each has a personality.

Thus we differentiate between temperament and character. Temperament isthe set of abilities, emotional tendencies, qualities, etc. we receive by inheritancethrough genetics. For example, some people have a tendency to be nervous orcalm, to be good at mathematical reasoning or to be good cartoonists becausetheir parents also had these capabilities. However, education and learning canmake us change these inherited tendencies and build our character, ourparticular way of being. Thus, studying, learning, striving, we can become greatmathematicians or artists even though our parents have not transmit on to us

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these capabilities. In this acquisition of skills through learning it is what we callcharacter.

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 elementand temperament is a secondary one.

2. 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 (freedomFROM) but also be able to decide what we want to be (freedom TO). Ourcharacter 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. Forexample, 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 afterpracticing 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 wedo. There are intellectual habits like our way of studying or solving the problemsin different subjects. But there are some habits that are particularly important tobecome a good person: moral habits or virtues.

The term "virtue" comes from the Greek arete, meaning "excellence". The Greeksused the term to refer to any type of excellence. A dog could be virtuous if it is anexcellent guardian of the house, the eye could be virtuous if he had a perfectvisual acuity. People can also be virtuous. For example, an architect could bevirtuous if he constructed perfect buildings, a teacher was virtuous if he gavevery good classes. But most important is that a person is virtuous not because he

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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 andwith himself. The opposite of virtue is vice, for instance, a vicious person is onewho seeks only the particular benefit without thinking of others. It is what wenormally call a bad person.

For the Greek philosopher Aristotle (4th century A.C.) one becomes morallyvirtuous through practice, doing good deeds. Based on practice we become goodpeople. Many times we make mistakes but if we reflect on what we have done wecan improve the next time. Through effort and reflection we can achieve moralvirtue and therefore create our own character based on what are called moralvalues. Regardless our inherited temperament wet can become really goodpeople if we propose. We all have intelligence to analyse our actions and will todecide what we think is right.

When we find selfish, deceitful, disloyal people we value their behaviournegatively because they cause evil and suffering to others. However, virtuouspeople from a moral view base their behaviour on solidarity, tolerance, respect,equal rights, loyalty, etc. To these ideas we call moral values: ideas that peoplewant to be good people and where they back their daily behaviour. So when wetry to be virtuous repeating actions, we try to implement these ideas that guideus to be a good person. Consequently, virtuous people try to put into practice themoral values they consider are the best.

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This implementation is the result of our freedom. We decided to follow to buildvalues and virtues to be good people or, on the contrary, we can decide to followthe "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 thosebehaviours that we see around us and go against moral values. For example, inthe media through the advertising we see daily how we receive the message thatthe most important and what makes us happy is to have a lot of money andbecome 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 thinkabout these attitudes and think if we really lead to individual happiness andhappiness as a society.

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ACTIVITY 1 (Standard 4.1.)

Make a list of five traits you think part of your temper five think part of yourcharacter.

TEMPERAMENT CHARACTER1. 1.2. 2.3. 3.4. 4.5. 5.

ACTIVITY 2 (Standard 5.1)

Humans share with chimpanzees 98 per cent of our genes. That is, we aregenetically very similar. However we behave differently.

1.Expound three qualities that humans have but do not have chimpanzees.

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2. Why do you think that despite being so similar genetically have such differentattitudes? Explain your answer

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ACTIVITY 3 (Standard 5.2)

Virtues and vices

Write a list of ten positive habits or virtues and a list of ten bad habits or vices.

VIRTUES VICES1. 1.2. 2.3. 3.4. 4.5. 5.6. 6.7. 7.8. 8.9. 9.10. 10.

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ACTIVITY 4 (Standards 5.1 and 5.2)

MAFALDA: be critical. MAKE A COMIC.

Mafalda is a comic book character created by Quino. Its main features aretenderness and his tendency to make constructive criticism of our society.Carefully read these two comic strips and answer the questions:

1. Who is addressed criticism of Mafalda in each of the strips?

2. 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 scriptc) Draw it and expose it in class

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