What is the human good? What are the primary virtues that make a good person? What makes an action right? Must we try to maximize good consequences? How can we know what is right and good? Can morality be rationally justified? In Ethics Through History, Terence Irwin addresses such fundamental questions, making these central debates intelligible to readers without an extensive background in philosophy. He provides a historical and philosophical discussion of major questions and key philosophers in the history of ethics, in the tradition that begins with Socrates onwards. Irwin covers ancient, medieval, and modern moral philosophers whose views have helped to form the agenda for contemporary ethical theory, paying attention to the strengths and weaknesses of their respective positions.

1: Introduction2: Socrates: the Choice of Lives3: Plato4: Aristotle5: Scepticism6: Epicurus: Happiness as Pleasure7: The Stoics: Happiness as Virtue8: Christian Belief and Moral Philosophy: Augustine9: Aquinas10: Scotus and Ockham11: Morality and Social Human Nature: Suarez and Grotius12: Hobbes: Natural Law without Social Human Nature13: Voluntarism, Naturalism and Moral Realism: Pufendorf, Shaftesbury, Cudworth, and Clarke14: Sentimentalism: A Non-Rational Ground for Morality. Hutcheson and Hume15: Rationalism: a Rational Ground for Morality. Butler, Price, and Reid16: Kant and Some Critics17: Schopenhauer: Kant's Insights and Errors18: Hegel: Beyond Kantian Morality19: Nietzsche: Against Kant and Morality20: Utilitarianism: Mill and Sidgwick21: Beyond Kantian and Utilitarian Morality: an Idealist Alternative. Green and Bradley22: Meta-ethics: Objectivity and its Critics23: Utilitarianism and its Critics: Some Further Questions

Terence Irwin, Emeritus Professor of Ancient Philosophy, University of Oxford

Terence Irwin is Emeritus Professor of Ancient Philosophy at the University of Oxford. He obtained his MA from Oxford and his PhD from Princeton University. He has taught at Harvard and Cornell. He is the author of The Development of Ethics (Oxford 2007-9), among numerous other publications.