Normative: Tells you what you ought or ought not to do

Descriptive: Facts, describes how people ethically behave

  Looked at science, physics especially. Against gods and religion. Looking for one constant thing (came up with air etc)

 Socrates (Plato, Aristotle) Decided that ethics was more important than science. Also attacking religion.  

 Medieval Philosophy

 Thomas Aquinas. Five proofs of Gods existence. Ethics is now trying to help you live to the next life (or afterlife) Synthesis of the two first periods.

 Descartes (I think therefore I am) Wanted to get rid of religion and replace it with science. They hated tradition, because it led to civil strife and wars.

 Niche. Opposition to basically everything that came before them. Niche was anti-liberal. He argued it made people weak.

 Teleological/Consequentialism

 The action is not right or wrong or good or bad in and of itself. What makes it good or bad is it's consequence.

•  The only actions that matter are those that lead to good and bad utility or usefulness. This theory is used all the time for politics.
• Form of Consequentialism. 
• Uses Hedonistic Calculus: Assigning Values to consequences to figure out what to do.

 The actions are right or wrong in and of themselves. The consequences never matter. Kant is a Deontological thinker.

 Certain actions turn you into a certain kind of person, same with society.

•      Activity makes you happy. He says it's your activity. Therefore you have to make yourself happy. You have to fulfil a function of your own. Anything other than rational reasoning (which is your function) will not make you happy.

• The Golden Mean: One side is deficit or lack, the other side is excess. In the middle is excellence.     

• Ex: For courage, one side is cowardice, the other side is rashness.