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469 BCE
Socrates (469-399 BCE)
Socrates is the best-known Greek philosopher among most people. One great paradox of his was whether weakness of will, where doing wrong when you are aware of what is right, truly existed. The creation of personal ethics was what he called "the art of measurement" wherein it corrects the distortions of an individual's analyses of benefit and cost. According to Socrates, “no one commits an evil act knowingly, and doing wrong arises out of ignorance.” -
428 BCE
Plato (428-348 BCE)
Plato is one of the world’s best-known and most widely read and studied philosophers. According to him, moral values are objective as they only exist in a spirit-like realm beyond subjective human conventions. They are absolute, eternal, and universal as they apply to all rational creatures around the world and throughout time. -
384 BCE
Aristotle (384-322 BCE)
In Arabic Philosophy, Aristotle was known simply as “The First Teacher;” in the West, he was “The Philosopher”. The ethics of Aristotle is concerned with action, not as being right in itself irrespective of any other consideration, but with actions conducive to man’s good. Aristotle sets himself to discover what this good is and what the science corresponding to it is. -
341 BCE
Epicurus (341-270 BCE)
Epicurus was an ancient greek philosopher who created Epicureanism, a highly influential philosophical school. He was born on the Greek island of Samos. Epicurus is a significant figure in the history of science and philosophy. He is well-known for his theory of hedonism. According to hedonism, we are motivated solely by pleasure or suffering. Ethical or evaluative hedonism claims that only pleasure has worth or value, whereas suffering or displeasure has disvalue or the reverse of worth. -
1225
Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)
An Italian philosopher and theologian who ranks among the most important thinkers of the medieval time period. Aquinas ethical theory states that 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. -
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)
Thomas Hobbes was an English philosopher best known for his work in political and moral philosophy. He believes that human beings are basically selfish creatures who would do anything to improve their position. According to Hobbes, people would act on their evil impulses if left alone; therefore, they should not be trusted to make decisions on their own. In addition, Hobbes felt that like people, nations are selfishly motivated. For him, each country is in a constant battle for power and wealth. -
John Locke (1632–1704)
John Locke was a prominent thinker during the Enlightenment period. Locke is regarded as an important contributor to the development of social contract theory. He established the method of introspection, focusing on one’s own emotions and behaviors in search of a better understanding of the self. He also argued that in order to be true, something must be capable of repeated testing, a view that girded his ideology with the intent of scientific rigor. -
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
Justice systems in democracies are fundamentally based on Kant’s writings. He called any action based on desires a hypothetical imperative, it is a command of reason that applies only if one desires the goal in question. Kant said that the commands of morality must be categorical imperatives: they must apply to all rational beings, regardless of their wants and feelings. He says, “Act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law.” -
Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)
Jeremy Bentham was 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’. He advocated that if the consequences of an action are good, then the act is moral and if the consequences are bad, the act is immoral. Central to his argument was a belief that it is human nature to desire that which is pleasurable and to avoid that which is painful. -
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)
John Stuart Mill defines utilitarianism as a theory based on the principle that "actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness." Mill defines happiness as pleasure and the absence of pain. He argues that pleasure can differ in quality and quantity, and that pleasures that are rooted in one's higher faculties should be weighted more heavily than baser pleasures. -
Karl Marx (1818–1883)
A German-born economist, political theorist, and philosopher, Karl Marx wrote some of the most revolutionary philosophical content ever produced. Characterized capitalism as a production system in which there are inherent conflicts of interest between the bourgeoisie (the ruling class), and the proletariat (the working class), and that these conflicts are couched in the idea that the latter must sell their labor to the former for wages that offer no stake in production. -
John Rawls (1921- 2002)
John Rawls was an American political philosopher in the liberal tradition. Rawls addresses justice on the basis of fairness and puts forth that fairness is achieved when each and every individual has access to the services she needs. The important aspect of Rawls's view is that justice can be achieved not by absolute equity but by fairness and justified his claim depending on two principles.