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Period: 469 BCE to 399 BCE
Socrates
“It is better to change an opinion than to persist in a wrong one.” “The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance.” -
Period: 428 BCE to 348 BCE
Plato
"Knowledge without justice ought to be called cunning rather than wisdom." “Good people don’t need laws to tell them to act responsibly and bad people will find a way around the laws.” -
Period: 384 BCE to 322 BCE
Aristotle
Golden Mean Principle:
“Virtue is the golden mean between two vices, the one of excess and the other of deficiency.” “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” -
Period: to
Moral Positivism
“Moral philosophy is nothing else but the science of what is good, and evil, in the conversation, and society of mankind. Good, and evil, are names that signify our appetites, and aversions; which in different tempers, customs, and doctrines of men, are different.” – Thomas Hobbes -
Period: to
Utilitarianism
“Actions are in right proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain.” - John Stuart Mill “Actions should be judged right or wrong to the extent they increase or decrease human well-being or utility.” - Jeremy Bentham