I've just started reading Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy. I've only gotten up to Plato so far (edit: I'm now to Epicurus, who is awesome!), but I find it fascinating. My goal in reading about philosophy is to potentially improve and/or refine my own philosophies, particularly in the field of ethics. To that end, I'd like to sketch out a brief overview of my current take on ethics. I'll call this the "before," and hopefully I'll make another one after I've gotten a good overview of the various ethical philosophies which have influenced Western though through the past few millennia. And then hopefully a few more as I continue reading, but we'll see. Here is my current stance on the question of ethics, in brief: