Ethics - Stoic Philosophy, Virtue, Happiness

ethics

Table of Contents

Introduction & Top Questions
The origins of ethics
- Mythical accounts
  - Introduction of moral codes
  - Problems of divine origin
- Prehuman ethics
  - Nonhuman behaviour
  - Kinship and reciprocity
- Anthropology and ethics
The history of Western ethics
- Ancient civilizations to the end of the 19th century
  - The ancient Middle East and Asia
    - The Middle East
    - India
    - China
  - Ancient and Classical Greece
    - Ancient Greece
    - Socrates
    - Plato
    - Aristotle
  - Later Greek and Roman ethics
    - The Stoics
    - The Epicureans
  - Christian ethics from the New Testament to the Scholastics
    - Ethics in the New Testament
    - St. Augustine
    - St. Thomas Aquinas and the Scholastics
  - The Renaissance and the Reformation
    - Machiavelli
    - The first Protestants
  - The British tradition from Hobbes to the utilitarians
    - Hobbes
    - Early intuitionists: Cudworth, More, and Clarke
    - Shaftesbury and the moral sense school
    - Butler on self-interest and conscience
    - The climax of moral sense theory: Hutcheson and Hume
    - The intuitionist response: Price and Reid
    - Utilitarianism
      Paley
      Bentham
      Mill
      Sidgwick
  - The Continental tradition from Spinoza to Nietzsche
    - Spinoza
    - Leibniz
    - Rousseau
    - Kant
    - Hegel
    - Marx
    - Nietzsche
- Western ethics from the beginning of the 20th century
  - Metaethics
    - Moore and the naturalistic fallacy
    - Modern intuitionism
    - Emotivism
    - Existentialism
    - Universal prescriptivism
    - Later developments in metaethics
      Moral realism
      Kantian constructivism: a middle ground?
      Irrealist views: projectivism and expressivism
      Ethics and reasons for action
  - Normative ethics
    - The debate over consequentialism
    - Varieties of consequentialism
    - Objections to consequentialism
    - An ethics of prima facie duties
    - Rawls’s theory of justice
    - Rights theories
    - Natural law ethics
    - Virtue ethics
    - Feminist ethics
    - Ethical egoism
  - Applied ethics
    - Equality
    - Animals
    - Environmental ethics
    - War and peace
    - Abortion, euthanasia, and the value of human life
    - Bioethics

References & Edit History Quick Facts & Related Topics

Images

For Students

ethics summary

Read Next

Aristotle (384-322 BC), Ancient Greek philosopher and scientist. One of the most influential philosophers in the history of Western thought, Aristotle established the foundations for the modern scientific method of enquiry. Statue

Philosophers to Know, Part I

Well-balanced of stones on the top of boulder

What’s the Difference Between Morality and Ethics?

Plato (left) and Aristotle, detail from School of Athens, fresco by Raphael, 1508-11; in the Stanza della Segnatura, the Vatican. Plato points to the heavens and the realm of Forms, Aristotle to the earth and the realm of things.

Plato and Aristotle: How Do They Differ?

Black and white photo of people in courtroom, hands raised, pledging

Order in the Court: 10 “Trials of the Century”

Aristotle statue located at Stageira of Greece

Aristotle at 2,400

Discover

How Is Coffee Decaffeinated?

Albert Einstein in Washington, D.C. c. 1921-1923. Physicist

The Solar Eclipse That Made Albert Einstein a Science Celebrity

Artist interpretation of a Space meteoroid impact. Meteor impact. Asteroid, End of the world, danger, destruction, dinosaur extinct, Judgement Day, Planet Earth, Doomsday Predictions, comet

10 Failed Doomsday Predictions

United States Electoral College votes by state

How Many Electoral College Votes Does Each U.S. State Have?

Still from the film Deliverance, 1919. The story of Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan. View shows Keller in the cockpit/front seat of an airplane.

How Did Helen Keller Fly a Plane?

Solar Eclipse, Eclipse, Solar Flare, Outer Space, Astronomy

What Causes Lunar and Solar Eclipses?

Two chicks near an egg with a white background (poultry, chick, chickens, birds).

What Do Eggs Have to Do with Easter?

Stoicism originated in the views of Socrates and Plato, as modified by Zeno of Citium (c. 335–c. 263 bce) and then by Chrysippus (c. 280–206 bce). It gradually gained influence in Rome, chiefly through Cicero (106–43 bce) and then later through Seneca the Younger (4 bce–65 ce). Remarkably, its chief proponents include both a slave, Epictetus (55–c. 135), and an emperor, Marcus Aurelius (121–180). This is a fine illustration of the Stoic message that what is important is the pursuit of wisdom and virtue, a quest that is open to all human beings because of their common capacity for reason, ...(100 of 41429 words)

Access the full article

Help support true facts by becoming a member.