Essential Definitions: Ethics, Rights, and Political Concepts

Fundamental Concepts in Ethics, Rights, and Governance

Personal Ethics Defined

Personal Ethics: Addresses the individual's actions in relation to oneself and the persons with whom one has a direct relationship.

Societal Ethics and Reflection

Ethics Field (Societal Reflection): This is the field of reflection concerning a larger reality, composed of everyone who, in one way or another, is part of our society.

Understanding Moral Commitment

Moral Commitment: The support that everyone feels obliged to give, in practice, to causes deemed fair.

The Individual Moral Imperative

A Moral Imperative: This depends on the awareness of the individual. The control of such a requirement is, and should be, handled by each individual, who must freely exercise that control, thereby exercising their autonomy.

Legal Requirements and Enforcement

Legal Requirement: This is imposed on the individual by the force of a public authority, which uses instruments such as justice courts to enforce such a requirement.

Universal Ethics and Human Rights

Universal Ethics: This concept is valid for all mankind and states that any human being, simply by existing, possesses basic rights that everyone has an obligation to respect.

Defining Inalienable Rights

Inalienable Rights: Those rights inherent to a person by the fact of their existence, which no one, not even political power, can dispossess against that person's will.

Representative Government Structures

Representative Government: Those governments that are formed and function on behalf of the popular will expressed through elections.

Civil Rights: Defensive Freedoms

Civil Rights: These are negative rights, or if you prefer, defensive rights, serving to prevent political power from improperly meddling in the lives of people.

Political Rights and Participation

Political Rights: Those rights that allow citizens to participate in public affairs.

Social Rights and Living Conditions

Social Rights: Rights that guarantee decent living conditions to all the population.

Historical Context: Liberal Revolutions

Liberal Revolutions: These are the revolutions that occurred from the last decades of the mid-18th century until the 19th century, allowing the nascent bourgeoisie access to political power.

Characteristics of Underdeveloped Nations

Underdeveloped Countries: These are countries, comparatively poor, that have barely begun the process of economic modernization.

Defining Democratic Culture

Democratic Culture: This is imbued with the values, attitudes, and rules of the democratic game.

Traditional Cultures vs. Modernity

Traditional Cultures: These are characteristic of premodern societies that remain subject to rules inherited from tradition.

Personal Development and Opportunity

Personal Development: The result of the deployment of one's individual capacities and related social opportunity.