THE GOLDEN MEAN AND SOME FILIPINO VALUES
A Term Paper Presented to the
Faculty of Religious Studies, Peace Education and Philosophy Department,
College of Arts and Sciences
Notre Dame University
In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the
Degree of Bachelor of Arts,
Major in Philosophy
LEOBELO JOFEL A. DELICANA
March 2013�
Chapter I
Introduction
We as Filipinos have our own identity. We are marked by our culture which is a confluence of other cultures that have also influenced us. The Spaniards, Americans, Japanese, Arabs and Chinese people are the ones which have an influence which could be noticeable in our lives as Filipinos. Now, we are able to notice some of values which are common to Filipinos. Some of these values are the value of paggalang, close family ties, and bayanihan as our good values. However, we also have negative values. Some of these values are being ningas kugon, "bahala na mentality" and pakikisama (in a negative sense).
The Greek ancient philosopher Aristotle has something to say about virtues. He believes that one should do what is moral. Because of this, he developed a standard on which action would be weighed if virtuous or not.
This paper would try to analyze certain Filipino values, both positive and negative in the light of Aristotle's Philosophy on virtue theory of the Golden Mean. The study will be based on library research. With these, the researcher would like to answer the following questions: What are values and what are Filipino values? What is Aristotle's virtue theory of the Golden Mean? What is the relevance of the virtue theory of the Golden Mean to Filipino values?
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Chapter II
Virtue for Aristotle
Virtue is of two kinds, intellectual and moral. Intellectual virtue in the main owes its birth and its...