Dr George Panthanmackel (born on 19 January 1959) is Professor of Philosophy at Suvidya

College, Bangalore. He has also been a Visiting Professor to several other Institutes teaching
both graduates and postgraduates. In 2009-2010 he worked at Indira Gandhi National Open
University (IGNOU) as Senior Consultant of Philosophy and organized its BA Philosophy
Syllabus, especially by editing the entire 238 Units (Chapters). He has published about 70
research Papers / articles in national and international Journals. He has learned 11 languages
and 1 dialect: Greek, Latin, Hebrew, German, English, French, Hindi, Telugu, Tamil,
Malayalam, Kannada, Lotha (dialect).
He was Dean of Suvidya College from 1993 to 1996, and Registrar of the same College from
2004 to 2009. He had been the President of the Association of Christian Philosophers of India
(ACPI) from 2006 to 2012. He became a member of the same Association in 1992 and was
on its executive Committee from 1994 to 2002, and as its Secretary from 2002 to 2006. He is
currently an editor, appointed by the MSFS Superior General., of the History of the
Missionaries of St Francis de Sales.
He has been the chief editor of the Fransalian International since 2004. He is also on the
editorial boards of Indian Journal of Spirituality, Suvidya Journal of Philosophy and Religion,
and the Associate Editor of the ACPI Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, 2010. He has presented
Papers at national and international conferences, some of which he has organized.
He

has

been

teacher

for

24

subjects: Metaphysics, Epistemology,

years.

He

has

Philosophy

Philosophical Anthropology, Methodology, Sociology,

Public

taught

several

of Religion,
Administration,

Political

Science, History of Western Philosophy, Contemporary Indian Philosophy, Marxism, Trinity,

and English Literature. He holds three Doctorates: Doctor of Philosophy, Western (Innsbruck,
Austria),

Doctor

of

Philosophy,

Indian

(Bangalore,

India),

and

Doctor

of Theology (Bangalore, India). He has authored nine books.

Paul and Elder define ethics as "a set of concepts and principles that guide us in determining
what behavior helps or harms sentient creatures". Today ethics is mainly divided into 4
subject areas which are meta ethics, normative ethics, agapeic ethics and applied ethics.

META ETHICS
Meta ethics may be defined as the study of origin and meaning of ethical concepts. It is
mainly concerned with two main issues:

Metaphysical issues It is mainly concerned whether morality exists independently

of humans. There are two kinds of thoughts in this regard. There are some people who
think that moral values are objective while the other think that they are subjective.
The later is mainly followed by sceptical philosophical tradition, such as that
articulated by Greek philosopher Sextus Empiricus.
Morality is the set of principles which helps a person to distinguish between right and
wrong. Objective philosophy here deals with the idea that there are universal moral
laws like good and bad, right or wrong and therefore these exist irrespective of any
personal thought more like the laws of science. Subjective morality however is where
moral laws are based on personal feelings and thoughts and therefore without any
human emotions there will be no morality.
For me morality can never be objective since the very basis of morality is human
feelings and reasoning and so it can never exist irrespective of humans. Morality is
something on which the entire well being of the human society depends. And how
something can guide us to think what is wrong and what is right without giving
concern to the thoughts and reasoning of humans.
If we consider morality to be objective then there will be so many questions
unanswered. For example it can be said that killing somebody is wrong but what can
we say about mercy killing. It is the topic of the society which is yet unanswered.
How can we see a person with intense pain without any reason? It is his right to get
an end to his life if the life is not worth living. So moral values for me are always
subjective.

Psychological issues It is mainly concerned with the underlying mental basis of our
moral judgments and conduct. Several reasons given by philosophers on this point are
egoism and altruism, emotion and reason, female morality.
Thomas Hobbes held that many, if not all, of our actions are prompted by selfish
desires. 18th century British philosopher Joseph Butler argued that we also have an
inherent psychological capacity to show benevolence to others. This view is
called psychological altruism. David Hume argued that moral assessments involve
our emotions, and not our reason. But this philosophy was opposed by rational

minded philosophers. . Although emotional factors often do influence our conduct, he

argued, we should nevertheless resist that kind of sway. Instead, true moral action is
motivated only by reason when it is free from emotions and desires.
I believe that it is the correct reasoning behind all the doubts which inspires us to
become moral and not the emotions. The decisions taken on the basis of emotions are
always biased toward some particular notion and are not impartial. Therefore the
correct answer to the question: why are we moral is the unbiased thoughts of
human towards a particular situation.

NORMATIVE ETHICS
The key assumption in normative ethics is that there is only one ultimate criterion of moral
conduct, whether it is a single rule or a set of principles. Three kinds of ethics will be noted
here:

Virtue ethics It gives emphasis on developing good habits instead of learning a set
of rules. In addition to advocating good habits of character, virtue theorists hold that
we should avoid acquiring bad character traits, or vices, such as cowardice,

insensibility, injustice, and vanity.

Deontological ethics - Duty ethics bases morality on specific, foundational principles
of obligation. For ex many of us feel that there are clear obligations we have as

human beings, such as to care for our children, and to not commit murder.
Consequentiality ethics This says that correct moral conduct is determined solely by
a cost-benefit analysis of an actions consequences. An action is morally right if the
consequences of that action are more favourable than unfavourable.

AGAPEIC ETHICS
It is also called ethics of love. It promotes those moral actions which promotes agapeic love.
There are two terms for love in classical Greek. These are eros and philia. Eros is based on
strong feelings toward another. It deals with the attraction which is the first step in manwoman relationship. Philia, is love based on friendship between two persons. It is based on

"give-and-take", where two people enrich each other in a mutual relationship. It is a higher
type of love than eros.
There is also a third Greek term agape, it is love above philia and eros. It is a love that is
totally selfless, where a person gives out love to another person even if this act does not
benefit her/him in any way. Whether the love given is returned or not, the person continues to
love even without any self-benefit. Agapeic love takes place concretely through agapeic
justice. Agapeic justice fulfills agapeic love.

APPLIED ETHICS
Applied ethics is that branch of ethics that deals with controversial moral issues which have
significant groups of people both for and against the issue at hand. It is further divided into
biomedical ethics, business ethics, environmental ethics, sexual ethics and social ethics. It is
a branch of ethics which most common in todays world. It answers those questions which are
now the heart of our contemporary social and cultural life.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 Kant, Immanuel, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, tr, James W. Ellington

(Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1985).

Mill, John Stuart, Utilitarianism, in Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, ed., J.M.
Websites: James Fieser Ethics, www.iep.utm.edu/ethics
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/20445435?uid=3738256&uid=2&uid