List of ethicists

List of ethicists including religious or political figures recognized by those outside their tradition as having made major contributions to ideas about ethics, or raised major controversies by taking strong positions on previously unexplored problems.

All are known for an ethical work or problem, but a few are primarily authors or satirists, or known as a mediator, politician, futurist or scientist, rather than as an essayist or philosopher. Some controversial figures are included, some of whom you may see as bad examples. A few are included because their names have become synonymous with certain ethical debates, but only if they personally elaborated an ethical theory justifing their actions. Inclusion on this list is not an endorsement of any ethical point of view.

• Pierre Abelard
• John Stevens Cabot Abbott
• Mortimer Adler
• Thomas Aquinas
• Ambrose
• Andronicus of Rhodes
• Aristotle
• Aristoxenus
• Isaac Asimov
• Asoka
• Ronald Atlas
• Augustine of Hippo
• Marcus Aurelius
• Avicenna

• Franz Xaver von Baader
• Francis Bacon
• Samuel Bailey
• Friedrich Eduard Beneke
• Henri Bergson
• Thomas Berry
• Maurice Blanchot
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer
• George Boole
• Gautama Buddha
• Mario Bunge
• Judith Butler
• Nasim Butt

• Brother Cadfael
• Miguel de Cervantes
• M. Umar Chapra
• Noam Chomsky
• Chu Hsi enlarged Confucian ethics to include women and children.
• Cicero
• Samuel Clarke
• Pierre Claude François Daunou
• Clement of Alexandria
• Etienne Bonnot de Condillac
• Confucius
• Crantor arranged "good" things
• Bernard Crick

• Dalai Lama
• Abraham ibn Daud
• Merryl Wyn Davies
• Hugo de Garis
• Rene Descartes
• Philip Doddridge
• Elliot N. Dorff

• Abdul Wahab Effendi
• Hamid Enyat
• Rudolf Christoph Eucken

• Johann Albert Fabricius
• Ismail al-Faruqi
• Nosson Zvi Finkel
• Owen Flanagan
• Michel Foucault
• Alexander Campbell Fraser
• Erich Fromm
• Buckminster Fuller

• Mohandas Gandhi
• Ghazali
• Carol Gilligan
• Newt Gingrich
• Victor Gollancz
• Thomas Hill Green

• Jurgen Habermas
• Hammurabi
• Henry Hazlitt
• Paul Hawken
• Claude Adrien Helvétius
• Frank Herbert
• Hergé
• Abraham Joshua Heschel
• Hierocles of Alexandria
• James Hinton
• Wau Holland
• Hans-Hermann Hoppe
• L. Ron Hubbard
• David Hume
• John Peters Humphrey - author of UN Declaration of Universal Human Rights
• Francis Hutcheson
• Thomas Henry Huxley

• Lauri Ingman
• Alija Ali Izetbegovic

• Jane Jacobs
• Paul Janet
• Thomas Jefferson
• Francis Jeffrey
• Jesus of Nazareth
• Pope John Paul II
• Théodore Simon Jouffroy
• Bill Joy

• Theodore Kacyzinski
• Immanuel Kant - Metaphysic of Ethics
• Rushworth Kidder
• Israel Kirzner
• Lawrence Kohlberg
• David Korten
• Peter Kropotkin

• Winona LaDuke
• George Lakoff
• Norman Lamm
• Ursula LeGuin
• Aldo Leopold
• Emmanuel Levinas
• Moses Chaim Luzzato

• Niccolo Machiavelli
• J. L. Mackie
• Steve Mann
• Mao Zedong
• Marcion of Sinope
• James Martineau
• Karl Marx
• Sayyid Abul A'la Mawdudi
• John McDowell
• Donella Meadows
• Menedemus
• Josef Mengele
• Fatima Mernissi
• Stanley Milgram
• James Mill
• Carol Moore
• G. E. Moore
• Moses
• Muhammad

• Syed Nawab Haider Naqwi
• Seyyed Hossein Nasr
• Oswald von Nell-Breuning
• Friedrich Nietzsche
• Carlos Santiago Nino
• Karl Immanuel Nitzsch

• John Cardinal O'Connor
• George Orwell

• Blaise Pascal
• Bahya ibn Paquda
• Derek Parfit
• Richard Perle
• Philo
• Plato
• Richard Price
• Prodicus

• Quintilian

• Fazlur Rahman
• Ayn Rand
• John Rawls
• Martin Rees
• George Croom Robertson
• Salman Rushdie
• John Ruskin
• Bertrand Russell

• Marquis de Sade
• Edward Said
• Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
• Ziauddin Sardar
• John Ralston Saul
• Zalman Schachter-Shalomi
• Friedrich Schiller
• Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher
• Karl Wilhelm Friedrich von Schlegel
• Moritz Schlick
• Frank Schmalleger
• Arthur Schopenhauer
• Albert Schweitzer
• Amartya Sen
• Lucius Annaeus Seneca
• Muhammad Nijatullah Siddiqui
• Henry Sidgwick
• Georg Simmel
• Peter Singer
• B. F. Skinner
• Adam Smith
• Baruch Spinoza
• John Shelby Spong
• Richard M. Stallman
• Dugald Stewart
• Stobaeus
• John C. Stennis
• Leslie Stephen
• David Friedrich Strauss
• David Suzuki

• Tecumseh
• Teilhard de Chardin

• Johann Georg Walch
• William George Ward
• Otto Weininger
• William Whewell
• Philip Wicksteed
• E. O. Wilson
• Ludwig Wittgenstein
• Susan Wolf
• Christian Wolff (philosopher)
• William Wollaston
• Steve Wozniak

• Xenocrates

• Sun Yat-Sen
• Theodor Zwinger

See also

• list of ethics topics
• list of philosophers
• list of economists
• list of political scientists