Ethics in Western Philosophy: A Historical Overview
Aristotelianism
Ethics
His ethics is finalist, according to his doctrine. The aim of human actions is to achieve a specific goal. This is also called eudaemonism because the order sought is that of supreme happiness.
Goods
Goods are things that humans work towards, not as a means to achieve something else, but as an end in themselves. Goods are not subjective; they do not depend on each individual, but rather, all human beings have a tendency towards them.
Happiness and Intellectual Virtues
The greatest good one can achieve is happiness. The greatest happiness for human beings is the exercise of their highest activity. For humans, happiness is nothing other than the exercise of reason.
Moral Virtues
For Aristotle, one cannot be happy if basic needs are not met. Moral virtue is the force that leads humans to act in a way that achieves the proposed good. Aristotle qualifies moral virtue as the average between two extremes.
Epicureanism
Epicurus felt that it was more important to find tranquility in the face of problems than to worry about solving them and to enjoy the happiness that all human beings seek through pleasure. Epicureans sought pleasure through reason and prudence.
Nature
Epicureans thought that bodies are composed of very tiny and indivisible particles called atoms. They believed that humans could get rid of anything that caused them great fear: the fear of the gods, fear of death, and fear of the afterlife.
Pleasure
Once the fears that disturb human happiness are gone, what remains is the absence of pain. One must avoid worries and pleasures that can lead to pain or illness.
Virtue
Virtue is the way to achieve pleasure and a state of tranquility.
Utilitarianism: Stuart Mill
Utilitarianism emphasizes ethical values and the achievement of what is useful and convenient.
Happiness
The greatest happiness for humans is the pursuit of what is useful for society, as long as it is deemed the highest good.
Utilitarian Principle
This principle affirms that actions are good insofar as they cause well-being and bad to the extent that they cause distress. Well-being is the absence of pain or the presence of pleasure.
Stoicism
Nature
Nature is the set of all that exists, including humans, as part of the universe.
Virtue
There is a rational plan for the cosmos, which is manifested in natural law. Human wisdom can know it, and virtue is to align one’s will with it.
Pure Ethics of Duty: Kant
Kant sought to achieve a moral reason that could organize human life, establishing the subject as a moral agent outside the influence of external factors. He advocated for formal ethics as opposed to material ethics. Kant criticizes all material ethics because they have rules that must be observed to reach a proposed end; therefore, they are not universally valid norms.
Duty
Duty is the only genuinely moral motivation.
The Categorical Imperative
A categorical imperative is a mandate that must be obeyed unconditionally.
Ethics of Awareness: Existentialism
Existentialism is not a unified doctrine.
The Indeterminacy of Existence
The term existence does not mean to exist as a fact; existence is the proper way of being for human beings.
Sartre’s Radicalism
The only moral norm is that each individual imposes upon themselves, knowing that every action committed affects others.
Sartrean Ethics
Sartrean ethics applies to every action. It is unrealistic to think that the subject is free from their freedom and not subject to rules established by values above them.
The Four Cardinal Virtues
Plato considered these virtues the main pillars of human personality and the functioning of social life: moderation or temperance, fortitude or character, prudence or wisdom, and finally, justice.
- Strength or courage is the strength of will that allows us to face and overcome difficulties to do what is best.
- Wisdom or prudence is an intellectual virtue that enables the person to know at every moment what they need.
- Justice is to give each person what is theirs or what they deserve. It refers to the harmony or balance of one’s personality and the impartiality of the person in relation to others. Plato believed that humans should have a fair balance of the different virtues and considered a city just where everyone did what was right according to the social class to which they belonged.
Justice in General and Particular
- General or legal justice refers to laws that force citizens to serve the common good and impose sanctions in case of default.
- Individual justice concerns relations between individuals and the equality of all citizens, recognizing equal rights for all citizens. Aristotle distinguished between commutative justice and distributive justice.
- Commutative justice is intended to protect the rights of individuals to receive what they rightfully own.
- Distributive justice regulates relations between a society and its members.
Justice as a Moral Virtue
Justice goes beyond mere legality; the law can also be unfair if it does not respect human rights.
The Classical and Preclassical World
The preclassical world encompassed human reason and described the regularities of nature, which are called scientific laws.
In the classical world, justice and law acquired a social and political dimension. Things that disturbed the social order were considered “unjust.” Any attempt to alter the established order was considered an injustice.
At the time of Athenian democracy, teachers called Sophists recognized the natural and cosmic order and the social and political order. The first is stable and permanent, while the second depends on the decisions, covenants, or agreements of humans.
What is fair or unfair would depend on the decision of each community. The two great philosophers, Plato and Aristotle, rejected the relativism of the Sophists, which easily turned into a system where justice favored the interests of those with power or favored friends and acquaintances while harming enemies or opponents. They believed that the only justice is to restore harmony using the law and that justice as revenge is wrong.
Plato envisioned a perfect natural and just order.