ethics

Table of Contents

Introduction & Top Questions
The origins of ethics
- Mythical accounts
  - Introduction of moral codes
  - Problems of divine origin
- Prehuman ethics
  - Nonhuman behaviour
  - Kinship and reciprocity
- Anthropology and ethics
The history of Western ethics
- Ancient civilizations to the end of the 19th century
  - The ancient Middle East and Asia
    - The Middle East
    - India
    - China
  - Ancient and Classical Greece
    - Ancient Greece
    - Socrates
    - Plato
    - Aristotle
  - Later Greek and Roman ethics
    - The Stoics
    - The Epicureans
  - Christian ethics from the New Testament to the Scholastics
    - Ethics in the New Testament
    - St. Augustine
    - St. Thomas Aquinas and the Scholastics
  - The Renaissance and the Reformation
    - Machiavelli
    - The first Protestants
  - The British tradition from Hobbes to the utilitarians
    - Hobbes
    - Early intuitionists: Cudworth, More, and Clarke
    - Shaftesbury and the moral sense school
    - Butler on self-interest and conscience
    - The climax of moral sense theory: Hutcheson and Hume
    - The intuitionist response: Price and Reid
    - Utilitarianism
      Paley
      Bentham
      Mill
      Sidgwick
  - The Continental tradition from Spinoza to Nietzsche
    - Spinoza
    - Leibniz
    - Rousseau
    - Kant
    - Hegel
    - Marx
    - Nietzsche
- Western ethics from the beginning of the 20th century
  - Metaethics
    - Moore and the naturalistic fallacy
    - Modern intuitionism
    - Emotivism
    - Existentialism
    - Universal prescriptivism
    - Later developments in metaethics
      Moral realism
      Kantian constructivism: a middle ground?
      Irrealist views: projectivism and expressivism
      Ethics and reasons for action
  - Normative ethics
    - The debate over consequentialism
    - Varieties of consequentialism
    - Objections to consequentialism
    - An ethics of prima facie duties
    - Rawls’s theory of justice
    - Rights theories
    - Natural law ethics
    - Virtue ethics
    - Feminist ethics
    - Ethical egoism
  - Applied ethics
    - Equality
    - Animals
    - Environmental ethics
    - War and peace
    - Abortion, euthanasia, and the value of human life
    - Bioethics

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ethics: Facts & Related Content

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Also Known As	moral philosophy

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Topics

universalizability moralism summum bonum eudaemonism principle of equity axiom of benevolence method of reflective equilibrium history of ethics applied ethics Trolley problem metaphysics epistemology philosophy of art aesthetics philosophy of science philosophy of mind political philosophy philosophical anthropology philosophy of language philosophy of law

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Key People

Aristotle

Aristotle

Greek philosopher

Socrates

Socrates

Greek philosopher

Plato

Plato

Greek philosopher

Justus of Ghent: Saint Augustine

St. Augustine

Christian bishop and theologian

Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant

German philosopher

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

German philosopher

Benedict de Spinoza

Benedict de Spinoza

Dutch-Jewish philosopher

Adam Smith

Adam Smith

Scottish philosopher

David Hume

David Hume

Scottish philosopher

John Stuart Mill

John Stuart Mill

British philosopher and economist

Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche

German philosopher

Arthur Schopenhauer

Arthur Schopenhauer

German philosopher

Bernard Williams

Bernard Williams

English philosopher

Johann Gottlieb Fichte

German philosopher

Alasdair MacIntyre

Alasdair MacIntyre

Scottish-born philosopher

Epicurus

Greek philosopher

Peter Singer

Peter Singer

Australian philosopher

Emmanuel Lévinas

French philosopher

Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī

Persian scholar

Derek Parfit

British philosopher

List

Aristotle (384-322 BC), Ancient Greek philosopher and scientist. One of the most influential philosophers in the history of Western thought, Aristotle established the foundations for the modern scientific method of enquiry. Statue

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Well-balanced of stones on the top of boulder

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