A History of Western Ethics (Revised Edition)
By Vernon Burck
Huang Weiyan translated Zhang Zhan's school
East China Normal University Press
Synopsis
Vernon Burck's History of Western Ethics details the development of Western theories of ethics from pre-Socrates to the mid-twentieth century, including the ideas of the major schools of ethicists.
This book is informative and objective. Since its first edition in 1968, it has been one of several important references in the history of Western ethics.
This is a rich history of ethics with a wealth of primary sources and a wide range of ideas.
The History of Western Ethics (Revised Edition) is rich in information and objective in its narrative. Since its first edition in 1968, it has been one of several important references in the history of Western ethics.
This book deals in detail with the development of Western ethical theories from pre-Socrates to the mid-twentieth century, including the ideas of important schools of ethicists.
Introduction
The history book before us attempts to make a statement about the various ethical theories of Western philosophers from 500 BC to the present. I have included here all the authors I know of who have had any influence in ethics, with the exception of certain contemporary ethicists in the strict sense of the word. There are too many people involved in contemporary ethics to cover all of them in one book, so I have chosen only key figures from various contemporary schools. The scope is so wide that it is impossible to give a detailed account of the individual views of these thinkers. And I limit myself to the important contribution of each thinker to ethics. If an ethical point of view is directly related to the author's epistemological, psychological, metaphysical, or other ideological positions, I will also briefly outline his intellectual background in these areas.
This book is not a "critical" history of ethics. That said, I have no intention of making my own comments on the various theories presented here. My plan is simply to make an open, fair presentation of the various different types of ethical perspectives. I personally have a liking and dislike for them, but I do not allow my own personal preferences to consciously interfere with this introduction. I have taught the history of philosophy at the University of Toronto and then St. Louis University. In my nearly forty years of teaching, I have come to feel that the best comments on philosophical theories come from the historical facts of philosophical theories themselves. Although at times some of the early thinkers were ignored or unfairly commented upon, in later centuries good ideas eventually resurfaced on the surface of attention and eventually manifested themselves.
Classical and medieval ethical theories center on how people usually achieve a happy life. Before the Renaissance, it was generally believed that all human beings were essentially prescribed to achieve a single ultimate goal. Although different writers have different descriptions of this supreme goal, all the ideological directions of ethical theories before modernization belong to teleological. That is to say, the focus of almost all the ethical theories presented in the first two parts of this book is the question: How should man live and behave in order to finally achieve his ultimate goal as a human being? But on the other hand, modern and contemporary ethical theories focus on the practical question of ethical judgment: How should we interpret and verify the "oughtness" in human experience? This contrast between the old and new theories differs only in emphasis and does not imply an absolute shift in the ethical meaning. Classical and medieval thinkers were also well aware of the importance of moral responsibility and its judgments, and he was certainly not unaware of the importance of those "ought to be done." Similarly, although modern ethicists do not emphasize the ultimate goal and fundamental dynamics, almost all of them admit that the consequences of human actions and attitudes are implied in the knowledge of every "should."
Thus, from the time of the earliest Greek philosophers, ethics has had only one meaning: it is a reflective study of what is good and what is evil in the part of life where man is supposed to bear certain personal responsibilities. It is the different interpretations of "good" or "evil" (or other evaluation words) in this moral relation that have led to the emergence of different views and positions in the history of ethics. Religious morals that have no reflective or theoretical basis are not included in this history book unless they have also had a significant influence on ethical thought.
One difficulty that always arises in writing like this one is the use of terminology. I try to avoid terms that appear only in a less important thinker or in a narrower school of thought, but I must explain them where special words are necessary. Since Thomas E. Hill developed ethical taxonomies in his masterpiece Contemporary Ethical Theories, these classifications have been convenient to use. He divided ethical theories into six self-evident types: ethical views may be skeptical, laudatory, processological, psychological, metaphysical, or intuitive. These classifications should include most of the different types that may arise in the field. In addition, the English authors are not yet able to agree on what the person doing the ethical research should be called. I usually call him an ethicist, but I'm not averse to calling him an ethicist. "Moral Philosopher" is an old term, and I use it as "ethicist." But the word moralist has a different meaning, implying a moral person rather than a person interested in ethical theories.
As for geographical considerations, this history book has no intention of discussing the ethics of the East. Not because they are unimportant, but because I do not have the necessary background and language to study Eastern ethics. Most of the theories presented in this history book are directly related to, or influence the development of Western culture. These theories may not tell us what is the best way to live, or even what is the indisputable basis of moral judgment, but they do provide a wide and diverse range of important advice on how to think about these life questions.
About the author, translator, and proofreader
Vernon J. Bourke, 1907–1998), professor, author, and Thomismist philosopher at Saint Louis University. His main research areas are ethics, especially the moral philosophy of Augustine and Thomas Aquinas.
Burke was born in North Bay, Ontario, Canada. In 1948, he became president of the American Catholic Philosophical Union. He is an honorary member of the Order of St. Augustine, a member of the Natural Law Committee of the University of Notre Dame, and a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society.
The translator, Huang Weiyuan, graduated from the Sericulture Department of Zhejiang Agricultural University in 1982, received a master's degree in agricultural history from South China Agricultural University in 1987, and a doctorate degree in agricultural economics from Nanjing Agricultural University in 1992. From 1987 to 1989, he was a teacher in the Department of Agricultural Economics of Zhejiang Agricultural University, and from 1992 to 1994, he was a teacher in the Department of Economics of Hangzhou University. He moved to Canada in 1995 and now works for the Federal Revenue Service of Canada.
Zhang Zhan, born in 1969 in Boxing, Shandong, graduated from the Department of Chinese of Northeast Normal University with a bachelor's degree, and then studied in the Department of Philosophy of Fudan University, and obtained a master's degree and a doctorate degree successively. From 2008 to 2013, he worked at the Institute of Religion of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, and since 2013 he has worked at the Shanghai Research Center for Religious Culture. He has published translations of Western Dualistic Gnosis (2009, Shanghai People's Publishing House) and Gnosis and Mysticism (2012, East China Normal University Press).
Source: East China Normal University Press
Editor: Xu Nuo