Outlines of the History of Ethics by Henry Sidgwick

Definition and Scope of Ethics

• Original Meaning of Ethics: Derived from the Greek, it originally referred to what relates to character as distinct from intellect. In Aristotelian and general Greek philosophy, it was the study of the "Ultimate Good" or the "End" of man—that which is sought for its own sake rather than as a means to an end.

• Ethics vs. Theology: Ethics is the study of the Good for man, whereas Theology studies the Absolute Good or the Good of the Universe. In systems like Platonism, these two are indissoluble, as the human good is conceived as identical to or derived from the Universal Good.

• Ethics and Politics: Ethics is often used in a wide sense to include Politics (the welfare of men as members of states) but is increasingly restricted to "Private Ethics"—the wellbeing of man attainable through the rational activity of individuals.

• Ethics and Psychology: Ethics is fundamentally concerned with the psychical side of life. Even when judging external actions, we usually assess the states of the agent's mind—intention, purpose, and motive.

  • Scientific determination of Ethics leads to psychological study to examine kinds and degrees of pleasure or to define the relations of different virtues.

  • Psychology deals with what is, while Ethics deals with what ought to be; however, all important ethical notions (except the fundamental "right" and "wrong") are inherently psychological.

• Ethics as the Study of Duty: A modern conception identifies Ethics with the study qof the Moral Code or general rules of Right Action, viewed as absolutely binding regardless of private interests. In this view, Ethics connects with Theology (as a code of divine legislation) and Jurisprudence (as rules of Law cognizable by reason).

• The Problem of Free Will: Through the jural conception of ethics, the question of whether a man is "free" to obey rules becomes essential. If he could not obey, it is argued that it is contrary to justice to punish him.

Greek and Greco-Roman Ethics

Pre-Socratic Philosophy

• Earliest Moral Reflection: Manifested in "gnomic" poetry and the maxims of the "Seven Sages" (e.g., Thales, circ. $640-560\,B.C.$).

• Pythagoras (circ. $580-500\,B.C.$): Founded an order with moral/religious aims based on the transmigration of souls.

  • Noted for precepts on moderation, courage, and self-examination.

  • Attempted to apply mathematics to conduct: the essence of Justice (equal retribution) was a "square number."

  • Viewed Virtue and Health as "harmonies."

• Heraclitus (circ. $530-470\,B.C.$): Enjoined obedience to the "divine law" and universal Reason. Foreshadowed Stoicism in his optimism, seeing the world of strife as "good and fair" in the sight of God.

• Democritus (circ. $460-370\,B.C.$ ): Foreshadowed Epicureanism. Declared "delight" or "good cheer" ($evthumia$) as the highest good, identified with an equable temper ($ataraxia$). Preferred soul-delights over bodily ones.

The Age of the Sophists ($circ. 450-400\,B.C.$)

• The Rise of Professional Teachers: In the $5^{th}$ century, a group called Sophists began giving instruction in the art of conduct for a fee.

• Protagoras of Abdera: The most brilliant of these teachers. He claimed to teach "civic excellence" and how to manage public and private affairs.

• Social Context: Greek society had no established moral teaching; Homer provided examples of excellence ($arete$) but not a code (like the Ten Commandments).

• The Nature of $Arete$: Originally encompassed intellectual skill and social grace alongside moral virtue. The Sophists did not distinguish between Virtue and self-interest, claiming to guide men toward both simultaneously.

Socrates ($circ. 470-399\,B.C.$)

• The Turning Point: Socrates made moral philosophy the center of Greek thought. He was dissatisfied with physical/metaphysical speculation, which he found contradictory and "like madmen disputing."

• The Dialectic: Socrates used cross-examination to expose "ignorance." He found his contemporaries used terms like "justice" and "holiness" without being able to define them accurately.

• Virtue is Knowledge: Socrates’ fundamental paradox was that no one does wrong willingly. Because everyone wishes for their own good, and virtue is the highest good, those who truly know what is just will prefer it. Therefore, all virtues are summed up in Wisdom.

• Moral Freedom: To Socrates, only knowledge makes men free; a bad man is constrained by ignorance to do what is contrary to his real wish (his own good).

• Friendship: Believed goodness of soul to be the finest good, making a good friend the most valuable external possession. The highest service a friend can render is moral improvement.

The Socratic Schools

• The Megarian School (Euclides): Identified the Good with the hidden secret of the universe, passing from Ethics to Metaphysics.

• The Cyrenaics (Aristippus): Argued that pleasure is the only cognizable good. Pleasure is the "smooth motion" of sense. Bodily pleasures are most intense. The wise man skills at culling moments of pleasure while avoiding pain.

• The Cynics (Antisthenes and Diogenes): Maintained that Socratic wisdom is disregard for pleasure. Virtue is the only value. They rejected social conventions in favor of "natural" life. Introduced the concept of "cosmopolite" (citizen of the world).

