History of ethics

Introduction
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 Related Topics

Images

Marble bust of Pythagoras, the ancient Greek mathematician and philosopher, showing a bearded man with a head covering and calm expression.

The Greek philosopher Plato

Marble bust of Aristotle with a beard and draped robe, showing detailed facial features and wavy hair, set against a dark background.

Marble bust of Marcus Tullius Cicero, shown with short hair and draped clothing, displayed against a black background.

Bronze bust of Epicurus with a full beard and draped clothing, displayed on a round inscribed base at the National Archaeological Museum of Naples.

St. Paul the Apostle

Painting by Lippo Memmi of Saint Augustine of Hippo wearing a red bishop's robe and mitre, holding a crozier and a book, set against a gold background.

Andrea da Firenze: St. Thomas Aquinas Enthroned Between the Doctors of the Old and New Testaments, with Personifications of the Virtues, Sciences, and Liberal Arts

History of ethics: References & Edit History

Article Contributors

Primary Contributors

Peter Singer
Peter Singer is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at the University Center for Human Values, Princeton University. A specialist in applied ethics, he approaches ethical issues from a secular, preference-utilitarian perspective. He is a major proponent of biocentrism.

Other Encyclopedia Britannica Contributors

Article History

Type	Description	Contributor	Date
	Article title updated for style.	The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica	Nov 01, 2026
	Changed spelling of “anti-Semitism” to “antisemitism” and Americanized spellings throughout.	Mindy Johnston	May 01, 2025
	Internal cross-references added.	Brian Duignan	Dec 21, 2023
	New article added.	Brian Duignan	Dec 05, 2023