Philosophers & Ethics
Confucius (551—471BC) Goal of virtuous living is to cultivate oneself and those around you -lived in tumultuous time in China with warring dynasties -saw the solution as a basic return to order and harmony through virtue and ethics -ideas collected by his students in The Analects -theory is all relational in that the individual discovers their role in society and performs that role to the best of their ability -duty to improve yourself and those around you each day
Plato (427-347BC) Balance is the key to a virtuous life Main ethics work, The Republic -Ethics is not relative, it is absolute -By attaining ethics in the individual, society attains justice. -The state cannot be just without ethics in the individuals -The four main virtues that must be balanced in the individual are: temperance, wisdom, courage, justice
Aristotle (384-322BC) Virtues are habits -led Plato’s school, The Academy -formed his own school, The Lyceum -famous ethics work, Nicomachean Ethics -believed that ethics/virtues are habits we cultivate to become a successful person -individual must cultivate habits in association with the virtues of human excellence for happiness to occur in society
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) Contract Theory -English philosopher born in great unrest in England -greatest work, The Leviathan, argued for a novel, secular approach to morality and the necessary supremacy of a strong monarch -without “civilization” humanity’s natural state is to be at war with one another and dissolve into chaos -without laws/order people’s lives will be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, short” -people must join together under a social contract with the king to improve this condition -by giving their rights to the king, their lives become better and individual ethics become possible -thought to be the beginnings of modern democratic state philosophy
David Hume (1711-1776) Morals don’t stem from reason, but from emotion -Scottish philosopher, famous skeptic -famous work, A Treatise on Human Nature, covers knowledge, reality, language, and ethics -attacks the supremacy of reason -moral judgments don’t stem from reason, but from feelings -reason does not evaluate things as good or bad -reason sorts through facts and feelings determine/reveal what is good -“reason is the slave of the passions” -human nature has the built in capacity for altruism and sympathy -you derive pleasure from the success of your friends, etc
John Calvin (1509-1564): Religious Reform -important Theologian, took over where Martin Luther left off in the Protestant Reformation -rejected Catholic rule and doctrine -emphasized the sovereignty of the scriptures and divine predestination, a doctrine holding that God chooses those who will enter Heaven based on His omnipotence and grace. -known for his intellectual, unemotional approach to faith -credited as the most important figure of the second generation of the Protestant Reformation after Martin Luther
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804): Being Ethical makes you free lived his whole life in Konigsberg, Prussia (what is now Russia) -went from being a lowly tutor to one of the most influential philosophers of all time -main ethics work, Critique of Practical Reason, Metaphysics of Morals -believed we could create a balancing system of animal passions and human reason by creating an ethical system that each person takes on for him/herself. -he thought there was a deep connection between ethical principles and the freedom of the will. -If you are doing what’s right, you are doing what makes you free.
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) : Maximize Utility -English philosopher, famous for political and ethical philosophy -father was a good friend of Jeremy Bentham, the founder of the modern version of utilitarianism called hedonism. -Mill was a great defender of utilitarianism -main work, On Liberty, and Utilitarianism - he argued that we need to maximize the general good for the greatest number of people -unlike Bentham, Mill argued that not all pleasures are equal and they are worth more if they’re associated with reason, deliberation, or socially valuable emotion
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) : Connecting Morals and Power German philosopher famous for his attacks on traditional morality -Genealogy of Morals, Thus Spoke Zarathustra - felt traditional morality emphasized and glorified weakness and crowd thinking over real power and individuality -traditional morality turns people into drones -his response is to pull away from the crowd and do your own thing -see who you are as an individual and value your strength without a need to seek approval from the crowd
John Rawls (1921-2002) : Looking out for the Less Fortunate -American philosopher, fought in WWII, then became a professor at Cornell and Harvard -major work, A Theory of Justice -a Kantian view of politics, tried to resist the utilitarianism view of politics -Rawls proposed a method called original position, where just principles for governing society could be constructed -policies should promote liberty while directing benefits from any inequalities to those who are the least well off in society -the poor would benefit from those with the good luck to have been born into advantage -develop ways that diverse peoples could live in stability
Peter Singer (1946-): currently teaching at Princeton University -on the news occasionally -a utilitarian, like Mill, he is best known for his application of utilitarianism to animal rights and global poverty -book, Animal Liberation, is considered one of the most important works in the animal rights movement -essay, “Famine, Affluence, and Morality” is considered the most influential piece in fighting global poverty -challenges people to cut back on material goods to help poorer countries meet basic needs. -praise from his supporters, constant death threats from detractors