Plato ($bc\,427-347$)

• Evolution of Thought: In his earlier works (like Protagoras), Plato tentatively explored Hedonism, but later developed a metaphysical Idealism.

• Logical Realism: True knowledge relates to general facts or "Ideas," not individuals. The reality of the universe lies in these general characteristics.

• The Idea of the Good: Identifies the formal cause with the final cause. The essence of each part of the world is found in its goal ($telos$). Therefore, the ground of all reality is the Divine End or "The Good."

• Structure of the Soul: Plato divided the soul into three parts:

  1. Rational: The reflective, governing element.

  2. Spirited ($thumos$): The source of impulses like anger, boldness, and love of honor.

  3. Appetitive: The source of bodily desires.

• The Four Cardinal Virtues:

  1. Wisdom ($phronesis$ or $sophia$): The excellence of the Rational part.

  2. Courage/Fortitude ($andreia$): The special excellence of the Spirited element when trained to fear only what is truly fearful.

  3. Temperance ($sophrosune$): The submission of non-rational elements to reason.

  4. Justice ($dikaiosune$): The harmonious activity of all three soul elements, each performing its proper function.

• View of Pleasure: In the Gorgias, he denied it was a good at all; in the Republic, he argued only the philosopher enjoys real pleasure; in the Laws, he allowed that for the vulgar, the good life must be shown to be the pleasantest.

Aristotle ($bc\,384-322$)

• Departure from Plato: Discarded the idea of Absolute Good in favor of "practicable" good. He distinguished Speculative Wisdom ($sophia$) from Practical Wisdom ($phronesis$).

• Human Wellbeing ($eudaimonia$): Common sense agrees that well-being consists in "doing well." This lies in fulfilling the proper function of man—living according to the rational soul.

• Theory of Virtue: Define Moral Excellence as a "habit" of feeling and action. Virtue is a "Mean" or middle state between two vicious extremes (excess and defect).

  • Example: Courage is a mean between rashness and cowardice.

  • The mean is relative to the agent and determined by the man of practical wisdom.

• Justice: Divided into:

  1. Distributive Justice: Distribution of stocks of wealth or honors in proportion to desert.

  2. Reparative Justice: Exaction of damages to restore a loss suffered.

• Friendship: A necessary condition for happiness. True friendship exists only between the good, wishing good for the other's sake.

• The Voluntary: Aristotle argued that vice is voluntary because even if a man is now bound by habit, those habits were formed by his previous choices.

Stoicism

• Zeno (Founder): Taught in the "Porch" ($stoa$). Maintained that Wisdom/Virtue is the sole good, sufficient for wellbeing.

• The Passionless Sage: Passions are morbid conditions of the soul involving erroneous judgment. The sage recognizes that external things (pain, wealth, death) are "indifferent" and cannot disturb his serenity.

• Accordance with Nature: This standard has a twofold meaning: (1) following the reason within self and (2) conforming to the ordered process of the universe, which is permeated by Divine Spirit (Pantheism).

• Preferred Things ($proegmena$): While wealth and health are not "good," they have a certain value and are "preferred" over their opposites. Virtue consists in the wise choice between these elements.

• Suicide: Rationality may dictate that one quit life if natural conditions (extreme pain or mutilation) indicate that death is preferable to life.

• Roman Stoicism: Influenced heavily by Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. Shifted focus from the "Ideal Sage" to the individual in a state of "progress" toward wisdom. Emphasized piety and resignation to Providence.

Epicureanism

• Epicurus ($bc\,341-270$): Repudiated the Stoic paradoxes. Declared pleasure the sole ultimate good and pain the sole evil.

• Nature of Pleasure: The highest pleasure is simply the removal of pain or disturbance ($ataraxia$). Avoidance of intense pleasure is necessary if it brings later pain.

• Mental Pleasure: Mental pleasures are superior to bodily ones because the mind can accumulate feelings via memory and anticipation.

• Utility of Physics: The study of the physical world (Atomism) is only useful to liberate men from the fear of the gods and the fear of death. Death is nothing to us because "when we are, death is absent; when death is come, we are no more."

Christianity and Medieval Ethics

General Characteristics

• Morality as Divine Law: Christianity introduced the concept of morality as a written code of positive law imposed by a Divine Lawgiver with infinite rewards and punishments.

• Faith and Love: Good conduct springs from Faith (loyal trust in God and Christ) and Love (the root of all virtues). "Love is the fulfilling of the law."

• Purity and Inwardness: Emphasis was placed on the repression of vicious desires. Christianity transformed the sense of material impurity into a sense of soul-pollution.

• Humility: A strikingly new virtue representing the renunciation of worldly rank and a total reliance on Divine Grace.

• Passive Virtues: Replaced pagan active courage with patience and endurance. Early Christians often repudiated secular conflict and office-holding.

Development of Doctrine

• Augustine ($354-430\,A.D.$): Central figure in Christian Ethics. Taught that after Adam's fall, human nature is totally corrupted. Man is incapable of avoiding sin without Divine Grace.

