Ethics Through History: Key Figures and Schools of Thought
1. Ethics Through History
2. The Origins of Ethics
The Archaic Age
In the archaic Greek world, human order and the cosmos were believed to follow a parallel development. Respect for human beings was paramount; violating this respect incurred the wrath of the gods and jeopardized the polis. Justice emerged as the essential virtue. Thinkers like Solon, Anaximander, Parmenides, and Heraclitus viewed cosmic and human justice as one, referring to this ethical sense as arete. Humans aspiring to wisdom sought knowledge of the supreme cosmic reason to act wisely and live harmoniously. Heraclitus and later thinkers emphasized that injustice deserved condemnation. People should follow the course of cosmic evolution (logos) and avoid excess (hubris) and chaos leading to irrational behavior.
The First Sophistic Movement
In Pericles’ democratic Athens, the Sophists emerged, teaching knowledge for a fee, particularly disciplines useful for young people entering political life. Early Sophists like Protagoras believed in man’s reason. Protagoras, a relativist, stated, “Man is the measure of all things.” Knowledge was subjective, with each individual interpreting reality based on their perception. For the Sophists, virtue was political: success as a citizen.
The Second Sophistic Movement
This movement championed the law of the jungle, viewing city laws as a shield for the weak against the strong, hindering freedom and expression. Nietzsche linked these doctrines to the crisis in democracy following Pericles’ death and the Peloponnesian War. The conflict between Athens and Sparta fostered undemocratic ideas as people clung to Pericles’ imperialist policies.
3. Socrates
Socrates offered an alternative to Athenian sophistic thought. He established virtue (arete) as an internal human value, giving it moral connotations. Virtue became closely tied to duty. Socrates introduced the maxim “know thyself” through his maieutic method. He also emphasized the universality of laws and moral values, establishing an ethical intellectualism linking truth, virtue, and happiness. Wrongdoing stemmed from ignorance, an inability to distinguish good from bad.
4. Ethical Problems
Regarding the purpose of moral action, two trends exist:
- Material Ethics: Actions have a purpose.
- Formal Ethics: Actions are performed because they are a duty. Kantian ethics follows this model.
The Origin of Ethics
- Heteronomous Ethics: The moral norm is imposed externally, a view supported by material ethics.
- Autonomous Ethics: The moral norm is internalized, originating from conscience or practical reason, as Kant argued. The moral standard exists a priori within the person, a view supported by formal ethics.
5. Material Ethical Systems
Eudaemonism: The Good and Happiness
For Aristotle, happiness was the supreme human good. While everyone agreed on happiness’ importance, its meaning was debated. Some confused it with pleasure, wealth, or honor. Happiness, the supreme good, is chosen for itself, not as a means to an end, and is self-sufficient. It involves doing good and living well.
Virtue
Virtue is essential for life. Aristotle defined it as the mean between two extremes. Virtuous choices avoid vice, neither excessive nor deficient. Virtue is cultivated through education and habit, not innate. Reason leads to true happiness, the contemplative life. The ultimate human goal is contemplating truth.
Cynicism and Stoicism: The Good and Harmony with Nature
The Cynics (meaning “dog”), exemplified by Diogenes, advocated a simple, austere life like a dog’s, living in harmony with nature. Antisthenes and Diogenes, the school’s founders, promoted a return to nature and rejection of social conventions, viewing societal elements as perversions of nature. Their goal was self-sufficiency: free individual expression and living outside the polis, independent of society. Diogenes championed cosmopolitanism, abolishing differences based on race, language, etc.
Stoicism, founded by Zeno, held that wisdom is not the goal of life but a prerequisite for better living. The wise person lives happily according to nature, aligning individual behavior with cosmic law. The human world is chaotic, while the natural world is unified and systematic (logos). Human happiness comes from discovering cosmic rationality and merging with it, achieving harmony with nature. Stoicism aims for ataraxia, the absence of disturbing passions.
Epicurean Hedonism: The Good as Pleasure
Epicurus’ Hellenistic school equated good and happiness with pleasure. Life’s purpose is peace, and pleasure is the absence of pain. Happiness is achieved through autarky, freedom from anxiety and fear (ataraxia). Epicurus criticized the gods as creators of trouble and obstacles to human impulses, rejecting determinism and belief in fate. Overcoming the fear of death is crucial for peace and tranquility. Death is irrelevant. Suppressing feelings leads to happiness. Individuals who understand and satisfy their basic needs achieve balance. Pleasure is not material but spiritual, equivalent to bodily balance.
Utilitarianism: Good and Useful
Utilitarianism defines good and valuable as useful, with theoretical and practical political implications. The Industrial Revolution and the Enlightenment’s promise of progress fostered the idea that happiness equals welfare.
Jeremy Bentham proposed the principle of interest: humans, driven by self-interest, seek pleasure and avoid pain. Utilitarianism aims to maximize happiness for the greatest number of individuals, a form of social hedonism.
John Stuart Mill, Bentham’s follower, valued both quantity and quality. Higher pleasures are intellectual, imaginative, and related to moral values.
6. Formal Ethical Systems
Kantian Formalism
Humans act individually and collectively, requiring criteria for action. Heteronomous ethics (material ethics) renders moral action meaningless in terms of established goals. Autonomous ethics dictates that the will is determined by reason’s laws, not external factors, making it self-determining. Kant argued against doing good simply to achieve happiness as the highest human aspiration.
Maxims and Moral Law
Subjective operating principles and references are moral maxims. Moral law unconditionally determines action for everyone, a universal ethical imperative independent of interests or conditions.
- Hypothetical Imperative: Conditional law, obeying another law.
- Categorical Imperative: Unconditional law, compelling action for its own sake.
7. Theories of Motivation
- Skinner’s Behaviorism: Motivation is external incentives that encourage behavior in a specific direction, forming habits.
- Psychoanalysis: Aims to reduce behavior, especially pathological behavior, caused by unconscious factors. Sigmund Freud believed unconscious mental processes influence behavior without conscious awareness, determining actions.
- Humanistic Theories: Human behavior cannot be reduced to simple biological mechanisms or external incentives; higher purposes and internal factors are essential.