History of ethics
Encyclopedia
Ethics
is the branch of philosophy
that examines the question of what actions are morally
right or wrong and why. There has been a very wide range of views on the question among different civilizations and among different philosophers.
, Homer's Iliad
and the Icelandic Eddas, portray a set of values that suit the strong leader of a small tribe. Valour and success are the principal qualities of a hero, and are generally not constrained by moral considerations. Revenge and vendetta are appropriate activities for heros. The gods that appear in such epics are not defenders of moral values but are as capricious as forces of nature, and are to be feared and propitiated.
More strictly ethical claims are found occasionally in the literature of ancient civilizations that is aimed at lower classes of society. The Sumerian Farmer's Almanac
and the Egyptian Instruction of Amenemope both advise farmers to leave some grain for poor gleaners, and promise favours from the gods for doing so. A number of ancient religions and ethical thinkers also put forward some version of the golden rule
, at least in its negative version: do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself.
, as portrayed in Plato
's dialogue Gorgias
, defends an ethical theory that the Greeks found paradoxical, that it is better to suffer injustice than to do it. That is because the doing of evil damages the soul, which is the highest part of humans. In the Republic, Socrates is challenged to defend the view that we have reasons to be moral that do not come from rational self-interest, in response to Glaucon's arguments in Book 1. The Republic develops the view that being a good person in an ethical sense involves achieving internal harmony of the parts of the soul. However, Plato's ethical ideal, as expressed in the Republic, still has much in common with the Homeric conception of the leader of a tribe or city: the successful running of the city and the internal harmony of the citizen who runs it is the main ethical aim, and there is little mention in Plato of any strictly moral obligations the ruler may be under.
Aristotle's ethics
is based on the ideal of eudaimonia, variously translated as "happiness," "prosperity," "flourishing," or "success." A "great-souled" citizen who lives a life of virtue can expect to achieve eudaimonia, which Aristotle argues is the highest good for man. Following Plato, Aristotle gives a significant role in moral life the virtues, fixed habits of behavior that lead to good outcomes; the main virtues are courage
, justice
, prudence
and temperance. The highest form of life is, however, purely intellectual activity.
Later Greek schools of philosophy, such as the Epicureans and Stoics, debated the conditions of the "good life." The Epicureans emphasised the quiet enjoyment of pleasures, free of fear, while the Stoics praised the life of reason lived in accordance with nature.
A theme of Ancient Greek ethics then is the role of the virtuous life in achieving eudaimonia, or the good life; and Aristotle, Epicurus and the Stoics all argued that virtue was necessary for happiness, albeit in different ways and with different conceptions of those terms.
and punishes transgressions of them. The Psalms
emphasise both God's separation from the world, as creator, and his concern for humans, especially those in need and of low social status, such as widows, orphans and foreigners. Justice towards such people is commanded.
Divine commands, according to the Bible, may not be changed by humans or disregarded because of merely human orders. Thus when Pharaoh
commanded midwives to kill all newborn Hebrew males, the midwives "held God in awe, and did not do what Pharoah had ordered them." (Exodus 1:17)
The command of Leviticus
, "Love your neighbour as yourself
" was taken up by Jesus
and made the centrepiece of his ethical stance. Jesus said that all the commandments of the law could be summarised in the two rules, "Love God and love your neighbour." (Mark 12:28-31). He illustrated the command "love your neighbour" with the Parable of the Good Samaritan
, which praises action to help any human in need.
, Thomas Aquinas
developed a synthesis of Biblical and Aristotelian ethics called natural law
theory, according to which the nature of humans determines what is right and wrong. For example, murder is wrong because life is essential to humans so depriving someone of it is inherently an evil. Education is needed for humans, and is their right, because their intellectual nature requires developing. Natural law theory remains at the heart of Catholic moral teaching, for example in its positions on contraception
and other controversial moral issues.
The Catholic practice of compulsory confession
led to the development of manuals of casuistry
, the application of ethical principles to detailed cases of conscience, such as the conditions of a just war.
