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PANCASILA AS POLITICAL ETHICS
Aloysius Prasetya
Lecture-5
PANCASILA AS POLITICAL ETHICS
1 THE CONCEPT OF ETHICS
2 POLITICAL ETHICS
3 PANCASILA AS POLITICAL ETHICS
1.THE CONCEPT OF ETHICS
• Ethics, sometimes known as moral philosophy, is a branch
of philosophy that involves systematizing, defending and
recommending concepts of right and wrong conduct.
• The term comes from the Greek word ethikos from ethos,
which means "custom, habit". The superfield within philosophy known as axiology includes both ethics and aesthetics
and is unified by each sub-branch's concern with value.
• Philosophical ethics investigates what is the best way for
humans to live, and what kinds of actions are right or wrong
in particular circumstances. As a critical method, it
becomes a paradigm for establishing the worth of an
action by an individual, a group, or even a state.
The Concept of Ethics
Ethics may be divided into three major areas of study:
• Meta-ethics, about the theoretical meaning and reference
of moral propositions and how their truth values (if any)
may be determined
• Normative ethics, about the practical means of
determining a moral course of action
• Applied ethics draws upon ethical theory in order to ask
what a person is obligated to do in some very specific
situation, or within some particular domain of action (such
as business)
Ethics seeks to resolve questions dealing with human morality—concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue
and vice, justice and crime, thus closely related to values.
1.1.Value and Value Judgment
• Ethics seeks to resolve questions dealing with human
morality—concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong,
virtue and vice, justice and crime.
• Ethics is closely related with values.
• Some values are physiologically determined and are
normally considered objective, such as a desire to avoid
physical pain or to seek pleasure. Other values are
considered subjective, vary across individuals and
cultures, and are in many ways aligned with belief and
belief systems. Types of values include ethical/moral
values, doctrinal/ideological (religious, political) values,
social values, and aesthetic values.
Value and Value Judgment
• Values can be defined as broad preferences concerning
appropriate courses of action or outcomes. As such, values
reflect a person's sense of right and wrong or what "ought"
to be. "Equal rights for all", "Excellence deserves admiration", and "People should be treated with respect and
dignity" are representative of values. Values tend to
influence attitudes and behavior.
• Personal values provide an internal reference for what is
good, beneficial, important, useful, beautiful, desirable,
constructive, etc. Values generate behaviour and help
solve common human problems for survival by comparative
rankings of value.
Value and Value Judgment
• Core values of a culture may refer to values endorsed by
most members of the culture or to values members of the
culture generally believe to be widely shared in the
culture. There is an intersubjective consensus to these
core cultural values that differentiate two or more nested
cultural groups. The endorsement of these values was
related to the relative strength of identification with these
cultural groups.
• The sense of shared values is a specific aspect to human
sociality. It originates from reciprocal social exchanges
that include imitation, empathy, but also negotiation from
which meanings, values and norms are eventually
constructed with others.
1.2.Norms
• Intersubjective values are systematically compiled and
become norms.
• A norm is the value system which functions as a guideline
to an acceptable behaviour. A norm is essentially the
embodiment of the consensus of the human coexistence as
social beings. This provides a guideline to how this
consensus should be actualised.
• Norms are the specific cultural expectations for how to
behave in a given situation. They are the agreed-upon
expectations and rules by which the members of a culture
behave. Norms vary from culture to culture, so some things
that are considered norms in one culture may not be in
another culture.
Norms
• There are four kinds of norms: religious, moral, social and
legal norms.
• 1.Religious norms are the standard of assessment for the
thought and action of an adept of a given religion. Someone who believes in the existence of God employs the
intersubjective values upheld in his/her religion.
• In the belief that a religion is revealed from God, an adept
is obliged to perform the commands that he has made
known in the scripture of that religion.
• Religious norms have a few limitations: the extent to which
a religion can exert an influence on its followers depends
on the number of its followers.
Norms
• A religion has only very limited ability to impose a sanction
on its followers, because the claim of a religion is based on
transcendental legitimacy, so that responsibility for an
infraction will only be acquitted in the afterlife.
