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551 BCE
Confucius (Confucianism) 551 BCE - 479 BCE
He believed it was his responsibility to defend the morals and compassion of those around him. He pictured a society where the Golden Rule—"What you would not have done to yourself, do not do to others"—serves as the cornerstone of morality.
His ethics of exchange was based on the concept of discipline. A leader must lead through example, show humility, and express compassion to his people. -
470 BCE
Socrates (470 BCE - 399 BCE)
Instead of showing off his knowledge, he made inquiries. Using a strategy called as the dialectic method, the audience is made to think through a problem to a logical conclusion. The Socratic method is the basis of Western logic and philosophy. He also said that "unexamined life is not worth living" which linked to knowledge with virtue. Anything can taught and learn according to him -
428 BCE
Plato (428 BCE - 348 BCE)
"Virtue is the desire of things honorable and the power of attaining them. Plato, like a lot of other ancient philosophers, encourages a virtue-based, eudaemonistic conception of ethics. Eudaimonia, or happiness or well-being, is the ultimate objective of moral thought and behavior, and the virtues (aretê: "excellence") are the dispositions and skills required for attaining it. -
348 BCE
Aristotle (348 BCE - 322 BCE)
Aristotle used the term "ethics" to refer to a branch of knowledge created by his forebears since he believed that knowledge is learned by interaction with objects. He made the argument that ethics may be found within both conduct and reason, and that knowledge is acquired through experience. -
341 BCE
Epicurus (341 BCE - 270 BCE)
Greek philosopher Epicurus lived during the period known as the Hellenistic. He founded the Epicurean school of philosophy in ancient Greece, whose fundamental objective was to promote friendship, freedom, and an examined existence in order to achieve a joyful, peaceful life defined by the absence of pain and fear. His epistemology was empiricist, his ethics was hedonistic, and his metaphysics was typically hedonistic. -
Immanuel Kant (Deontology) 1724 - 1804
One of the most influential philosophers in Western philosophy's history is himself. He made significant contributions to metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics, all of which had a significant influence on virtually every philosophical movement that came after him. He created the Kantian ethics, which developed as a result of Enlightenment rationalism. "Don't lie. Don't steal. Don't cheat". It is the foundation of his theory. -
Jeremy Bentham (Utilitarianism) 1748–1832
The founder of modern utilitarianism, which holds that actions are morally right if they tend to promote happiness or pleasure (and morally wrong if they tend to promote unhappiness or pain) within all those they have an impact on, is philosopher, economist, jurist, and legal reformer ,Jeremy Bentham. Also, he said that "Ethics at large may be defined, the art of directing men's actions to the production of the greatest possible quantity of happiness." -
John Rawls (Justice Theory) 1921-2002
He was a liberal-minded American political philosopher. His view of justice as fairness envisions a community of free individuals with an egalitarian economic. According to Rawls, people (like us) who see themselves as free and equal should be able to accept and support as ethically acceptable the rules of equality guiding our basic social institutions and personal behavior. -
Lawrence Kohlberg (1927-1987)
He was a psychologist from the United States well known for his theory on the moral development. He was a professor at Harvard University's Graduate School of Education and the University of Chicago's Psychology Department. The basic idea of Kohlberg's theory is the process of deciding whether a behavior is right or incorrect. Thus, instead of what one decides or does, the theoretical focus is on how one decides to respond to an ethical problem. -
Jürgen Habermas
Perhaps Habermas' theory of "communicative action," which he developed in "The Theory of Communicative Action," is best known. (1981). The increasing legitimacy issue of advanced capitalist countries is the main topic of this study. Habermas' theory of communicative action is based on the idea that the ability of actors to understand the intersubjective validity of the various claims that social cooperation depends on ultimately determines the social order.