History of ethical philosopy from Philosophers

Confucios: "By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest."

551 BCE

Confucius’ ethics basically asserts that filial piety and fraternal love are the roots of humaneness, the foundation and origin of human morality; all social goods are extensions of family ethics.

Socrates: The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance

470 BCE

Socrates, who once observed that “the unexamined life is not worth living,” must be regarded as one of the greatest teachers of ethics. Yet, unlike other figures of comparable importance, such as the Buddha or Confucius, he did not tell his audience how they should live. What Socrates taught was a method of inquiry.

Plato: Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.

428 BCE

For Plato, ethics comes down to two basic things: eudaimonia and arete. Eudaimonia, or "well being," is the virtue that Plato teaches we must all aim toward. The ideal person is the person who possesses eudaimonia, and the field of ethics is mostly just a description of what such an ideal person would truly be like. However, achieving eudaimonia requires something extra, which Plato calls arete, or excellence. Possessing arete is the way that one can reach a state of eudaimonia.

Aristotle: It is our choice of good or evil that determines our character, not our opinion about good or evil.

384 BCE

It is impossible, Aristotle says, to be really good without wisdom or to be really wise without moral virtue. Only when correct reasoning and right desire come together does truly virtuous action result. Virtuous action, then, is always the result of successful practical reasoning. But practical reasoning may be defective in various ways. A glutton, for example, may plan his life around the project of always maximizing the present pleasure. Aristotle calls such a person “intemperate.”

Epicurus: The just man is most free from disturbance, while the unjust is full of the utmost disturbance.

341 BCE

icurus’ ethics is a form of egoistic hedonism; i.e., he says that the only thing that is intrinsically valuable is one’s own pleasure; anything else that has value is valuable merely as a means to securing pleasure for oneself.

Thomas Hobbes: The first and fundamental law of Nature, which is, to seek peace and follow it.

1588

Hobbes 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. He contended that the sovereign alone is empowered to make laws regulating our actions.

Immanuel Kant: Do the right thing because it is right.

1724

Kant’s ethics are organized around the notion of a “categorical imperative,” which is a universal ethical principle stating that one should always respect the humanity in others, and that one should only act in accordance with rules that could hold for everyone. Kant argued that the moral law is a truth of reason, and hence that all rational creatures are bound by the same moral law.