Timeline of Major Ethical Philosophies

By Yherostata26
  • 469 BCE

    Ancient Greek Ethics: Socrates. 469 BCE - 399 BC

    Ancient Greek Ethics: Socrates. 469 BCE - 399 BC
    Socrates was convinced that possessing and exercising the virtues are absolutely crucial if a person is to lead a good and happy (eudaimon) life. The point of philosophical inquiry into the virtues is that acting correctly requires that one possess knowledge of the human good. Indeed, Socrates seems to have held that the virtues of self-control, wisdom, and courage are nothing other than a particular type of knowledge.
  • 428 BCE

    Ancient Greek Ethics: Socrates. 428 BC - 348 BC

    Ancient Greek Ethics: Socrates. 428 BC - 348 BC
    In Plato’s Theaetetus, he is said have claimed that “whatever the city establishes as just, is just for that city as long as it judges so.”
    In Plato’s Gorgias, Callicles argues that conventional moral codes are the inventions of a weak majority so as to subordinate the powerful few. Weak men promote belief in the goodness of equality since this is the best they can attain. It is a law of nature that the strong ought to possess more than the weak.
  • 384 BCE

    Ancient Greek Ethics: Aristotle. 384 BC - 322 BC

    Ancient Greek Ethics: Aristotle. 384 BC - 322 BC
    Aristotle’s basic thought is that happiness (eudaimonia)—living well—depends on a creature’s perfecting its natural endowments. It follows that the good life for man involves the attainment of virtue or excellence in reason. In general, his claim is that the virtues of character and intellect are ways of perfecting reason and hence indispensable to the good human life. However, he does not neglect the importance of friends, wealth, and social status in a good life.

  • Thomas Hobbes

    Thomas Hobbes
    Thomas Hobbes (1588-1659) provoked widespread reaction when he argued in his masterpiece, Leviathan (1651), that there is no ultimate or objective good. Good and evil are naturally relative to people’s appetites so that they comes to regard what they are inclined to pursue as good and what they are inclined to avoid as bad. Good and bad are relative to individuals’ desires and preferences: there is no such thing as objective goodness.

  • Classical Utilitarian: Jeremy Bentham. (1748-1832)

    Classical Utilitarian: Jeremy Bentham. (1748-1832)
    The Classical Utilitarian, Jeremy Bentham, identified the good with pleasure, so, like Epicurus, were hedonists about value. They also held that we ought to maximize the good, that is, bring about ‘the greatest amount of good for the greatest number’.