, in the 18th century, argued that right and wrong are founded on duty
, which issues a Categorical Imperative
to us, a command that, of its nature, ought to be obeyed. An action is only truly moral if done from a sense of duty, and the most valuable thing is a human will that has decided to act rightly. To decide what duty requires, Kant proposes the principle of universalizability
: correct moral rules are those we could will everyone to adopt.
Kant's philosophy marks a number of important conceptual shifts in philosophical thinking about ethics. Kant argues that questions about happiness should not be a focus in ethical thought, because ethics should be universal while happiness may involve very different modes of life for different individuals. He also believed this approach was necessary if an ethical theory was to avoid becoming 'heteronomous'; that is, locating the source of proper moral motivation outside of properly moral concerns.
and John Stuart Mill
advocated utilitarianism
, the view that right actions are those that are likely to result in the greatest happiness of the greatest number. Utilitarianism remains popular in the twenty-first century.
Both Kantianiam and Utilitarianism provide ethical theories that can support contemporary liberal political developments, and associated enlightenment ways of conceiving of the individual.
, which holds that moral truths are about mind-independent realities, to evolutionary ethics
, which believes ethical practices are merely evolved ways of behavior that led to evolutionary success, to the error theory of J. L. Mackie
, which held that the entire notion of ethical obligation is a mistake.
Reflections on the Holocaust, such as those of Hannah Arendt
, led to a deepening appreciation of the reality of extreme evil. Also in reaction to the Holocaust, rights
theories, as expressed for example in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights
, asserted the inalienable moral rights of humans to life, education, and other basic goods. Another response to the atrocities of World War II included existential reflections on the meaning of life, leading to approaches to ethics based on "the situation" and personal interaction.
The 1970s saw the revival of casuistry in the form of applied ethics
, the consideration of detailed practical cases in bioethics
, business ethics
, environmental ethics
and other such special fields. The development of new medical technologies such as IVF and stem cell
research produced many new issues requiring ethical debate.
Ethics
Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...
is the branch of philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
that examines the question of what actions are morally
Morality
Morality is the differentiation among intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good and bad . A moral code is a system of morality and a moral is any one practice or teaching within a moral code...
right or wrong and why. There has been a very wide range of views on the question among different civilizations and among different philosophers.
Origins
The epic poems that stand at the beginning of many world literatures, such as the Mesopotamian Epic of GilgameshEpic of Gilgamesh
Epic of Gilgamesh is an epic poem from Mesopotamia and is among the earliest known works of literature. Scholars believe that it originated as a series of Sumerian legends and poems about the protagonist of the story, Gilgamesh king of Uruk, which were fashioned into a longer Akkadian epic much...
, Homer's Iliad
Iliad
The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...
and the Icelandic Eddas, portray a set of values that suit the strong leader of a small tribe. Valour and success are the principal qualities of a hero, and are generally not constrained by moral considerations. Revenge and vendetta are appropriate activities for heros. The gods that appear in such epics are not defenders of moral values but are as capricious as forces of nature, and are to be feared and propitiated.
More strictly ethical claims are found occasionally in the literature of ancient civilizations that is aimed at lower classes of society. The Sumerian Farmer's Almanac
Sumerian Farmer's Almanac
Sumerian Farmer's Almanac is the first farmer's almanac on record. The farmer's almanac is dated to around 1700 to 1500 BCE. It was discovered in 1949 by an American expedition in Iraq sponsored jointly by the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago and the University Museum of the...
and the Egyptian Instruction of Amenemope both advise farmers to leave some grain for poor gleaners, and promise favours from the gods for doing so. A number of ancient religions and ethical thinkers also put forward some version of the golden rule
Golden Rule
Golden Rule may refer to:*The Golden Rule in ethics, morality, history and religion, also known as the ethic of reciprocity*Golden Rule savings rate, in economics, the savings rate which maximizes consumption in the Solow growth model...
