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Foundations of Ethics - Flier

What's it about?

Moral principles have done and continue to do so much damage in the world that it makes very good sense to see if they can't be weeded out. - This is one way of thinking about Foundations of Ethics.

Kant thought you ought always to do the rational thing. Mill thought you ought always to do the thing that produced the most happiness - not for you, but for everybody. Hobbes thought you ought to do anything to keep anarchy at bay. Plato thought you ought to dismiss this world and its pleasures entirely and concentrate instead on getting access to another one, with only the initiated (such as Plato himself) as your guide.

But if we are to weed out these dangerous or misleading thoughts, we have to have some idea of the garden we are trying to improve. What are we aiming for?

These are the questions we try and pursue, in the company of some powerful thinkers: Kant, Aristotle, Mill, Plato, Hobbes; and David Hume.

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