-
551 BCE
Confucius
“The perfecting of one's self is the fundamental base of all progress and all moral development.” Confucius, a Chinese philosopher, founded Confucianism, a virtue ethic. The worldly concern of Confucianism rests upon the belief that human beings are fundamentally good, and teachable, improvable, and perfectible through personal and communal endeavor, especially self-cultivation and self-creation. Confucian thought focuses on the cultivation of virtue in a morally organized world. -
469 BCE
Socrates
“No one commits an evil act knowingly and doing wrong arises out of ignorance.” Socrates believed that a person will commit only moral evil if he lacks moral knowledge. A person may also possess the knowledge, but commit evil to satisfy a hidden motive. He believed that people only did wrong when their perceived benefits outweighed costs. Hence, the development of personal ethics is what is called the art of measurement, correcting the distortions that skew one’s analysis on benefit and cost. -
428 BCE
Plato
"Good actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good action in others." Widely viewed as the most important philosopher of Western Civilization, Plato held that moral values are objective in the sense that they exist in a spirit-like realm beyond subjective human conventions and are eternal or absolute in that they apply to all rational creatures. Plato also challenged the views most people have about goodness. He believed that it is only be being virtuous that humans can hope to be happy. -
384 BCE
Aristotle
“At his best, man is the noblest of all animals separated from law and justice he is the worst.” Aristotle, known as The First Teacher or The Philosopher, argued that virtues are good habits that we acquire, which regulate our emotions. And that they fall at a mean between extreme character traits. His ethics were concerned with action not as being right in itself irrespective of other considerations, but action conducive to man’s good. And to be happy, one must live a life of moderation. -
354 BCE
Augustine
“Right is right even if no one is doing it; wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it.” Augustine of Hippo, or Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher who regarded ethics as an enquiry into the Summum Bonum: the supreme good, which provides the happiness all human beings seek. For him, happiness consists in the enjoyment of God, a reward granted in the afterlife for virtue in this life. Virtue itself is a gift of God, and founded on love, not on the wisdom prized by philosophers. -
Thomas Hobbes
"It is not wisdom, but authority that makes a law." Hobbes believed that human beings are selfish creatures who would do anything to improve their position, that if left alone, they would act on their evil impulses therefore they should not be trusted to make their own decisions. Hobbes’ moral positivism anticipates the chaotic outcome if laws are not abided. Someone must manage and administer human beings. Hence, laws must be created to ensure the order and maintenance of peace. -
Immanuel Kant (Deontology)
"In law, a man is guilty when he violates the right of others. In ethics he is only guilty if he only thinks of doing so." Kant developed Kantian ethics, which are organized around the notion of a categorical imperative, 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. He insisted that one's actions possess moral worth only when one does his duty for its own sake. -
Jeremy Bentham (Utilitarianism)
"Do whatever produces the greatest good for the greatest number." Bentham, an English philosopher, developed the first systematic account of utilitarianism, a moral theory that held actions as morally right if they tend to promote happiness or pleasure (and morally wrong if they tend to promote unhappiness or pain) among all those affected by them. It emphasizes that what makes an act right is the corresponding consequences and not the motive of the action. -
John Rawls
"Justice is happiness according to virtue." Rawls was an American moral and political philosopher who wrote 'A Theory of Justice', in which he provides a moral theory alternative to utilitarianism. He holds that justice as fairness is the most egalitarian and most plausible interpretation of fundamental concepts of liberalism. He also argues that justice as fairness provides a superior understanding of justice to that of the dominant tradition in modern political thought: utilitarianism.