, at least in its negative version: do not do to others what you do not want done to yourself.
Ancient Greek ethics
SocratesSocrates
Socrates was a classical Greek Athenian philosopher. Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, he is an enigmatic figure known chiefly through the accounts of later classical writers, especially the writings of his students Plato and Xenophon, and the plays of his contemporary ...
, as portrayed in Plato
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
's dialogue Gorgias
Gorgias (dialogue)
Gorgias is a Socratic dialogue written by Plato around 380 BC. In this dialogue, Socrates seeks the true definition of rhetoric, attempting to pinpoint the essence of rhetoric and unveil the flaws of the sophistic oratory popular in Athens at this time...
, defends an ethical theory that the Greeks found paradoxical, that it is better to suffer injustice than to do it. That is because the doing of evil damages the soul, which is the highest part of humans. In the Republic, Socrates is challenged to defend the view that we have reasons to be moral that do not come from rational self-interest, in response to Glaucon's arguments in Book 1. The Republic develops the view that being a good person in an ethical sense involves achieving internal harmony of the parts of the soul. However, Plato's ethical ideal, as expressed in the Republic, still has much in common with the Homeric conception of the leader of a tribe or city: the successful running of the city and the internal harmony of the citizen who runs it is the main ethical aim, and there is little mention in Plato of any strictly moral obligations the ruler may be under.
Aristotle's ethics
Aristotelian ethics
Ethics as a subject begins with the works of Aristotle. In its original form, this subject is concerned with the question of virtue of character , or in other words having excellent and well-chosen habits. The acquisition of an excellent character is in turn aimed at living well and eudaimonia, a...
is based on the ideal of eudaimonia, variously translated as "happiness," "prosperity," "flourishing," or "success." A "great-souled" citizen who lives a life of virtue can expect to achieve eudaimonia, which Aristotle argues is the highest good for man. Following Plato, Aristotle gives a significant role in moral life the virtues, fixed habits of behavior that lead to good outcomes; the main virtues are courage
Courage
Courage is the ability to confront fear, pain, danger, uncertainty, or intimidation...
, justice
Justice
Justice is a concept of moral rightness based on ethics, rationality, law, natural law, religion, or equity, along with the punishment of the breach of said ethics; justice is the act of being just and/or fair.-Concept of justice:...
, prudence
Prudence
Prudence is the ability to govern and discipline oneself by the use of reason. It is classically considered to be a virtue, and in particular one of the four Cardinal virtues .The word comes from Old French prudence , from Latin...
and temperance. The highest form of life is, however, purely intellectual activity.
Later Greek schools of philosophy, such as the Epicureans and Stoics, debated the conditions of the "good life." The Epicureans emphasised the quiet enjoyment of pleasures, free of fear, while the Stoics praised the life of reason lived in accordance with nature.
A theme of Ancient Greek ethics then is the role of the virtuous life in achieving eudaimonia, or the good life; and Aristotle, Epicurus and the Stoics all argued that virtue was necessary for happiness, albeit in different ways and with different conceptions of those terms.
Biblical ethics
The Bible describes God as intensely concerned about human acts. He commands obedience to moral rules, such as the Ten CommandmentsTen Commandments
The Ten Commandments, also known as the Decalogue , are a set of biblical principles relating to ethics and worship, which play a fundamental role in Judaism and most forms of Christianity. They include instructions to worship only God and to keep the Sabbath, and prohibitions against idolatry,...
and punishes transgressions of them. The Psalms
Psalms
The Book of Psalms , commonly referred to simply as Psalms, is a book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Bible...
emphasise both God's separation from the world, as creator, and his concern for humans, especially those in need and of low social status, such as widows, orphans and foreigners. Justice towards such people is commanded.
