Core Concepts in Ethical and Political Philosophy

Posted on Nov 24, 2025 in Philosophy and ethics

Material Ethics

Eudaimonism: Aristotle

  • Aristotle would not agree with the elementary hedonism that affirms that good is simply sensible pleasure; this type of good is characteristic of animals and plants.
  • Three Types of Soul:
    • Vegetative soul (owned by plants).
    • Sensitive soul (characteristic of animals).
    • Rational soul (exclusive to human beings): Gives us radically different potentials than those of other living beings. Therefore, only by developing our rationality can we achieve a good human life.
  • According to the Aristotelian Theory of Virtue, to become a good person, we must govern our actions by calculating the middle term between excess and defect.
  • However, in order to always act in a fair middle term, the human being needs to acquire a habit of behavior that he will only achieve with constancy and the practice of always acting well.
  • In this way, if one has the wisdom to know what the middle term is, and, in addition, the habit of acting according to that wisdom, then he will achieve true ethical virtue.

Hedonism: Epicurus

  • Moderate conception of pleasures.
  • They considered that good should be shared to be truly good.
  • If we look for pleasure and avoid pain and suffering, we achieve good. But sometimes, this good is personal and selfish.
  • That is why the Epicureans tried to defend the achievement of a shared good rather than an individual good.
  • Types of Desires:
    • Natural, necessary.
    • Natural, not necessary.
    • Not natural, not necessary.

Stoicism

  • The Stoic aims to live according to reason and free of passions.
  • It invites one to master reactions through self-control. You must know what is or is not under your control, which is why it promotes a life in tune with natural laws.
  • The concept of Autarky represents independence from everything external.

Utilitarianism

  • Empiricist: Ethics are founded on the practical effects of an action.
  • Principle of Utility: To know when something is morally good or bad, we only have to follow the “hedonistic calculus.” How?
  • This calculation allows us to establish the pleasure and pain implicit in any act.
  • Therefore, it allows us to judge the moral consequences of that act.
  • When an act contains a greater number of pleasurable consequences than painful ones, such an act would be preferable to its opposite.
  • Since the human being is a social being, it is not possible to achieve happiness in isolation.
  • Therefore, the truly good thing is to get the greatest pleasure for the greatest number of people.

Stuart Mill’s Utilitarianism

  • Some pleasures are more valuable than others because they are higher quality pleasures.
  • “Better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied.”

Formal Ethics

Kant: Formal Ethics (Subjective)

  • Assumption: We cannot determine with certainty what a good human life consists of. Our will is free; we possess free will/liberty. Duty must have its foundations in something stronger than contingency (a future event which is possible but cannot be predicted certainly).
  • For Kant, the Good Will is the starting point (the goal of moral education).
  • Moral laws, like natural laws, must be universal and necessary principles. This is how we should act to act correctly and achieve good. This must take the form of the Categorical Imperative.
  • If we tell individuals how to act, not what to look for, we are letting everyone live their own life while being morally good.

Rawls: Theory of Justice

  • Justice is the main value of his ethics. In this way, he links ethics with politics.
  • According to him, human nature is such that people tend to think of their own position when they describe a better world.
  • His Theory of Justice is based on two principles he thought a reasonable person would accept.

Apel and Habermas: Discourse Ethics

  • The base of their ethic is communication (against Kant’s philosophy of conscience, which is subjective).
  • It finds universality based on an agreement among different points of view (not relativism). This is only possible through communication.
  • Assumption: Communication implies all participants are equal and free.
  • According to them, in the ideal situation of deliberative communication, there must be Symmetry (giving the same importance and value to both sides of the communication act).

Philosophical Critiques of Politics

Cynics: Antisthenes and Diogenes of Sinope

  • Defiant figures in history.
  • They set a role model for existence.
  • Core Cynic Principles:
    1. A rejection of material goods (because glory and honor do not liberate you, but enslave you).
    2. A search for connection with nature and animals.
    3. A concern to behave in an ethically correct way.
    This means rejecting social conventions to seek honest behavior.
  • They are characterized by Parrhesia: They said everything they thought, either because they were unable to shut up, or because their sense of distinction between what is thought and what could be said had been lost: raw honesty.
  • And also by Anaideia: Identified as “shamelessness.” Only humans feel shame, so we use it as a control mechanism (there are many things everybody does, so why not normalize and stop feeling shame?).
  • People saw Cynics as punks or urban rebels (Epicureans were sometimes seen as hippies). They had a bad reputation because they used “performances” to send their message.