  • Defined the cardinal virtues as different modes of Love to God.

  • Distinguished between evangelical "commands" (for all) and "counsels" (celibacy/poverty for the more perfect).

• Scholasticism (Anselm to Occam):

  • Abelard ($1079-1142$): Argued that sin lies in the inward consent/contempt for God, not the outward act.

  • Thomas Aquinas ($1225-1274$): Synthesized Aristotle with Augustine. Established four types of Law:

    1. Eternal Law: The regulative reason of God.

    2. Natural Law: The principles of eternal law shared with rational creatures ($synderesis$).

    3. Human Law: Adaptations of natural law to specific communities.

    4. Divine Law: Revealed truths through Scripture.

• Theological vs. Cardinal Virtues: Aquinas placed Faith, Hope, and Love (theologic) above the acquired cardinal virtues (Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, Temperance).

• Casuistry: The growth of manuals for the confessional to determine the exact limits between "deadly" and "venial" sins. The Jesuits developed "Probabilism"—the idea that if an opinion is probable (held by one doctor), it may be followed.

Modern, Chiefly English, Ethics

Thomas Hobbes ($1588-1679$)

• Psychological Egoism: Each man's appetites are directed toward his own preservation or pleasure. All society is based on "either gain or glory."

• The State of Nature: A state of "war of every man against every man" where life is "nasty, brutish, and short." In this state, "right" is simply the liberty to do anything for self-preservation.

• The Laws of Nature: Rules of reason for peace (e.g., "seek peace," "perform covenants"). These are only effective when a sovereign power forces all men to obey them. The sovereign's will is the measure of right and wrong.

Rational Intuitionism (Cudworth, Clarke)

• Reaction against Hobbes: Argued that morality is not conventional but based on the "eternal and immutable" nature of things.

• Samuel Clarke ($1675-1729$): Compared moral principles to mathematical axioms. Just as it is absurd to deny that $2 + 2 = 4$, it is absurd to act against equity or benevolence.

  • The "Rule of Equity": Do to others as you would they should do to you.

  • The "Rule of Benevolence": A greater good is to be preferred to a less.

The Moral Sense School (Shaftesbury, Hutcheson)

• Shaftesbury ($1671-1713$): Argued that man has natural "social affections." Virtue consists in a balance of self-affections and social affections. We have a "moral sense" that immediately approves of this harmony as beautiful.

• Francis Hutcheson ($1694-1747$): Identifies virtue with benevolence. Formulated the criterion: "That action is best which procures the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers."

Joseph Butler ($1692-1752$)

• Dualism of Principles: Recognized two governing principles in human nature:

  1. Reasonable Self-Love: Rational pursuit of one's own happiness.

  2. Conscience: A natural authority that judges actions based on moral rectitude, regardless of happiness.

• Critique of Egoism: Pointed out that self-love requires the prior existence of particular desires; if we had no desire for an object, there would be no pleasure in getting it.

David Hume ($1711-1776$) and Adam Smith ($1723-1790$)

• Sympathy: Hume referred moral sentiments to sympathy with the utility or agreeableness of actions. Sympathy is a fundamental principle of human nature beyond which we cannot go.

• Adam Smith's Spectator: Moral judgment is based on the "propriety" of feelings as seen by an "impartial spectator." We approve of an emotion when we can fully sympathize with it.

Utilitarianism (Paley, Bentham, J. S. Mill)

• John Paley ($1743-1805$): Connected utility with Divine Will. We are obliged to pursue general happiness because God wills it and will reward it/punish its neglect.

• Jeremy Bentham ($1748-1832$): Abandoned theology for a purely empirical approach. Developed the "Hedonistic Calculus" treating pleasures and pains as measurable in intensity and duration. All acts are judged by their conduciveness to general happiness.

• John Stuart Mill ($1806-1873$): Introduced qualitative differences in pleasure ("better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied"). Emphasized social feelings as the ultimate sanction of utilitarianism.

Foreign Influences

• Immanuel Kant ($1724-1804$): Taught the "Categorical Imperative": "Act only on that maxim which thou canst will to be a universal law." Conduct has moral worth only if done from a sense of Duty, not inclination.

• Auguste Comte ($1798-1857$): Emphasized Altruism (living for others) and the study of society's historical evolution.

• G. W. F. Hegel ($1770-1831$): Viewed the universal will as expressed in the laws and customary morality of the community/state.

• German Pessimism (Schopenhauer and Hartmann): Argued that life is essentially suffering and pain. Schopenhauer recommended the "negation of the will to live" through asceticism and sympathy.

Evolutional Ethics

• Herbert Spencer ($1820-1903$): Connected morality with the evolution of the species. Conduct is "good" if it promotes the "quantity of life" (breadth and length) in individuals and society.

• Scientific Basis: Proposes to deduce moral rules from biological and sociological laws rather than empirical utilitarian calculation.