Divine commands, according to the Bible, may not be changed by humans or disregarded because of merely human orders. Thus when Pharaoh
Pharaoh
Pharaoh is a title used in many modern discussions of the ancient Egyptian rulers of all periods. The title originates in the term "pr-aa" which means "great house" and describes the royal palace...
commanded midwives to kill all newborn Hebrew males, the midwives "held God in awe, and did not do what Pharoah had ordered them." (Exodus 1:17)
The command of Leviticus
Leviticus
The Book of Leviticus is the third book of the Hebrew Bible, and the third of five books of the Torah ....
, "Love your neighbour as yourself
Great Commandment
The Great Commandment, or Greatest Commandment, is an appellation applied to either the first, or both, of two commandments which appear in , and...
" was taken up by Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
and made the centrepiece of his ethical stance. Jesus said that all the commandments of the law could be summarised in the two rules, "Love God and love your neighbour." (Mark 12:28-31). He illustrated the command "love your neighbour" with the Parable of the Good Samaritan
Parable of the Good Samaritan
The parable of the Good Samaritan is a parable told by Jesus and is mentioned in only one of the Canonical gospels. According to the Gospel of Luke a traveller is beaten, robbed, and left half dead along the road. First a priest and then a Levite come by, but both avoid the man. Finally, a...
, which praises action to help any human in need.
Natural law ethics
In the Middle AgesMiddle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
, Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas, O.P. , also Thomas of Aquin or Aquino, was an Italian Dominican priest of the Catholic Church, and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the tradition of scholasticism, known as Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Communis, or Doctor Universalis...
developed a synthesis of Biblical and Aristotelian ethics called natural law
Natural law
Natural law, or the law of nature , is any system of law which is purportedly determined by nature, and thus universal. Classically, natural law refers to the use of reason to analyze human nature and deduce binding rules of moral behavior. Natural law is contrasted with the positive law Natural...
theory, according to which the nature of humans determines what is right and wrong. For example, murder is wrong because life is essential to humans so depriving someone of it is inherently an evil. Education is needed for humans, and is their right, because their intellectual nature requires developing. Natural law theory remains at the heart of Catholic moral teaching, for example in its positions on contraception
Contraception
Contraception is the prevention of the fusion of gametes during or after sexual activity. The term contraception is a contraction of contra, which means against, and the word conception, meaning fertilization...
and other controversial moral issues.
The Catholic practice of compulsory confession
Confession
This article is for the religious practice of confessing one's sins.Confession is the acknowledgment of sin or wrongs...
led to the development of manuals of casuistry
Casuistry
In applied ethics, casuistry is case-based reasoning. Casuistry is used in juridical and ethical discussions of law and ethics, and often is a critique of principle- or rule-based reasoning...
, the application of ethical principles to detailed cases of conscience, such as the conditions of a just war.
Kantian ethics
Immanuel KantImmanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher from Königsberg , researching, lecturing and writing on philosophy and anthropology at the end of the 18th Century Enlightenment....
, in the 18th century, argued that right and wrong are founded on duty
Duty
Duty is a term that conveys a sense of moral commitment to someone or something. The moral commitment is the sort that results in action and it is not a matter of passive feeling or mere recognition...
, which issues a Categorical Imperative
Categorical imperative
The Categorical Imperative is the central philosophical concept in the moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant, as well as modern deontological ethics...
to us, a command that, of its nature, ought to be obeyed. An action is only truly moral if done from a sense of duty, and the most valuable thing is a human will that has decided to act rightly. To decide what duty requires, Kant proposes the principle of universalizability
Universalizability
The concept of universalizability was set out by the 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant as part of his work Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. It is part of the first formulation of his categorical imperative, which states that the only morally acceptable maxims of our actions are...
: correct moral rules are those we could will everyone to adopt.
Kant's philosophy marks a number of important conceptual shifts in philosophical thinking about ethics. Kant argues that questions about happiness should not be a focus in ethical thought, because ethics should be universal while happiness may involve very different modes of life for different individuals. He also believed this approach was necessary if an ethical theory was to avoid becoming 'heteronomous'; that is, locating the source of proper moral motivation outside of properly moral concerns.
