Types

• There have been many approaches to morality, from the ancient Greek schools of Platonism, stoicism and Epicureanism to the neoplatonists who revised Plato's work. Existentialists and postmodernists reject most Greek arguments.
  
  

History

• Plato's theory that people wanted to be moral--yet were unsure how--was dominant until the neoplatonists said morals could be found through God. Duty to God shifted to duty to society during the Enlightenment before finally becoming duty to oneself under the postmodernists.
  
  

Significance

• The introduction of God being the source of all truth and morality by the neoplatonists would dominate European thought for 1,500 years, serving as Christian dogma during the medieval period.
  
  

Contradictions

• In the 5th century B.C., Plato argued that an objective morality waited for people to discover it. In the late 19th century, German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche declared morality to be subjective, resting on an individual's principles.
  
  

Considerations

• One of the biggest questions in Western morality is whether man is capable of good behavior without God. The ancient Greeks agreed with today's philosophers that it is, but much of Western thought has dictated otherwise.
  
  

Influence

• Ideas on morality have shaped future actions. Plato's ideas determined Christian views on God. John Locke's notions were utilized during the creation of the U.S. government, and Nazi zealots took Nietzsche's beliefs on Jewish morality to violent extremes.