Introduction — A Brief History of Ethics

Abstract

The question of ethics is one which persists. On a personal level, on a social, on a global level, what is it we should do? And why? Why should we adopt this or that stance, this or that perspective on what is right and what is wrong? How can we know the good that we would wish? If there is available some clear cut notion of the good then this would surely be the good for all and would surely be available to us all. Such a conception of a sovereign good, a singular good above all other instances of or interpretations of good in particular circumstances, is tempting insofar as it promises to settle questions of ethics or at least suggests that there might be a possibility of them being settled. Such a notion, the persistence of some higher moral authority which would somehow guarantee any particular human conception of morality, is perhaps best exemplified in Plato’s notion of the good (to agathon) which ‘persists’ beyond being (epekeina tés ousias).