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469 BCE
Socrates
He believes “the unexamined life is not worth living.” One must seek knowledge and wisdom before private interests. -
Period: 469 BCE to 399 BCE
Socrates
Birth and Death of Socrates -
428 BCE
Plato
Plato maintains a virtue-based eudaemonistic conception of ethics. That is to say, happiness or well-being (eudaimonia) is the highest aim of moral thought and conduct, and the virtues (aretê: 'excellence') are the requisite skills and dispositions needed to attain it. -
Period: 428 BCE to 348 BCE
Plato
Birth and Death of Plato -
384 BCE
Aristotle
Aristotle emphasized that virtue is practical, and that the purpose of ethics is to become good, not merely to know. Aristotle also claims that the right course of action depends upon the details of a particular situation, rather than being generated merely by applying a law. -
Period: 384 BCE to 322 BCE
Aristotle
Birth and Death of Aristotle -
354
Augustine of Hippo
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. -
Period: 354 to 430
Augustine of Hippo
Birth and Death of Augustine of Hippo -
1225
Thomas Aquinas
Aquinas believes that we should always follow our conscience, even when it is wrong or causes great harm. Since we have no way of knowing whether our consciences are wrong, they are the best guide we have as to what is the moral thing to do. -
Period: 1225 to 1274
Thomas Aquinas
Birth and Death of Thomas Aquinas -
1469
Niccolo Machiavelli
Machiavelli's moral precepts are rooted in his conception of human agency as “bounded” and responsible: he posits that human nature generates a capacity for choice and action that permits people to overcome external forces (such as “fortune”) in order to realize tangible moral goods. -
Period: 1469 to 1527
Niccolo Machiavelli
Birth and Death of Niccolo Machiavelli -
Thomas Hobbes
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. -
Period: to
Thomas Hobbes
Birth and Death of Thomas Hobbes -
René Descartes
Descartes is committed to the view that virtue is sufficient for happiness, that is, a “perfect contentment of mind and inner satisfaction.” At the same time, he denies that virtue has value only as a means to happiness. -
Period: to
René Descartes
Birth and Death of René Descartes -
John Locke
It is the science, Locke says, of using the powers that we have as human beings in order to act in such a way that we obtain things that are good and useful for us. As he says: ethics is “the seeking out those Rules, and Measures of humane Actions, which lead to Happiness, and the Means to practice them” -
Period: to
John Locke
Birth and Death of John Locke -
David Hume
He rejects the rationalist conception of morality whereby humans make moral evaluations, and understand right and wrong, through reason alone. In place of the rationalist view, Hume contends that moral evaluations depend significantly on sentiment or feeling. -
Period: to
David Hume
Birth and Death of David Hume -
Immanuel Kant
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. -
Period: to
Immanuel Kant
Birth and Death of Immanuel Kant -
Jeremy Bentham
The father of utilitarianism, a moral theory that argues that actions should be judged right or wrong to the extent they increase or decrease human well-being or 'utility'. -
Period: to
Jeremy Bentham
Birth and Death of Jeremy Bentham -
John Stuart Mill
The ethical theory of John Stuart Mill is most extensively articulated in his classical text Utilitarianism. Its goal is to justify the utilitarian principle as the foundation of morals. This principle says actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote overall human happiness. -
Period: to
John Stuart Mill
Birth and Death of John Stuart Mill -
W.D Ross
In Foundations of Ethics, Ross suggests that the duties of beneficence, self-improvement, and justice could be subsumed under a single duty to promote intrinsic values (that is, things that are intrinsically good). Doing this would reduce the number of prima facie duties from seven to five. -
Period: to
W.D Ross
Birth and Death of W.D Ross -
C.L Stevenson
Stevenson's major contribution to philosophy was his development of emotivism, a theory of ethical language according to which moral judgments do not state any sort of fact, but rather express the moral emotions of the speaker and attempt to influence others. -
Period: to
C.L Stevenson
Birth and Death of C.L Stevenson -
John Rawls
Rawls argued that only under a "veil of ignorance" could human beings reach a fair and impartial agreement (contract) 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. -
Period: to
John Rawls
Birth and Death of John Rawls