Philosophy of Ethics, Essay Example

Ethics is a really ancient notion that emerged in antiquity – even legendary Greek philosophers were concerned with the issues of ethics, morality, living a good life and judging about certain actions as a good or bad deed. Socrates, Plato and Aristotle are the most prominent and the earliest philosophers of Ancient Greece: Socrates was the teacher for Plato and Aristotle was the pupil of Plato. Even despite the direct order they follow each other their philosophies differ greatly, and it is hard to believe that they were so closely interconnected.

First of all, it is necessary to speak about the vision of virtue and ethics by Socrates. In general this outstanding philosopher lived plainly and did not get deep into metaphysical considerations, putting living a good life to the fore. He doubted the positions of people and analyzed them by asking a set of ordinary, simplified questions, thus leading them to the point that they had taken a wrong position, and this happened not because they were wrong but because there was no correct position.

Plato was a more applied philosopher who thought about wellness as a practical phenomenon in a real life. Besides imagining an ideal state with the ideal community in it, he also thought about the ethically correct society and thought that the decision was ethical in case it was good for everyone. However, the ethics of a state was seen by him as following a person’s destiny, function in the society blindly without any ambitions and the wish to change it.

Aristotle took a completely different point of view seeing ethics in the direct fulfillment of some ultimate goal by a thing or a person. He thought that those who failed to fulfill the ultimate goal were useless and thus unethical – this philosophy was particularly well reflected in his vision of the role of women in life. Aristotle considered a man ethical because he was a complete human being and fulfilled his role in life, and women were inferior creatures, not complete men, so they were unethical.

It is hard to find the common points with any of these philosophers because their considerations are very distant from what we are having in the contemporary reality, from our considerations about good and bad. Nevertheless, I would apt to agree with Socrates more because he states there is no ultimate truth and there is only the subjective reality that does not allow anyone to hold any opinion because it will always be wrong. The main thing is to live a good life and to be a good person – this is the complete meaning of ethics that should be kept to by every human being.