• A religion may also face difficulty to keep pace with the
progress of the times due to its dogmatic rigidity.
• Religion and ethics are complimentary. A religion needs
ethics as a critical means to consider the decisions made by
its leaders. Ethics will also serve as a common ground for
various religions to carry on dialogues. And ethics will also
benefit a religion to avoid rigidity in the interpretation of
dogmas so that it can keep pace with the progress of times.
Norms
• 2.A Moral norm is an indication how humans ought to
exercise their freedom.
Moral norms point us toward achievable ideals
􀂃 Like the carpenter’s square, an ideal serves as a
standard to measure what is actually done.
􀂃 Ideal measures Actual
• Moral norms are like the carpenter’s square used to
measure human freedom and construct morally good
character and right actions.
• Moral norms are standards or criteria for judging and
acting.
Norms
• A Moral norm is universal and is not restricted to a
specific state, community, or culture, or to a certain
period of time.
• But this universality is also a point where a moral norm is
not “down-to-earth” or too theoretical, and needs other
norms that are more specified and related to a given place
or situation to be effective.
• Ethics and moral norms are complementary. Ethics serves
as a critical method to assess a person’s thought and
action on the basis of objective values. Moral norms
become the ideal against which a person’s actual action in
the exercise of his/her freedom is measured.
Norms
• 3.Social norms are standards or criteria for judging and
acting of a individual as a member of a society.
• As a social being, an individual is a member of a specific
society with certain specific roles (husband, wife, student,
public official, etc.).
• This norm, regulating roles, is related to a specific time
period and territorial extention within an organisation, or
state, or a cultural community. It is also tied-up to the
particular conditions of the unit to which it belongs.
• This norm is more specific compared to moral norms, yet it
is weaker in its constituency, as it relies on the consensus
of the community it supports. An infraction in this area
might not be satisfactorily resolved for lack of sanctions.
Norms
• 4.Legal norms are standards or criteria for judging and
acting of a individual as a citizen of a state.
• As a social being, an individual lives within an organisation
which is structured, systematic, and sovereign.
• The state comes to exist as a result of a consensus on the
part of the citizens, and functions to regulate any conflict
which eventually arises among citizens as a result of a
clash of interest among them. A state is the highest
organization to protect the interest of the citizens.
• Ethics supports legal norms to resolve new jurisprudential
cases never met before by emphasizing the human dignity.
It also scrutinizes legal norms for legitimacy and profers
considerations to each legal decision by the state.
2.POLITICAL ETHICS
• Political ethics (also known as political morality or public
ethics) is the practice of making moral judgements about
political action and political agents.
• It covers two areas. The first is the ethics of process (or
the ethics of office), which deals with public officials and
the methods they use. The second area, the ethics of
policy (or ethics and public policy) concerns judgments
about policies and laws.
• Political ethics considers the nature of humans as political
agents and the norms used in political activities. It is based
on the human nature as a social being and raises issues as
to the norms used to regulate political behaviour.
POLITICAL ETHICS
• Political ethics explores the limits of political science,
ideological studies, principles of legislation, state’s
regulations, assumptions and presuppositions about society,
even the deepest human psychological conditions through
observations of political behaviours, attitudes, decisions,
actions and policies.
• Political ethics scrutinizes the norms that legitimize policies
for their consistency with the intersubjective values that
have been agreed upon. It examines the legitimacy of the
ideology adopted by the state.
• Political ethics is not a norm, or a philosophical or ideological school. Instead of being a ready-to-use set of rules,
it gives indications to a good political decision making.
POLITICAL ETHICS
• Political ethics not only permits leaders to do things that
would be wrong in private life, but also requires them to
meet higher standards than would be necessary in private
life. They may, for example, have less of a right of privacy
than do ordinary citizens, and no right to use their office
for personal profit. The major issues here concern conflict
of interest.
• However, political ethics deals not mainly with ideal justice
but with realizing moral values in democratic societies
where citizens disagree about what ideal justice is. Political
ethics is also concerned with moral problems raised by the
need for political compromise, whistleblowing, civil
disobedience, and criminal punishment.
