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Socrates was an ancient Greek philosopher, one of the three greatest figures of the ancient period of Western philosophy, He was the first Greek philosopher to seriously explore questions of ethics.
Socrates believed that if one knows what the good is, one will naturally do what is good. Evil or bad actions are the result of ignorance. Thus if one truly understands the meaning of courage, self-control, or justice, one will act in a courageous, self-controlled and just manner. -
Plato is an Athenian philosopher and he is one of the most important figures of the Ancient Greek world.
His moral theory was based on man achieving his highest good. Highest good is achieved by having right cultivation of soul or the “inner well-being” + harmonious well-being of life or called “eudaimonia”. . His main point is that you should be virtuous or simply show good actions to others so that others will also do good in return. -
Aristotle, an ancient Greek philosopher and scientist. He introduced the concept of what is usually referred to as the golden mean of moderation. The golden mean is a principle of moderation intended to serve the best interest of one's stakeholders and publics, rather than a tactic of negotiation. He believed that every virtue resides somewhere between the vices of defect and excess. That is, one can display either too little or too much of a good thing, or a virtue. -
Thomas Aquinas is perhaps the most well-known and highly regarded theologian and philosopher of the Catholic Church, he was born the youngest son to a Sicilian noble family in 1225. His ethical theory involves both principles, rules about how to act, and virtues - personality traits which are taken to be good or moral to have. He believes that moral thought is mainly about bringing moral order to one's own action and will. -
Rene Descartes is a French mathematician, scientist, and philosopher. He believes that the goal of human life is happiness. He also believes that happiness requires a healthy mind. The “true health of mind” consists in developing wisdom, which is “true and sound judgement”. The view that mind and body are two separate substances; the self is as it happens associated with a particular body, but is self-subsistent, and capable of independent existence. -
Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Kant’s ethical theory represent deontological ethics. For him a right action consists solely in action that is rules and justified by a rule or principle. It was the rational and autonomous conformity of one’s will to see right the universal moral law. -
Jeremy Bentham was an English philosopher, jurist, and social reformer regarded as the founder of modern utilitarianism. Utilitarianism would say that an action is right if it results in the happiness of the greatest number of people in a society or a group. He believed that human beings were motivated by pleasure and pain. -
John Stuart Mill was an English philosopher, political economist, Member of Parliament, and civil servant. The ethical theory of John Stuart Mill is most extensively articulated in his classical text Utilitarianism. Its goal is to justify the utilitarian principle as the foundation of morals. This principle says actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote overall human happiness. -
John Bordley Rawls was an American moral and political philosopher in the liberal tradition. A Theory of Justice is a 1971 work of political philosophy and ethics by the philosopher John Rawls, in which he attempts to provide a moral theory alternative to utilitarianism and that addresses the problem of distributive justice (the socially just distribution of goods in a society). He believed that each person should have as much liberty as possible, as long as others have the same. -
Peter Albert David Singer AC is an Australian moral philosopher. Singer says that Act Utilitarianism defeats itself. He illustrates the problem with the example of promise keeping. Promises are made on the understanding that they will be kept, something the rule utilitarian recognizes as promoting happiness.
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