Timeline of Major Ethical Philosophies

THALES OF MILETUS (620 BC–546 BC)

546 BCE

“The past is certain, the future obscure.” He's a pre-Socratic and Ancient Greek philosopher who influenced many people. He is best known for his cosmology, which depicted the Earth as a flat disk floating in a vast sea, with water as the essence of all matter. Thales' hypotheses were innovative and daring, and by liberating phenomena from divine influence, he set the ground for scientific inquiry.

SOCRATES (469-399 BC)

399 BCE

Socrates was convinced that virtues must be possessed and exercised in order for a person to live in eudaimonia. According to him, “no one commits an evil act knowingly and doing wrong arises out of ignorance.” If one lacks moral knowledge, he will only commit moral evil. Even though a person has knowledge, he or she may choose to commit an evil act in order to fulfill a hidden motive.

ARISTOTLE (384-322 BC)

322 BCE

Aristotle defined virtue theory by stating that if we truly want people to be ethical, we must teach them to practice ethics from an early age. He claimed that men who are educated to be ethical in trivial matters as children will act ethically in all situations as they grow older. Aristotle’s “The Golden Mean Principle” states that to be happy, live a life of moderation. In everything that we do, we must avoid extremes (Roa, 2007).

PLATO (428-348 BC)

348

Plato's main goal is to challenge most people's notions about goodness, because it is here that they go horribly wrong in their attempts to live happy lives. Most people consider virtue to be a minor benefit or even a hindrance to living a happy life. This, he believes, is wrong; we can only aspire to be happy if we are virtuous.
He also stated that unethical people are merely ignorant in ethics, and that it is a natural law that the strong should have more than the weak.

THOMAS HOBBES (1588-1659)

1588

Moral positivism, as envisioned by Hobbes, foresees a chaotic outcome if laws are disobeyed. We all believe that the government's role is to protect citizens' rights, uphold justice, and enforce the law. Every nation must have someone in charge of managing and administering it. As a result, the creation of laws and the compliance of their subjects are essential to the order and preservation of peace in countries (Roa, 2007).

IMMANUEL KANT (1724-1804)

1724

Kant argued that the only absolutely good thing is “goodwill." It is the action principle that all rational beings should follow in all circumstances and for its own purpose.
Immanuel Kant, the philosopher, is commonly associated with deontology. Kant believed that ethical behavior is guided by universal moral rules such as "Don't lie. Don't steal. "Don't cheat." This philosophy aligns with our natural instincts about what is and isn't ethical

JEREMY BENTHAM (1748-1832)-

1748

Modern utilitarianism was founded by Jeremy Bentham. The maxim "Do whatever produces the greatest good for the greatest number" summarizes utilitarian ethics, which contends that the effects of an action, not the motive for the action, determine its morality. The goodness or badness of an action is determined by its effects or consequences. An act is good if and when it produces positive results, if it works, if it leads to success, and if it helps you achieve your goals. Otherwise, it is bad.

GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL (1770–1831)

1831

“Too fair to worship, too divine to love.” Hegel was a German philosopher who is regarded as the founder of German idealism. Hegel essentially views human civilizations as progressing in the same way that an argument does. He also believed that we do not directly perceive the world or anything in it, and that all our minds have access to are world ideas—images, perceptions, and concepts.

JOHN RAWLS (1921-2002)

1921

The two major concepts of liberty and equality in Rawls' theory of justice are subdivided into Fair Equality of Opportunity and the Difference Principle. Justice as fairness, according to Rawls, is the most egalitarian, as well as the most plausible, interpretation of these fundamental liberalism concepts. He also claims that justice as fairness is superior to the dominant tradition in modern political thought, utilitarianism, in terms of understanding justice.

JEAN-FRANÇOIS LYOTARD (1924–1998)

1924

Scientific knowledge is a kind of discourse.” Jean-François Lyotard was a French philosopher whose best-known work, The Postmodern Condition, was published in 1979, much to his dismay. Lyotard argued that events constantly occur in the face of what is not presentable to a phenomenology, discourse, language game, or phrase regimen, from his early work on phenomenology through Discourse, Figure, Libidinal Economy, and The Postmodern Condition.