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551 BCE
Kǒng Qiū; Confucianism (551 BCE to 479 BCE)
Kǒng Qiū (Confucius) has been portrayed as a teacher, advisor, editor, philosopher, reformer, and prophet. His name became a global metonym of the foundational concepts and cultural practices in East Asia. His philosophy, Confucianism, is an ancient Chinese belief system, which focuses on the importance of personal ethics and morality. The golden rule of Confucianism is "Do not do unto others what you would not want others to do unto you." -
469 BCE
Socrates; Socratic Paradox (469 BCE to 399 BCE)
Socrates is considered one of the handful of philosophers who forever changed how philosophy itself was to be conceived. He has been encumbered with the adulation and emulation ordinarily reserved for religious figures. He was predominantly in ethics. His Socratic Paradox revolves around "virtue through careful reflection." According to him, "You should only do what is right--irrespective of matters of life or death. An unexamined life is not worth living." -
429 BCE
Plato (429 BCE to 347 BCE)
Plato is a well-known writer in Western literary tradition and philosophy. He is an Athenian citizen who displays his interest in the political events of his time in his works. He maintains a virtue-based eudaemonistic conception of ethics. To him, happiness or well-being is the highest aim of moral thought and conduct, and the virtues are the requisite skills and dispositions needed to attain it. "The good" is a standard for behavior discovered above all others. -
384 BCE
Aristotle; Virtue Theory (384 BCE to 322 BCE)
Aristotle is one of the greatest philosophers of all time. His works shaped centuries of philosophical influence and have sparked the enduring curiosity of a devoted readership. His virtue theory is a general label to encompass all branches of moral philosophy. It is concerned with the theoretical questions about the value and goodness of all varieties. It is the quest to understand and live a life of moral character. The virtuous individual exhibits the joint quality of reason and character. -
354
Saint Augustine of Hippo (354 AD to 430 AD)
Augustine was a Christian philosopher of Antiquity who exerted the deepest and most lasting influence. The impact of his views on sin, grace, freedom, and sexuality on Western culture can hardly be overrated. In "Lohannis Evangelium Tractatus" and "Epistulam Lohannis ad Parthos", Augustine argues that to become righteous, wise, and holy in eternity like God, man must seek to grow in virtue, knowledge, and love now by submitting his intellect and will, disordered by sin, to God's perfect Charity. -
Thomas Hobbes; Moral Positivism (1588 to 1679)
Thomas Hobbes was famous for his political philosophy. In philosophy, he defended a range of materialist, nominalist, and empiricist views against alternative views. Hobbes' Moral Positivism argued that the fundamental principles of morality, or laws of nature, require us to try to establish peace: he says this can only be established through the institution of an absolute sovereign. It rejects all absolute imperatives in morality, which might then in turn be formulated as changeless norms. -
John Locke; Liberalism (1632 to 1704)
John Locke was a British philosopher, professor at Oxford University, and researcher in medicine. He, along with Thomas Hobbes, shaped the idea of liberalism. He states that while the public good should not infringe upon an individual's right to freedom, the individual must sacrifice, or at least compromise, that right for the cause of the greater good. -
Immanuel Kant; Categorical Imperative (1724 to 1804)
Immanuel Kant is the central figure of contemporary philosophy. In addition to establishing the terminology for most of nineteenth- and twentieth-century philosophy, he synthesized early modern rationalism with empiricism. His impact can still be felt today in multiple scientific areas. His ethics are organized around a “categorical imperative,” which states that one should always respect the humanity in others and that one should only act in accordance with rules that could hold for everyone. -
Jeremy Bentham (1748 to 1832) and John Stuart Mill (1806 to 1873); Utilitarianism
Jeremy Bentham was most closely linked to the modern utilitarian tradition. John Stuart Mill was a naturalist who explored the effects of an empiricist viewpoint. They both contributed to the development of utilitarianism, one of the most potent theories of normative ethics. Due to the way it takes benefits and costs into account, it is the method of moral reasoning that is most frequently applied in business. "Happiness is what matters, and everyone's happiness counts the same." -
William David Ross; Deontology (1877 to 1971)
William David Ross' works made contributions to ancient philosophy and to moral philosophy. An example of this is his "The Right and The Good" which had one of the most important contributions to moral philosophy. W.D. Ross's theory, deontology, suggests that the duties of beneficence, self-improvement, and justice could be subsumed under a single duty to promote intrinsic values. -
John Rawls; Theory of Justice (1921 to 2002)
John Rawls was an American political philosopher in the liberal tradition and was interested in political philosophy. In his theory of justice, Rawls conducted a thought experiment called the "Original Position" where he argued that only under a "veil of ignorance" could human beings reach a fair and impartial agreement as true equals not biased by their place in society. They would have to rely only on the human powers of reason to choose principles of social justice for their society. -
Jean-François Lyotard (1924 to 1998)
Jean-François Lyotard was a French post-structuralist philosopher, best known for his highly influential formulation of postmodernism in The Postmodern Condition. For Lyotard, there is “no knowledge in the matter of ethics”, nor is there a theoretical truth to adhere to in politics. The ability to judge is a “power to invent criteria” that is, create new rules not recognized by the dominant modes of thinking politics.