Philosophers Covered and Recurring Course Themes - Ethics - Philosophy 103 - Anderson

Plato - Ring of Gyges/Myth of the Cave - Is justice simply a mean between doing and suffering injustice? Theory of Forms. Idealist and Absolutist.

Aristotle - Summum Bonum is Happiness through Reasoning Well, the unique human function; Moral Virtue a Mean Between Extremes, A Habit or Trained Faculty

Augustine - Christian, Summum Bonum is Eternal Life, Original Sin/Grace, Problems of Free will and Theodicy, Transforming Greco-roman virtues

Hobbes - Leviathan: State of Nature, Social Contract; Materialist and Relativist; Psychological and Ethical Egoism

Hume - Passion not Reason determines morality; No ought from is; Natural human sympathy; Door Opened to Moral Relativism according to critics.

Bentham - Quantitative utilitarian. Hedonic Calculus. Teleological. Consequentialist.

Mill - Qualitative utilitarian. Teleological. Consequentialist.

Utilitarianism - act and rule

Kant - Deontological - Duty, Motives. Categorical Imperative: Willing a Universal Law Form, Never as a Means Only Form.

Confucianism - Jen/ren, li, i, hsiao - humaneness, social self, role and tradition- based character ethics, self-cultivation, emulation, reciprocity: don’t do to others what you wouldn’t want done to yourself, familial piety; Mencius - human nature inherently good and compassionate/ seed or sprout theory, ruler as model and parent of the people