32 ETHICAL GURUS
1. One anonymous sage: the Rta/Tao/Logos, Four Sages from the East
2. The Hindu Tradition: The Four Wants of Man
3. Buddha: Nirvana
4. Lao Tzu: Nature’s Way
5. Confucius: Social Harmony Three Sages from the West
6. Moses: Divine Law
7. Jesus: Agape Love
8. Muhammad: “Islam” Three Classic Greek Founders of Philosophy
9. Socrates: the Primacy of Wisdom (“Virtue is Knowledge”)
10. Plato: a, No double standard: ethics and politics; b. Platonic ideas: the objective reality of goodness; c. Justice as health of soul and therefore always profitable
11. Aristotle: a.Happiness as the end, the greatest good; b. Virtue as the road to happiness; c. The good as teleological; d. The golden mean as the key to virtue; e. Ethics as dependent on metaphysics; f. The (later) idea of “natural law”
Three Lesser but More Popular Ancient Philosophers
12. Protagoras
13. Epicurus: Hedonism
14. Epicurus: Stoicism Three Medieval Christian Saints
15. St. Augustine: a. Love as gravity; b. Only two kinds of people; c. The restless heart
16. St. Anselm: The Good greater than which nothing can be thought
17. Thomas Aquinas: a. The role of faith and reason; b. Four kinds of law; c. The four cardinal virtues and the three theological virtues; d. Eight candidates for happiness
Three Modern Political Philosophers
18. Machiavelli: the good as the practical
19. Hobbes: the good as power
20. Rousseau: the good as feeling
Three Classic Modern Ethical Alternatives
21. Hume: the good as subjective
22. Kant: a. The good as goodwill; b. Goodwill as duty; c. Duty as the “categorical imperative”
23. Mill: Utilitarianism: the good as maximally happy consequences
Three Existentialists
24. Kierkegaard: Aesthetics, Ethics, and Religion
25. Nietzsche: a. The genealogy of morals as resentment; b. The Superman: “beyond good
and evil”, c. “The will to power”
26. Sartre: a. God vs. freedom; b. Love vs freedom
Two Personalists
27. Marcel: a. Being as value; b. Mysteries vs. problems; c. “Creative fidelity”
28. Von Hildebrand: a. Three kinds of value; b. The ethics of the heart
Three Analytic Philosophers
29. Ayer: the good as meaningless
30. Moore: the good as indefinable
31. Wittgenstein: the good as “mystical”
32. Is ethics dead? MacIntyre “After Virtue” vs. Aquinas
Conclusions
Appendix I: Suggestions for questions for original essays or debates
Appendix II: Ten methods from the philosophers for writing original essays