Smoking in Public

In partial fulfilment of the requirements in TREDTWO

Submitted by:

ARANGUREN, Maria Bernadette

BATO, Ryna Patricia

TIMOGTIMOG, A R

Submitted to:

Fr. Delfo Calceran, OP

I. Summary of Interview

Hazards of smoking in public places include the exposure of non-smokers to second hand

smoke. According to some research, second hand smoke can be as deadly as the smoke directly

inhaled from a cigarette. It can cause diseases such, as lung cancer, pneumonia, bronchitis, and

heart diseases, to the people who are exposed to it. In order to protect the health of the public, the

Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) in coordination of the local government units of

Metro Manila imposed an ordinance that is geared towards smoke free schools, hospitals,

elevators and stairwells of all buildings, buses and bus depots, restaurants and government

facilities last May 30, 2011. Here are some signs that are commonly seen in the said public

places, one of which is a poster produced by De La Salle University’s Student Government

(USG):

De La Salle University is a school which gives smokers freedom to smoke as long as they

are beyond the limited premises of the school property - that is, three meters fence from the

school buildings’ walls. Technically speaking, this is a loophole that students can use to avoid

the ordinance mentioned above. They smoke in the private properties around the school, which

are basically not “school property” anymore.

Due to this, we found this issue as a fitting topic for an ethical term paper since we can

get reliable respondents just from passing by some of the infrastructures in the university.

Our interviewee is a fourth year student who preferred not to disclose his name in this

paper. He is an avid smoker who prefers to smoke in places with lesser people within the

school’s “smoking areas”.

He has shared to the group that he was influenced by his high school friends to start

smoking.  His first taste of cigarettes made him want to have more; this is the start of his

addiction.

When asked if he thought smoking was right, he immediately said “No, of course not”.

This has raised questions in the group members’ minds. Why is he still smoking when he already

knows that it was wrong?

Due to curiosity, the group then asked him why he was still smoking despite the known

hazards. He said to us that things you get used to doing, or habits, be it good or bad are hard to

stop doing. Old habits die hard, if you can put it into that context.

It was disclosed by the interviewee that it has been a long time since he started smoking.

This has intrigued the group of what exactly cigarettes give the said person such that his

dependence on smoking has reached the point of it becoming a part of his daily routine. When

asked the question the interviewee said that it made him feel relaxed. And also, when he doesn’t

smoke, his unconscious self is already longing for it, since he has gotten used to doing it. As said

before, it has become a bad habit.

As we were conducting the interview, we noticed smokers near the Agno area. “Agno” is

a property owned by the Cojuangco family and, as such, is not fully under the control of the

University. Most students pass by the smokers that flock around there every day. This fact has

aroused the interest of the group on the “opinions” of these passers-by, and how these opinions

look to the smokers who are being “judged”.

In response to this, he said he thinks that they just look at smokers as if they are already a

normal sight to see. Because the school already has quite a number of smokers lurking around,

seeing these smokers in those places is already something that they can ignore.

Then out of curiosity, the group asked his opinion on why most students smoke in these

areas. He immediately said that he wasn't one of these smokers and he explained that,

technically, the people who smoke “near” Agno are within private properties anyway- an

argument already so common. They think that they are free to smoke in these areas as long as the

owners of these private properties allow it.

Although it is not illegal to smoke in these areas, there has not been any question whether

what they are doing is a threat not only to their health but also to the health of those who pass by

them.  This is basically what we call “second hand smoking”. When asked about this issue, he

just replied that yes, he knows that second hand smoking is a dangerous thing, even commenting

that it is obviously a bad effect of his activities. Though he also shared that knowing this does

not affect the frequency of his smoking since he does not really smoke in crowded places.

As of today, the interviewee admitted wholeheartedly that he has never even thought of

quitting smoking.

II. Ethical Analysis

Upon the re-inspection of the lecture notes for the term, the group concluded that the

following topics are relevant to the issue chosen:

Barkada Pressure

Moral Conscience

Consequentialist Perspective

Communitarian Perspective

Right Perspective & Personal Ethical Relativism

A. Barkada Pressure

“Barkada” pressure, more commonly known as peer pressure, is what caused our

interviewee to start smoking cigarettes. Barkada pressure is one of the fastest ways for a

person to be led to the wrong path or paths. Through this they can be pulled in by their peers

into doing bad things such as drugs, drinking, and smoking among many others. Having a

barkada and some peers can be good or bad for someone; it solely depends on how well the

person can stick to what is right.

