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City/Soul: The City is the Soul Magnified, is a metaphor that Socrates uses to present a curious theory of his. The theory comes in two parts, one of which the problem of morals can be resolved only by understanding the human soul. The second is such that you need to study the city to understand. The ideal city will show that of an ideal soul, and that can help us answer why we should be moral and follow the correct morals. Socrates analysis leads to three parts in a city; the rulers, the authority, and the workers. The rulers are the rational, the authority is the spirited, and the workers are the passion of of the soul. The rulers have the wisdom and know philosophy, the authority protects the city and can become rulers, and the workers are the majority of the city which are incapable of philosophy. Following Plato, most people in Plato's good city are actually bad. This is because they don't apply themselves to having done good moral deeds. http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~vlibrary/AncPhil05-7HO.pdf
Hedonism If you recall, Hobbes calles his egoism a form of hedonism, and one type would be psychological hedonism, while the other type is moral hedonism. Psychological hedonism is the theory of motivation, and can never be a form of moral hedonsim. Moral hedonism is based off of the idea that it is possible to act on others interests rather than just our own interests, but it is somehow immoral to do so. This is because the ancients did not always conceive the way of ethics that we do today. Next comes Epicurus, who found that there are two kinds of pleasures within the topic of hedonism. They are the natural desires and the vain desires. The natural desires are easily satisfied while the vain desires are not. He also believes that pleasure is the absence of pain, and that the absence of life is better than life at all. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hedonism/
Duty Morality: Duty based morals are sometimes called nonconsequentialists they are obligatory. They are based on principles that you don't have to do them if you don't want to. There are four main types of duty morals. The first one contains three sub classes, duties to others, duties to God, and duties to oneself. The second one is a rights theory, where you do moral duties because you have the right to. For example, you have the right not to be harmed by another person.They relate because the rights of one person are the duties of another. The third duty is a principle based off of a single duty. This is that we have moral duties to oneself and others, such as keeping our promises and secrets when told to do so, and even when not. The fourth duty based morality is the most recent, and states that duties are part of the fundemental part of the universe. The list below helps you understand this concept. -Fidelity: the duty to keep promises -Reparation: the duty to compensate others when we harm them -Gratitude: the duty to thank those who help us -Justice: the duty to recognize merit -Beneficence: the duty to improve the conditions of others -Self-improvement: the duty to improve our virtue and intelligence -Nonmaleficence: the duty to not injure others http://www.iep.utm.edu/e/ethics.htm#SH2b
Egoism: Plato - Being moral was only in the interest to self-promote onelf to a high degree. The only reason why people would help others is soley to benefit oneself because we are ignorant. Thrasymachus - He shared the same view, but with one difference. This was because it is not in one's best interest to act morally. This brought up a problem because it caused opposition between individual and society. Socrates - His view on egoism was different than the two men above, because he believed that the interests of an individual and that of a society are identical. Thomas Hobbes - He rules out the possiblity of altruism when it comes to egoism. Altruism is that morals cause us to sacrifice our own interests in respect to the interests of others. When someone does a good deed for another person, there are many excuses that people tend to give. Hobbes believes that they all dwindle down to a person only doing the good deed for personal satiisfaction. His view on egoism is a form of hedonism. Since Hobbes cannot prove his assurtions, we rely on the principle of falsifiability. This states that in order for something to be true, its defender must be able to state that the hypothesis had been refuted. In the end, it is hard for people to take his ideas seriously because we just don't know what to think. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/egoism/
Utilitarianism: Jeremy Bentham first put forth the idea of utilitarianism. It was later changed by his disciple, John Mill. Bentham's advice was put into stone by what he called "The Calculus of Felicity." According to this work, pleasure is put into seven groups, which provides a rational analysis of pleasure. These seven are: intensity, duration, certainty, propinquity, fecundity, purity, and extent. Whenever you think of doing an act, you can analyze its value in terms of the categories above and look at its alternatives. Although there is a social aspect to utilitarianism, there is also a democratic bias built in. This was that each person no matter what gets one vote. In other words, each person has equal value in the world, and that no one can tell you that you are having fun, not even your mom. http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/pecorip/SCCCWEB/INTRO_TEXT/Chapter%208%20Ethics/Utilitarianism.htm
