CHAPTER 5:

THE EARLY
PHILOSOPHERS
AND THEIR WORKS
 Lesson 1:
THE EARLY
PHILOSOPHERS
 ARISTOTLE ON ETHICS

The most famous and thorough of Aristotle’s ethical works is his

Nicomachean Ethics. This work is an inquiry into the best life for human
beings to live. The life of human flourishing or happiness (eudaimonia) is
the best life. It is important to note that what we translate as “happiness” is
quite different for Aristotle than it is for us. We often consider happiness to
be a mood or an emotion, but Aristotle considers it to be an activity- a way
of living one’s life. Thus, it is possible for one to have an overall happy life,
even if that life has its moments of sadness and pain (Barnes, 1984).
So, the happiest life is a practice of virtue, and this is practiced under
the guidance of reason. Examples of character virtues would be courage,
temperance, liberty, and magnanimity.
 THREE TYPES OF FRIENDSHIP

 Friendship of Excellence- is based upon virtue, and each friend enjoys and contemplates the
excellence of his/her friend. Since the friend is like another self, contemplating a friend’s virtue
will help us in the practice of virtue for ourselves.

 Friendship of Pleasure- most changeable forms of friendship since the things we find
pleasurable or useful tend to change over a lifetime. For example, if a friendship forms out of a
mutual love for beer.

 Friendship of Utility- If a friend is merely one of utility, then that friendship will likely dissolve
when it is no longer useful.
 ST. THOMAS AQUINAS ON
VIRTUE
Thomas broad account of virtues as excellences or perfections of the various human powers
formally echoes Aristotle, both with regard to the nature of a virtue and many specific virtues.
Aquinas follows Aristotle in thinking that an act is good or bad depending on whether it
contributes to or deters us from our proper human end-the telos is eudaimonia, or happiness,
where “happiness” is understood in terms of completion, perfection or well being.
On the other hand, Aquinas believes that we can never achieve complete or final happiness in
life. For him, final happiness consists in beatitude, or supernatural union with God. Such an end
lies far beyond what we through our natural capacities can attain. For this reason, we not only need
the virtues, we also need God to transform our nature so that we might be suited to participate in
divine beatitude.
 The distinction of a two-fold happiness in human life leads
to a distinction between the NATURAL virtues and the
THEOLOGICAL virtues

1. Natural virtues- are virtues that pertain to the happiness of this life that is
“proportionate” to human nature. The cardinal natural virtues are Prudence,
Justice, Courage and Temperance.

