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No one chooses to do evil; no one chooses to behave in ignorance, according to Socrates. We seek the good but are unable to acquire it due to ignorance or a lack of knowledge about how to obtain it. No one, he feels, would deliberately endanger themselves. When we are harmed, even if we believe we are seeking the good, the good is not gained because we lack understanding about how to best achieve the good. -
Plato's ethical thought is, then, structured by a broad eudaemonist assumption. His main focus is to challenge most people's perceptions of goodness, because it is here that they go horribly wrong in their attempts to live happy lives. Most people consider virtue to be a modest benefit or even a hindrance to leading a happy life. This, according to Plato, is absolutely inaccurate; we can only aspire to be happy if we are virtuous. -
The golden mean's primary idea, established by Aristotle 2,500 years ago, is moderation, or the pursuit of a balance between extremes. The concept of "satisficing," or doing a little of what everyone wants but not obtaining exactly what they want, is a related concept in corporate communication. It's simply a compromise between interested parties. The golden mean is not a bargaining method, but rather a philosophy of moderation meant to serve the best interests of one's stakeholders and publics. -
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), an English philosopher, is best renowned for his political ideas, and rightly so. His worldview is extremely innovative, and it is still relevant in today's politics. His main focus is the issue of social and political order: how humans can coexist peacefully and avoid the risk and fear of civil war. He offers two clear alternatives: we should submit to an unaccountable ruler or we should resist (a person or group empowered to decide every social and political issue). -
Deontology is derived from the Greek deon, which means duty, obligation, or mandate. It is the opposite of utilitarianism as an ethical framework in that it believes that the consequences of a moral decision are irrelevant. So, even if an activity has positive outcomes, it is still unethical if it is carried out for the wrong motives. Similarly, an activity might have disastrous outcomes but still be considered moral if it is carried out with the best of intentions. -
In the history of philosophy, utilitarianism has been one of the most prominent and appealing approaches to normative ethics, deriving from the late 18th and 19th-century English philosophers and economists Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. Though there are various variations of the viewpoint, utilitarianism is commonly understood to be the belief that the ethically correct action is the one that generates the greatest amount of good.