To avoid being pressured by your

peers into doing something you know

you should not do, you must know

what is wrong and right. Also, you

should not conform to what they tell

you to do if you think it is wrong. It is

also good to pick the right kind of

barkada; as the saying goes “tell me

who your friends are and I'll tell who

you are”

B. Moral Conscience

Some people have a lack of moral

conscience and also have wrong

judgement on what is right and wrong.

A person is given the natural

ability to judge, but apparently not the

natural ability to differentiate between

what is right and what is wrong. At some

point in our lives, we are taught by our

parents and relatives about the concept of

right and wrong. We all have a conscience - the voice within, or God’s voice, and the inner light,

or His light in us. The scope of Moral Conscience includes the distinction between “what it is”

(fact) and “what we ought to do” (right) and the tension between necessity (obligation) and

freedom (preference).

In most cases, we human beings are blinded by our preferences, and these preferences

tend to turn into addictions and habits, such as what happened to our interviewee. We should

learn to avoid these bad decisions as we live our lives.

C. Consequentialist Perspective

There is an effect in every action that we

make, whether it is on us or on other people.

Hence, in judging our actions, we should always

look at the consequence of each choice we are

about to make. A person should have the ability

to predict whether his action would be beneficial

or detrimental to not only himself, but also to

others. The action that would produce maximized

good outcome than other choices is the action that

people should take.

In the case of our interviewee, he did reflect on his actions since he is fully aware that

smoking cigarettes has a bad effect, not only on his health but also on the health of people

around him as he is smoking in public places. Although he is aware of the effects of his action,

he still acted on the choice that he knew had a detrimental effect and still continues with it. Also,

he has not given the thought of quitting to smoke. He did not choose to act the more moral

action, which is to quit smoking. We are not people to judge him, however, since upon

inspection, people tend to not give up the things that they are used to having or doing.

D. Communitarian Perspective

Being in a community means that you are a part of a group which, in some way or another,

has a common goal. People in a

community that work together can achieve

the common goal they seek to reach. In an

ideal community, people treat each other

as equals and they live by the principle

that “you should not do unto others what

you don't want others to do unto you”.

Although individually, each member

of a community has his rights and therefore he is free to do what he wishes, he is also bound by

the laws created by the community to ensure that everyone is equal in both rights and

responsibility.

A part of our interview talked about the interviewee knowing that by smoking in public,

he can affect the health of those who pass by him. Knowing this, it can be said that our

interviewee is somehow not being a good part of the community for he does what he wants while

still knowing of what it could it do to the other members of the society he is in. Although by

smoking in the places where not a lot of people pass by he says he’s not affecting the public, he

is still producing smoke that gets carried to places where there actually are people. This is

something he must think about.

E. Right Perspective & Personal Ethical Relativism

It is stated in the concept of right perspective that “each person has the right to be treated as a

free and rational person.” We all have rights, be it political civil, economic, or cultural. It is our

choice to maximize them or abuse them, however.

Since the interviewee had the right to do whatever he wants, and even in society the things

that he is doing are not really illegal, one can say that he is not violating the right perspective.

However, there are still many things to consider, one of which is his right to be a healthy person.

Yes, in a sense, that right is a bit undermined, it is not even a major right. It is only encompassed

in another right such as the right to live and the right to access to medical relations. But yes, such

a right does exist, and he is violating it.

Though this does somewhat contradict his right

to smoke, the greater good by which he must follow

is still the right to be a healthy human being.

Honestly speaking, smoking is but a vice whose

good effects are a bit unclear. The government only

allows such vices because people will not really stop

doing it even if they ban it. In the end, the

interviewee should slowly start considering living

healthier, and slowly start to consider quitting.