2. Theological virtues- pertain to the beatitude that is not appropriate to human

nature, the supernatural good of life with God. The theological virtues are Faith,
Hope, and Love. They bear upon the eternal beatitude and are simply infused
by God’s gift of grace. They cannot be acquired by human effort.
 KANT ON GOOD WILL
To act out of a “good will” for Kant means to act out of a sense of moral obligation or
“duty”. In other words, the moral agent does a particular action because of what it
produces (its consequences) in terms of human experience, but he or she recognizes by
reasoning that is morally the right thing to do and thus regards him or herself as having a
moral duty or obligation to do that action.
In this respect Kant’s view towards morality parallels the Christian’s view concerning
obedience to God’s commandments, according to which the Christian obeys God’s
commandments simply God commands them, not for the sake of rewards in heaven after
death of fear of punishment in hell.
 KANT ON RIGHTS
Immanuel Kant examined the idea of human rights within politics in such a way that it “is only
a legitimate government that guarantees our natural right to freedom, and from this freedom we
derive other’s rights”. From this basis it can be assumed that Kant looks at the development,
creation and implementation of rights as primarily dependent on the state and how the
government within the state functions. Furthermore, Kant stresses that a society can only function
politically in relation to the state if fundamental rights, laws and entitlements are given and
enhanced by the state. As Kant, teaches, these “righteous laws” are founded upon three rational
principles:
1. The liberty of every member of the society as a man.
2. The equality of every member of the society with every other, as a subject.
3. The independence of every member of the commonwealth as a citizen.
 RIGHTS
 RIGHT
- is described as an entitlement or justified claim to a certain kind of positive and negative
treatment from others, to support from others or non interference from others.
- Rights belongs to individuals, and no organization has any rights not directly derived from
those of its members as individuals; and, just as an individual’s rights, similarly the rights of
any organization whatever must yield to those of a single individual, whether inside or outside
the organization.
- It is only when people get and enjoy rights that they can develop their personalities and
contribute their best services to the society.
 NATURE OF RIGHTS
1. Rights are the basic social conditions offered to the individual who is an indispensable
member of the society.
2. Rights enable man to fully enhance his personality; to achieve his best self.
3. Rights are inherently social because they are never against social welfare.
4. The state plays the role of recognizing and protecting the rights by providing for the full
maintenance and observance of the rights.
5. Rights are never absolute, the nature and extent for the fulfillment of the rights are relative.
6. Rights are dynamics in nature because the essence and contents of rights vary according to
change in place, time and conditions.
 KINDS OF RIGHTS
1. NATURAL RIGHTS- Many researches have in faith in natural rights. They stated that
people inherit several rights from nature. Before they came to live in a society and state,
the used to live in a state of nature. In it, the appreciated certain natural rights, like the
right to life, right to liberty and right to property. Natural rights are parts of human nature
and reason.
2. MORAL RIGHTS- Moral rights are based on human consciousness. They are supported
by moral force of human mind. These are based on human sense of goodness and
justice. Sense of goodness and public opinion are the sanctions behind moral rights.
3. LEGAL RIGHTS- Legal rights are those rights which are accepted and enforced by the
state. Any defilement of any legal right is punishable by law. Law courts of the state
enforce legal rights.
 Lesson 2:
THE CATEGORICAL
IMPERATIVES AND
UTILITARIANISM
 CATEGORICAL
IMPERATIVES
 CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE
- Was devised by Immanuel Kant to provide a set of requirements a maxim (or
motivation) must pass in order to be considered a moral obligation.
- When Categorical Imperative is established it becomes one’s moral duty to carry out
the action under any circumstances.
- Kant characterized the Categorical Imperative as an objective, rationally necessary
and unconditional principle that we must always follow despite any natural desires or
inclinations we may have to the contrary.
 3 FORMULATIONS OF
CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE
1. Formula of the Law of Nature insists that we should act only according to that
maxim’ which could be universalized.
2. The Formula of End in Itself ensures that you never treat others or oneself ‘merely
as an end but always as an end’.
3. Formula of Kingdom of Ends asks us to act as if a legislating member in the
Universal Kingdom of ends.
 UTILITARIANISM
• UTILITARIANISM
- The first systematic account of utilitarianism was developed by Jeremy Bentham
however the core insight motivating the theory occurred much earlier. That insight is
that morally appropriate behavior will not harm others, but instead increase
happiness or ‘utility’
- Earliest Utilitarian thinkers believed that promoting human happiness was incumbent
on us since it was approved by God.
- Classical Utilitarians, Bentham and Mill, were concerned with legal and social reform.
 JEREMY BENTHAM
(1748-1832)
Bentham famously held that humans were ruled by two
sovereign masters- pleasure and pain. Bentham also
promulgated the principle of utility as the standard of
right action on the part of governments and individuals.
Actions are approved when they are such as to
promote happiness, or pleasure, and disapproved of
when they have a tendency to cause unhappiness or
pain.
 JOHN STUART MILL
(1806-1873)
Mill was a follower of Bentham, and though most of his life,
greatly admired Bentham’s work even though he disagreed with
some of Bentham’s claims, particularly on the nature of
happiness. Mill’s version of utilitarianism differed from Bentham’s
also in that he placed weight on the effectiveness of internal
sanctions- emotions like guilt and remorse which serve to
regulate our actions. According to Mill, we are the sort of beings
that have social feelings, feelings for others, no just ourselves.
We care about them, and when we perceive harms to them this
causes painful experiences in us.
 UTILITARIAN PHILOSOPHY
- Utilitarianism is a philosophical view or theory about how we should evaluate a wide range of things that
involved choices that people face. Among the things that can be evaluated are actions, laws, policies,
character traits, and moral codes.
- Utilitarianism is a form of consequentialism because it rest on the idea that it is the consequences or
results of actions, laws, policies that determine whether they are good or bad, right or wrong.
- Utilitarianism is generally held to be the view that the morally right action is the action that produces the
best.
- Utilitarians support equality by the equal consideration of interests, and they reject any arbitrary
distinctions as to who is worthy of concern and who is not, and any discrimination between individuals.
- Utilitarians believe that the purpose of morality s to make life better by increasing the amount of good
thing in the world (pleasure and happiness)and decreasing the amount of bad things (pain and
unhappiness)