Utilitarianism
In 19th century Britain, Jeremy BenthamJeremy Bentham
Jeremy Bentham was an English jurist, philosopher, and legal and social reformer. He became a leading theorist in Anglo-American philosophy of law, and a political radical whose ideas influenced the development of welfarism...
and John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill was a British philosopher, economist and civil servant. An influential contributor to social theory, political theory, and political economy, his conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control. He was a proponent of...
advocated utilitarianism
Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism is an ethical theory holding that the proper course of action is the one that maximizes the overall "happiness", by whatever means necessary. It is thus a form of consequentialism, meaning that the moral worth of an action is determined only by its resulting outcome, and that one can...
, the view that right actions are those that are likely to result in the greatest happiness of the greatest number. Utilitarianism remains popular in the twenty-first century.
Both Kantianiam and Utilitarianism provide ethical theories that can support contemporary liberal political developments, and associated enlightenment ways of conceiving of the individual.
Twentieth century
The early twentieth century saw many debates on metaethics, that is, philosophical theory on the nature of ethics. Views ranged from moral realismMoral realism
Moral realism is the meta-ethical view which claims that:# Ethical sentences express propositions.# Some such propositions are true.# Those propositions are made true by objective features of the world, independent of subjective opinion....
, which holds that moral truths are about mind-independent realities, to evolutionary ethics
Evolutionary ethics
Evolutionary ethics could be either a form of descriptive ethics or normative ethics.Descriptive evolutionary ethics consists of biological approaches to ethics based on the role of evolution in shaping human psychology and behavior...
, which believes ethical practices are merely evolved ways of behavior that led to evolutionary success, to the error theory of J. L. Mackie
J. L. Mackie
John Leslie Mackie was an Australian philosopher, originally from Sydney. He made significant contributions to the philosophy of religion, metaphysics, and the philosophy of language, and is perhaps best known for his views on meta-ethics, especially his defence of moral skepticism.He authored six...
, which held that the entire notion of ethical obligation is a mistake.
Reflections on the Holocaust, such as those of Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt was a German American political theorist. She has often been described as a philosopher, although she refused that label on the grounds that philosophy is concerned with "man in the singular." She described herself instead as a political theorist because her work centers on the fact...
, led to a deepening appreciation of the reality of extreme evil. Also in reaction to the Holocaust, rights
Rights
Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people, according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theory...
theories, as expressed for example in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly . The Declaration arose directly from the experience of the Second World War and represents the first global expression of rights to which all human beings are inherently entitled...
, asserted the inalienable moral rights of humans to life, education, and other basic goods. Another response to the atrocities of World War II included existential reflections on the meaning of life, leading to approaches to ethics based on "the situation" and personal interaction.
The 1970s saw the revival of casuistry in the form of applied ethics
Applied ethics
Applied ethics is, in the words of Brenda Almond, co-founder of the Society for Applied Philosophy, "the philosophical examination, from a moral standpoint, of particular issues in private and public life that are matters of moral judgment"...
, the consideration of detailed practical cases in bioethics
Bioethics
Bioethics is the study of controversial ethics brought about by advances in biology and medicine. Bioethicists are concerned with the ethical questions that arise in the relationships among life sciences, biotechnology, medicine, politics, law, and philosophy....
, business ethics
Business ethics
Business ethics is a form of applied ethics or professional ethics that examines ethical principles and moral or ethical problems that arise in a business environment. It applies to all aspects of business conduct and is relevant to the conduct of individuals and entire organizations.Business...
, environmental ethics
Environmental ethics
Environmental ethics is the part of environmental philosophy which considers extending the traditional boundaries of ethics from solely including humans to including the non-human world...
and other such special fields. The development of new medical technologies such as IVF and stem cell
Stem cell controversy
The stem cell controversy is the ethical debate primarily concerning the creation, treatment, and destruction of human embryos incident to research involving embryonic stem cells. Not all stem cell research involves the creation, use, or destruction of human embryos...
research produced many new issues requiring ethical debate.