Normative Ethics or Ethical Relativism says that there is no universal norm for all. Each

person has their own preference, law, and beliefs. There are two types, the personal and the

social. For this issue, we focus on the personal ethical relativism or individualism in layman’s

terms.

Personal relativism means that a person can choose to believe something that other people

don’t want to believe. It is a basic concept that we are not to attest to their beliefs and that we

should respect them. In terms of the smoking, maybe for the interviewee, it is right – that in the

end his preference of smoking in the non-crowded places exempts him from the consequences.

But then again he must still think of our own beliefs – the beliefs that think that he is wrong.

III. Personal Reflection

With the number of ethical perspectives that have been challenged, one is exposed to

different personal questions. Sometimes the arguments presented actually make sense, and we

start thinking if our views and opinions are actually still acceptable. We are a group, so yes we

might have different opinions on the different analysis presented, yet something is still common

– that is we think that smoking is a bad thing, especially when done in public places.

The world today is undergoing a change in ethical perspectives. Gone are the days of

simple tradition that cannot be altered or challenged, we are phasing out into the alternative

ethics that we are morphing into today. It says in the alternative ethics that traditional ethics

cannot respond to the new situations that are present today, yet one might ask if smoking is

actually a new issue.

Smoking has been around for centuries, and by our knowledge, we know that in the past,

it was actually a widely acceptable practice. In fact, the cigarettes of the past are actually much

more bulky and large compared to the ones sold today. They are a symbol of status and luxury,

since only the rich can afford the high quality contents of the past cigarettes. Now, though, they

are sold cheap, and more and more people are beginning to try it. The sad part is that once they

try it, they find it hard to quit and it turns into an addiction.

Apparently, today’s modern day’s technology is able to comprehend the different

negative effects of the cigarettes on our body. Because of this, the people of the world are

becoming more and more aware of its degrading consequences. At a young age, we students are

taught that it is wrong, and perhaps the numbers of young people who are trying it are

decreasing. Actually, we will never really know since an argument can be aroused from this. If

the teaching of the topic at a young age is more or less lessening the number of young people

who try it, why is it that you see more young people buying from sari-sari stores and the like? It

really is quite confusing.

We put it as an effect of peer pressure, maybe it is not. An adolescent is somewhat

influenced by older people to try. The young people see it as cool, or maybe they don’t really see

the effects of the practice on the people who do. They might argue that they see no side effects,

and the stories told to them that it makes the user feel good somehow blind them. So really, even

if you are taught that it is wrong, the peer pressure is always there.

With this, we can root everything back to society. What kind of society we have or we

are in can easily determine what kind of people live there. This is not true always but most of the

time it is.

If we are raised in a society where smoking is a “usual” thing then it wouldn’t be

shocking when children at young age are smoking cigarettes like its candy. This is what our

society is now. Smoking is everywhere and even sometimes people smoke in areas where they

are not even allowed to smoke. If this continues, then expect in 50 years, almost all if not all

teenagers smoke a cigarette.

We know its wrong and we all know that it must be stopped but despite our governments

many attempts to stop and eradicate smoking in our community, smokers are increasing in

number and their age bracket is getting wider and wider per day. Seeing children as young as 10

smoking in an alley is saddening. It’s like seeing your society choke up with the smoke in the air.

With the increasing number of smokers, many members of our society are affected. Many lungs

have been affected by second hand smoke.

Recently electric cigarettes have been invented and people, especially smokers, swarmed

cigarette shops to purchase one. It came with different flavours and colors. This has boosted

smoking up the cool ladder even more. With this, many were encouraged to try it. After

sometime, it has been discovered that this newly invented contraption can cause cancer in the

long run and it was immediately thrown out by society. As of now, only few smoke using e-

cigar.

It would be very nice if the smokers can quit smoking cigarettes as fast as when they

knew about the effects of e-cigars. Even though the effects of regular cigars are slower than e-

cigar, it still has bad effects on the user and to other people. All of us must consider other people

in our community because once we stop caring, then chaos will cover our society.

We must change for the better to make our community a better place for everyone. Every

little action we make can affect others and so we must be very careful and sensitive. All of us

have different desires but we all know that not every desire can be attained for sometimes; many

must be sacrificed for some desires; one example is smoking.