GENERAL PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ETHICS.
Summary You must read: Designed by Zacharia Emanuel,
nduguzacharia@gmail.com, +255755350165.
1.
DEMOCRITUS
Ø One should not depend on happiness upon things of this world but
happiness should be the state of his/her inner state
Ø The good man is not the one who does good but someone who wants to do
goodness all the time
Ø The goal of life is happiness
Ø At all time man/women should seek happiness
Ø Happiness is not only the matter of actions but depends on man’s inner
desire
2.
PROTAGORAS
Ø Man is the measure of all things and that is to say man is the measure of
good and evil
Ø As the result each man had his/her own code of good and evil
Ø Each man should live according to his/her desire
Ø Man is individual and each individual has the right to determine what is
good or bad.
3.
SOCRATES
Ø Self knowledge is the sufficient condition to the good life
Ø One should seek knowledge and wisdom before private interest
Ø Knowledge should be sought as he means to ethical life
Ø Reasoning is the way to good life
Ø Our true happiness is promoted by doing what is right
Ø What one truly knows
Ø Unexamined life is not the worth living is the dictate for ones
conscience or soul
4.
PLATO
Ø The unchanging situation implies goodness while the changing situation
implies evils
Ø He thought man as consisting three parts namely the appetite, the will
and the reason
Ø He was the first person in the world to appreciate his own ignorance
Ø The life of reasoning is the highest good
5.
ARISTOTLE
Ø Happiness is something final and self and self sufficient and is the end
of an action
Ø Being happy means living
rationally and living rationally means acting in accordance with the virtue of
intellect and character
Ø We all ultimately seek happiness and that we should live in a way that
leads to happiness
6.
THOMAS ACQUINAS
Ø We should live our lives in such a way that conforms to natural
law-natural law that is delivered from the basic inclination of our human
nature.
Ø The natural law can Justify the morality of an action
7.
IMMANUEL KANT
Ø Treat other in the in the same way you would like to be treated (Kantian
law of reciprocity)
Ø Being moral means acting out of duty which in turn following the
categorical imperative.
Ø Morality is not properly the doctrine how we should make ourselves happy
but how we should become worth of
happiness
8.
JOHN STUART MILLL
Ø By utility means the greatest 0f the greatest number
Ø Greatest number meaning all creatures capable of feel pleasure and pain
Ø He defines good as the pleasure and absence of pain
9.
JEAN PIAGET
Ø Morality is developed through stages (i.e Egocentric, authority &
consensus stage)
Ø Children develop the use of rules according to their differing ages
10.
LAWRENCE KOHLBERG
Ø He expanded the Piaget stage into three stages with two substages level
(i.e Preconventional, conventional and post conventional level)
11.
FRIEDRICK NIETSCHE
Ø He challenged the foundation of Christianity and traditional morality
Ø True morality is the master morality
Ø His philosophy is the ideas of the life affirmation
12.
AYER A.J.
Ø He denies that the business of ethics is to determine the meaning of
ethical terms and an analysis of ethical judgment shows that they are neither
true nor false but simply expression of emotion or attempts to arouse emotion
in others.
13.
JEAN PAUL SARTRE
Ø For him, we don’t choose something because it is good; it is good because
we choose it.
Ø Our ethical task is to create our nature through our choices
Ø He believed that there is no human nature
