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469 BCE
SOCRATES (469-399 BC)
Socrates is one of the few individuals whom one could say has so-shaped the cultural and intellectual development of the world that, without him, history would be profoundly different. He is best known for his association with the Socratic method of question and answer, his claim that he was ignorant (or aware of his own absence of knowledge) . According to Socrates, " no one commits evil act knowingly and doing wrong arises out of ignorance." -
428 BCE
PLATO (428-348 BC)
Plato is one of the world's best known and most widely read and studied philosophers. He was the student of Socrates and the teacher of Aristotle. Plato held that moral values are objective in the sense that they exist in a spirit-like realm beyond subjective human conventions. Plato's main concern is to challenge the views most people have about goodness, for it is here that they go disastrously wrong in trying to live happy lives. -
384 BCE
ARISTOTLE (384-322 BC)
He was known as " The First Teacher" in the West and he was a Philosopher. Aristotle's "The Golden Mean Principle" states that to be happy, live a life of moderation. The ethics of Aristotle is concerned with action, not as being right in itself irrespective of any other consideration, but with actions conductive to man's good. Aristotle sets himself to discover what this good is and what the science corresponding to it is. ( Copleston, 1993) -
THOMAS HOBBES (1588-1679) Moral Positivism
Thomas Hobbes is best known for his political thought, and deservedly so. His vision of the world is strikingly original and still relevant to contemporary politics. He believes that human beings are basically selfish creatures who would do anything to improve their position. According to Hobbes, people would act on their evil impulses in left alone for themselves; therefore, they should not be trusted to make decisions on their own. -
UTILITARIANISM
Utilitarianism is one of the most powerful and persuasive approaches to normative ethics inn the history of philosophy. The Classical Utilitarian, Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, identified the good with pleasure, so like Epicurus, were hedonists about value. They also held that we ought to maximize the good, that is, bring about ' the greatest amount of good for the greatest number'.
