Introduction to Ethics: Including a Critical Survey of Moral Systems: Volume 2

Introduction To Ethics: Including A Critical Survey Of Moral Systems by Théodore Jouffroy. This work presents a comprehensive course on moral philosophy, expressed through a sequence of lectures that survey major ethical theories and their founders. The text analyzes the selfish (Bentham, Hobbes), sentimental (Smith, Hutcheson, Hume, Shaftesbury, Butler, Hutcheson, Mackintosh, Rousseau, Jacobi, Mackintosh), and rational systems (Price, Clarke, Wollaston, Malebranche, Wolf, Montesquieu) in order to distinguish three broad families of ethics: selfish, sentimental, and rational. Jouffroy argues for a critical method that seeks not only the ends of conduct but the motives and the intellectual and moral foundations behind them, emphasizing the necessity of distinguishing absolute good from moral good, and urging a rigorous psychology of moral judgment. The excerpt culminates in a thorough critique of Price’s rationalism and a forecast of further examinations of rational ethical systems. Overall, the work aims to ground ethics in a robust, philosophically disciplined account of human motives and values.