Nietzsche: The Inversion of Morality

  • His way of thinking was an inversion of Christian morality.
  • According to him, the Christian virtues of looking after the weak and helpless had surprising origins (the morality of kindness had its beginnings in feelings of envy).
  • Christianity and morality derived from treating every individual as having the same worth—for Nietzsche, this was a serious mistake.
  • For him, that was the Morality of the Herd (popular culture masses):
    • It defends equality.
    • They are not able to create values; their values are those dictated to them (by priests).
    • Among these values, the values of weakness predominate (compassion, forgiveness).
    • Their will is negative and reactive (they do not love themselves; they only hate masters because they are superior).
  • For him, the Masters were the good ones, the strong ones, the few. This is why they need to be protected from the herd (the rest).

Historical Political Ideas

Political Thought Until the Renaissance

Plato’s Republic

  • The first utopian thought.
  • It proposed an aristocratic government (the government of the best).
  • Feminist (philosophers could be women).
  • Communist state: Property is common property.

Machiavelli

  • Political realism (maintaining power).
  • Separation of ethics and politics.
  • Advocated for the Roman Republic model (two consulates).
  • “Cynic” in the modern sense.
  • “The end justifies the means.” He was flexible about the form.
  • Focused on State politics.

The 17th and 18th Centuries: Contractualism

Contractualists considered society and the state the result of a pact between individuals who leave a situation that precedes society, the “state of nature.”

Hobbes (Extreme Absolutism)

  • Human beings in a state of nature are ruthless and selfish (only satisfying their own interests).
  • Human life before society was chaos; society was the solution.
  • Individuals lose liberties but remain alive.
  • Advocated for Absolute Monarchy.

Locke (Middle Term: Liberalism)

  • Human beings in a state of nature are not that bad (only conflicts arise to protect their own rights).
  • The State’s purpose is to avoid those conflicts, but with balanced power.
  • Property is the key: if you work for it, it is yours.
  • Talked about the legitimation of the government and limits to it.
  • Advocated for a Liberal State of Law.

Rousseau (Extreme Collectivism)

  • Human beings in a state of nature are good: “the good savage.”
  • Society is the problem.
  • Property is also a problem, leading to inequalities between human beings (grandfather of the communists).
  • Solution: democratic society/state.
  • The General Will is the will of all.
  • We are “forced to be free.”
  • Advocated for a Democratic “Collective” State (potentially “Totalitarian”).

The 19th and 20th Centuries

Marx and Lenin: Class Struggle

  • Society is built upon a division of classes, leading to class struggle.
  • The origin of the class struggle was the institution of property.
  • Owners steal from the proletariat; the workers work for them but receive nothing (exploitation).
  • To end class struggle: communal property instead of private property.
  • Objective: communist society, a social state.

Totalitarian States

  • Extreme Left Totalitarian State: Stalin’s Soviet Union.
  • Extreme Right Totalitarian States (Fascist States): The Third Reich, Mussolini’s Italy, Franco’s Spain.

Key Definitions in Political Science

Community

A group of people with diverse characteristics who are linked by social ties, share common perspectives, and engage in joint action in geographical locations.

Society

A community, nation, or broad grouping of people having common traditions, institutions, and collective activities and interests.

Nation

A specific social, economic, and cultural community, often with a common language, culture, and history, living in neighboring territories, with “independent” political institutions.

State

States include the type of social, economic, and political organization that regulates community life.

Government

The group of people with the authority to govern a country or state; a particular ministry in office.

Montesquieu on Government

He concluded that the best form of government was one in which the legislative, executive, and judicial powers were separate and kept each other in check to prevent any branch from becoming too powerful.

Civil Society

It is made up of people who act within organized groups of varying complexities to defend common interests and promote collective actions which benefit the individuals of these groups or third parties.

Legality

The carrying out of actions in accordance with the law.

Legitimacy

Consists of a political regime’s right to exercise power.

Authority

The right of some to influence others when their power is recognized by those who accept the duty.