3.PANCASILA AS POLITICAL ETHICS
• Pancasila is an open ideology. This characteristic enables it
to adapt to the changes of the times and to be flexible.
However, the standard interpretation of a state’s ideology
lies not in the hands of any citizen, but with those having
authority for such a function. Thus, the standard interpretation of Pancasila is in the hands of the state.
• This is precisely the point where the issue of the interpretative authority becomes crucial. While on the one hand
this authority must transcend the individual wisdom of the
citizens, on the other hand the state has to be fully aware
of not misinterpreting Pancasila due to group or even
individual governing party interest, as was the case of the
notorious Orde Baru administration.
PANCASILA AS POLITICAL ETHICS
3.1.Constraints on Pancasila as political ethics
• Pancasila political ethics becomes trapped as a separate
ideology in itself. This means that political ethics becomes
the leading idea underlying every power actualisation by
the state. This must be enriched with various contributions
from the other aspects of the life of the nation.
• Pancasila is a richer philosophical system than just political
ethics. Pancasila political ethics may not consistently be a
critical method against Pancasila itself. Whether Pancasila
is implemented must primarily concern all of the citizens.
But, as a worldview Pancasila overarches all the vast facets
and dimensions of reality of the Indonesian nation.
PANCASILA AS POLITICAL ETHICS
Constraints on Pancasila as political ethics
• Pancasila political ethics, founded on moral principles, can
scrutinize all the praxis of the state’s legislation down into
the crux of the problem. And this has to do with the idea of
the human dignity. This issue is to become the key-idea
guiding the assessment of the consistency of each of the
state’s policy and legislation with the intersubjective
values of the consensus.
• Every measure of the implementation of Pancasila in the
form of a policy or a legislation has thus to be examined
against its congruence with the objective and intersubjective values, as well as whether it is promoting the human
dignity of the citizen.
PANCASILA AS POLITICAL ETHICS
3.2.Implementation of Pancasila Political Ethics
• How is the practice of Pancasila to be assessed?
• Primary consideration should be directed towards whether
the moral principle of “promoting the human dignity of the
citizen” is being observed. This should apply to each of the
measures and actions taken by the government.
• Secondly, by considering the congruence of the intersubjective values with the objective values. If an action
taken by the government is based on the intersubjective
value of “justice”, it must be examined whether this is in
line with the objective value “just”.
PANCASILA AS POLITICAL ETHICS
Implementation of Pancasila Political Ethics
• Objective and intersubjective values of Pancasila
• “Belief in the one and only God”: Objective value: God.
Intersubjective values: Godhead. This encapsulates the
belief that God exists, that He is one and the only one,
and that He is the Prime Cause.
• “Just and civilized humanity”: Objective value: Man.
Intersubjective values: Humanity. Implied meaning:
recognition of the dignity of the human being, recognition
of the equality between humans and recognition of the
human freedom.
PANCASILA AS POLITICAL ETHICS
• Objective and intersubjective values of Pancasila
• “The Unity of Indonesia”: Objective value: One.
Intersubjective values: unity. This implies a recognition of
diversity as a fact, and recognition of the human existence
as coexistentiality.
• “Democracy guided by the inner wisdom in the unanimity
arising out of deliberations amongst representatives”:
Objective value: People. Intersubjective values: Democracy. Implied meaning: recognition that the sovereignty
of the state is in the hands of the prople, recognition of
the need to achieve a consensus through deliberations of
the people’s representatives, a gurantee of no tyranny of
minority or domination of majority.
PANCASILA AS POLITICAL ETHICS
• Objective and intersubjective values of Pancasila
• “Social justice for all of the people of Indonesia”:
Objective value: Just. Intersubjective values: justice. This
implies a recognition of rights and opportunities for all of
the people of Indonesia in terms of religion, economy,
politics, socio-cultural domain, and defense and security.
• On the basis of the above analysis, Pancasila political
ethics may serve as a means to examine the state’s political behaviour, in particular as a critical method to establish
the congruity or incongruity of a policy and the measures
taken by the state by verifying the consistency between
the objective and intersubjective values as a light to be
shed on the policy and the measures taken by the state.