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490 BCE
Protagoras (“The truth is relative, and differs according to each individual.”)
Protagoras (490-420 BCE) opposed the idea of an objective moral standard and supported moral relativism. He emphasized how much moral codes are products of human creation, sets of customs practiced and upheld by specific communities. -
470 BCE
Socrates (“The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance.”)
Socrates (470-399 BCE) was convinced that virtues must be possessed and exercised in order to live a good and happy (eudaimonia) life. The point of philosophical investigation into the virtues is that acting correctly necessitates knowledge of the human good. Indeed, Socrates appears to have believed that the virtues of self-control, wisdom, and courage are simply forms of knowledge. -
428 BCE
Plato (“Knowledge is virtue.”)
Plato (428-348 BCE), like most other ancient philosophers, holds a virtue-based eudaemonistic view of ethics. That is why he believes that happiness (eudaimonia) is the highest goal of moral thought and behavior, and the virtues (aretê: 'excellence') are the dispositions/skills required to achieve it. -
384 BCE
Aristotle (“Virtue lies in our power, and similarly so does vice; because where it is in our power to act, it is also in our power not to act...” )
Aristotle (384-322 BCE) was Plato's student, and his ethical inquiries follow the same ethical framework. According to him, happiness (eudaimonia)—living well—depends on a creature perfecting its natural endowments. He contends that because reason is unique to man, a human being's function (ergon) will involve the exercise and perfection of its rational capacities. As a result, the good life for man entails achieving virtue or excellence (arête) in reason. -
1225
Saint Thomas Aquinas (“To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.”)
Aquinas (1225-1274) stated that eudaimonia is transposed into perfect happiness (beatitude), which is understood to be union with God. He stated that the goal of human life is fully realized in the beatific vision, which is defined as a supernatural union with God in the afterlife. In other words, human beings have God as their ultimate goal, and natural laws are the patterns that help them achieve this goal. These laws benefit everyone, whether they realize it or not. -
1265
John Duns Scotus (“If all men by nature desire to know, then they desire most of all the greatest knowledge of science.”)
John Duns Scotus (1265–1308) investigated novel theological methods that were based on the notion that the divine will came first. One illustration is the concept of merit, which refers to a person's moral and ethical behavior that is thought to be deserving of a reward from God. According to John, any evaluation of the performance's intrinsic value comes second to the divine desire to reward moral and ethical behavior. -
1287
William of Ockham (“For nothing ought to be posited without a reason given, unless it is self-evident (literally, known through itself) or known by experience or proved by the authority of Sacred Scripture.”)
According to Ockham (1287-1347), natural law is ultimately rooted in God's will. This concept is known as theological voluntarism, a meta-ethical doctrine that holds that actions are right because God wills them to be so. In addition, he stated that God could only make killing ethically acceptable if he determined what was right and wrong. God's will is the ultimate source of moral standards since God has the ability to make killing morally acceptable. -
Thomas Hobbes ("Good, and evil, are names that signify our appetites, and aversions; which in different tempers, customs, and doctrines of men, are different.")
Hobbes (1588 - 1679) argued that there is no ultimate or objective good. Good and evil are naturally relative to people's appetites, so what they want to pursue is becoming good and what they want to avoid is becoming bad. There is no such thing as objective goodness: good and bad are relative to individuals' desires and preferences. This implies that there are many different goods for different people, rather than a single overarching good, as Aristotle and Aquinas claimed. -
David Hume ("Reason is and ought to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.")
Hume (1711 - 1776) claims that if the reason is not responsible for our ability to distinguish moral goodness from badness, then there must be another human capacity that allows us to make moral distinctions. In addition, he rejects rationalist theories of natural law, accusing them of an 'is-ought' fallacy, which occurs when it is assumed that premises about what is the case (matters of fact) can justify conclusions about what one ought to do (see fact and value). -
Immanuel Kant (“The people naturally adhere most to doctrines which demand the least self-exertion and the least use of their own reason, and which can best accommodate their duties to their inclinations.”)
Kant (1724 - 1804) does not agree with utilitarianism that happiness is always good; in fact, he believes that happiness obtained through immorality is not a good thing at all. Rather, he contends, "goodwill" is the only unconditional good or the only thing that is good in all circumstances. In general, goodwill is a motivation to do the right thing because it is the right thing to do. Thus, this is the essence of what it means to be motivated by duty.