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470 BCE
SOCRATES OF ATHENS
He was a classical Greek(Athenian) philosopher credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, and as being the first moral philosopher of the Western ethical tradition of thought. An enigmatic figure, he made no writings, and is known chiefly through the accounts of classical writers writing after his lifetime, particularly his students Plato and Xenophon. He believed in an ethical system based on human logic and reason. He also developed the “Socratic Method”. -
427 BCE
PLATO
He was a philosopher in Classical Greece and the founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. He is widely considered the pivotal figure in the development of Western philosophy. He maintains a virtue-based eudaemonistic conception of ethics. Unlike nearly all of his philosophical contemporaries, Plato's entire work is believed to have survived intact for over 2,400 years. Add tags + -
384 BCE
ARISTOTLE
He was an ancient Greek philosopher and scientist born in the city of Stagira, Chalkidiki, in the north of Classical Greece. Along with Plato, he is considered the "Father of Western Philosophy". He first used the term ethics to name a field of study developed by his predecessors Socrates and Plato. His Nichomachean Ethics usually maintains that he emphasized the role of habit in conduct. Thus, emphasized that virtue is practical and that the purpose of ethics is to become good. Add tags + -
354 BCE
AUGUSTINE
He was a fourth century Roman African philosopher whose groundbreaking philosophy infused Christian doctrine with Neoplatonism. He is famous for being an inimitable Catholic theologian and for his agnostic contributions to Western philosophy. He argues that skeptics have no basis for claiming to know that there is no knowledge. He is also the first Western philosopher to promote what has come to be called “ the argument by analogy” against solipsism. Add tags + -
1225
THOMAS AQUINAS
He was an Italian Dominican friar, Catholic priest, and Doctor of the Church. He was an immensely influential philosopher, theologian, and jurist in the tradition of scholasticism, within which he is also known as the Doctor Angelicus and the Doctor Communis. The moral philosophy of him involves a merger of at least two apparently disparate traditions: Aristotelian eudaemonism and Christian theology. For him, economic transactions, as human interactions, cannot be separated from ethics. -
1561
FRANCIS BACON
He was an English philosopher, lawyer and statesman, who served as Attorney General, and as Lord Chancellor of England. He claimed all knowledge as his province. His works are credited with developing the scientific method, and remained influential through the scientific revolution. He is one of the founders of the concept of natural essence of morality. The subject of the study of ethics considered the will of man, which directs and organizes his mind and triggers the emotions. -
RENE DESCARTES
He was a French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist. He is generally considered as one of the most notable intellectual figures of the Dutch Golden Age. He developed the conception of moral virtue and happiness along with other accounts of values and norms. His metaphysical and epistemological claims promote eudaemonia. -
JOHN LOCKE
He was an influential English philosopher, physician and social contract theorist commonly known as the "Father of Liberalism". He was best known for his advocacy of life, liberty, and property during the 17th century. Credited with outlining the system of free enterprise and incorporation that has become the legal basis for American business. His works influenced multiple diplomats concerning liberty and the social contract between society and the government. -
IMMANUEL KANT
He was a German philosopher who is a central figure in modern philosophy. He is the most important proponent in philosophical history of deontological, or duty based, ethics. His ethical theory exerted a powerful influence on the subsequent history of philosophy and continues to be a dominant approach to ethics, rivaling consequentialism and virtue ethics. He believed that reason is the source of morality, and that aesthetics arise from a faculty of disinterested judgment. -
GEORGE WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL
He was a German philosopher and an important figure of German idealism. He is one of the greatest systematic thinkers in the history of Western philosophy. His overall encyclopedic system is divided into the science of Logic, the philosophy of Nature, and the philosophy of Spirit. Of most enduring interest are his views on history, society, and the state, which fall within the realm of Objective Spirit. -
CHARLES DARWIN
He was an English naturalist, geologist and biologist best known for his contributions to the science of evolution. His proposition that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors is now widely accepted and considered a foundational concept in science. His influence upon ethical theory was the general biological and logical principles in his Origin of Species which gave the theory of moral evolution a concrete setting and a much broader basis for the social nature of man. -
JOHN DEWEY
He was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Considered as one of the fathers of functional psychology. He was a leading proponent of the American school of thought known as pragmatism, a view that rejected the dualistic epistemology and metaphysics of modern philosophy in favor of a naturalistic approach that viewed knowledge as arising from an active adaptation of the human organism to its environment.