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470 BCE
Socrates
An ancient philosopher born in Athens, Greece and is one of the greatest teachers of ethics. He did not tell the people, his audience, how to live their lives. Instead, he introduced and taught them the method of inquiry. This method allegedly threatened conventional beliefs. He thought that anyone who truly knows the meaning of virtue wouldn't help but to act virtuously as well. -
427 BCE
Plato
He is Socrates' greatest disciple. Like Socrates, he is also an Athenian philosopher and is also best known as the founder of an Academy in Athens. He maintains a virtue-based eudaemonistic conception of ethics or to put it simply, one's happiness/ well-being is the highest aim of moral thought or conduct and virtues are essential skills one is required to have in order to attain this. -
384 BCE
Aristotle
Was a Greek philosopher and polymath born in Stagira, Greece. Aristotle's ethics, or study of character emphasizes the role of habit in conduct. He takes after Plato's and Socrates' philosophies but he rejects Plato's idea which says that to be completely virtuous, one must acquire an understanding of goodness which can be achieved through a training in the sciences, mathematics and philosophy. For him, moral virtue is the only practical road to effective action. -
341 BCE
Epicurus
He was an ancient Greek philosopher born in Samos, Greece. Epicurus said that philosophy has to help man find happiness. According to him, happiness has 2 principles, the autarky (autonomy), and the ataraxia, the tranquility of the spirit. To be able to achieve happiness, we must avoid particular behaviors and perform others. -
354
Saint Augustine
He was a Roman African theologian, philosopher and the bishop of Hippo (now Annaba, Algeria). Saint Augustine conceived of happiness as as consisting of the union of the soul with God after the body has died. Through him, Christianity received the Platonic theme of the relative inferiority of bodily pleasures. -
1225
Thomas Aquinas
He was a great Italian Christian theologian and philosopher. His ethical philosophy states that in order for an action to be moral, "the kind it belongs to must not be bad, the circumstances must be appropriate, and the intention must be virtuous." St. Thomas Aquinas depends heavily on Aristotle. He also believes that all actions are directed towards ends and that happiness is the final end. -
Jan 22, 1561
Francis Bacon
He was an English philosopher born in York House, Strand. He strongly argued that truth required evidence from the real world, and urged full investigation in all cases, avoiding theories based on insufficient data. Although he is not a distinguished scientist himself, his importance is in the way he articulated what was to become the dominant mode of thought. -
René Descartes
He was a philosopher, mathematician, and scientist. Descartes developed the concept of moral virtue and happiness along with other accounts of values. Additionally, the following claims are often attributed to Descartes: "the supreme good consists in virtue, which is a firm and constant resolution to use the will well; virtue presupposes knowledge of metaphysics and natural philosophy; happiness is the supreme contentment of mind; the virtue of generosity is the key to all the virtues and more. -
John Locke
John Locke is an English philosopher and physician born in Wrington, United Kingdom. He refuted the theory of the divine right of kings and argued that all people are endowed with natural rights to life, liberty, and property and that rulers who fail to protect those rights may be removed by the people, by force if necessary. -
Immanuel Kant
Kant is a German Idealist philosopher born in Königsberg, near the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea and is one of the most influential philosophers in the history of Western Philosophy. His ethics are organized around the notion of a “categorical imperative,” a universal ethical principle 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.
