The History of Ethics

When first published in 1968, Vernon J. Bourke’s The History of Ethics became the first full-scale, English-language history of the subject since Henry Sidgwick’s 1886 Outlines of the History of Ethics. In this masterful survey, Bourke addresses the many lacunae of Sigwick’s Outlines, especially with regard to the Medieval era, and also accomplishes what Alasdair MacIntyre’s Short History of Ethics could not, by means of a comprehensive presentation of twentieth-century moral philosophers. This new edition restores Bourke’s work to a single volume, thus providing an uninterrupted account of the ethical theories of Western philosophy from its beginnings, five hundred years before Christ, to the 1960s.
The History of Ethics emphasizes the key contributions of numerous ethicians with focused treatments that avoid verbiage, while also engaging an expository, rather than critical, approach, in order to allow the theories and thinkers to stand (or fall) on their own merit.