A Historical Introduction to Ethics (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from A Historical Introduction to Ethics

The criticism of moral systems constitutes a special section. In this way the repetition of objections which hold against a number of systems has been avoided. In the classroom, how ever, the author has departed from this plan. Students require and often request some kind of criticism before the lecturer passes from one system to another. The best plan in actual practice is to indicate the chief lines of criticism in concluding the analysis of an author, and toward the end of the course to summarize the various systems, giving a general and special criticism of the theories of morality. The collection of the points of criticism into one division, while having special advan tages in a printed work, need not interfere with the carrying out of the above method in practice, for it is a very easy matter to turn from one part of a book to another.

In the choice of the types of ethical theory scarcely any two men would agree, and the author can scarcely hope to escape the accusation of most serious omissions. Some of these omissions will, however, be pardoned by one who bears in mind that the present work does not pretend to be a history of ethics, that the number of types must be relatively few, lest the student be lost in a maze of detail, and that the author can only hope to introduce the student to the field of ethical speculation.

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