Immanent moral systems are incomparably more diverse than heteronomous and transcendent ones. However, the principle of immanence is not uniformly applied across all these systems. Often, they retain elements of transcendent or even heteronomous morality, just as heteronomous and transcendent systems largely maintain connections with empirical facts of moral life and, consequently, with concepts of immanent morality. In their quest to understand the essence of morality through the empirical nature of humanity, immanent systems may pursue two distinct paths. First, the internal properties that form the concept of morality can serve as the starting point for investigation; in this case, the task of ethics consists of exploring and classifying notions of virtues, thus predominantly embodying a doctrine of virtues. Second, external goals may serve as the foundational starting point for immanent ethics, where the pursuit of these goals renders human actions moral; here, the central concept of ethics becomes that of moral good, leading to an ethics primarily focused on goods. The first of these paths is more accessible; the second, as our overview has shown, emerges only at a later stage of ethical reflection. Therefore, ancient ethics is almost exclusively a doctrine of virtues, whereas more recent ethics represents, to a greater or lesser extent, a moral teaching on goods. Notably, a clear distinction between the perspectives of the doctrine of virtues and the doctrine of goods emerges only within immanent systems. On one hand, when an attempt is made to derive virtues from the very nature of humanity, they acquire a specific significance that distinctly separates the domain of morality from external physical capabilities and from religious aspirations. On the other hand, concepts of goods and values, when linked to empirically attainable human goals, take on a distinctly ethical character. In heteronomous and transcendent systems, the doctrine of virtues and the doctrine of goods often intertwine; in Platonic and Kantian ethics, for instance, the good is simultaneously an ethical and a religious concept, with knowledge and will directed toward the good being both ethical virtues and religious duties. Since, in these systems, the highest good is regarded as a transcendent object, both goods—particularly the highest good—and thus virtue directed toward the latter do not maintain a direct relationship with empirical human life. Only in the case of secondary goods and lower virtues do these systems attempt to take empirical reality into account, thereby introducing elements of immanent morality.

Thus, immanent moral systems predominantly fall into systems of virtues and systems of goods or, more generally, into subjective and objective systems. All subjective systems strive to define what constitutes the greatest happiness for the individual. As Aristotle clearly indicated, they all share the belief that “eudaimonia,” or in the precise sense of the term, subjective personal happiness, serves as the foundation for human conduct. In this broad sense, all ancient ethical doctrines of virtues, from Socrates to Stoicism and Epicureanism, are eudaimonistic. However, they differ regarding the relationship between subjective happiness and external events and life conditions, particularly concerning so-called external goods, which distinguishes them into two opposing directions and a third, neutral position between them. The first includes, on one side, the rigorism of the Stoics and Cynics and, on the other side, the hedonism of the Cyrenaics and Epicureans. Rigorism views external life goods negatively, while hedonism sees them positively. The former perceives the essence of virtue in the self-satisfaction of the individual and its independence from external life conditions; the latter finds it in the enjoyment of external goods and in a relationship to them that guarantees the possibility of prolonged enjoyment. The neutral position, which finds its starting point in Socrates and reaches full development in Aristotle, attempts to define the concept of virtue from the internal relationships of soul-driven aspirations, as isolated as possible from relationships to external goods. Establishing a purely immanent concept of virtue leads to Aristotle's formulated principle of the golden mean, according to which virtue occupies a neutral position between opposing affects: courage lies between cowardice and reckless bravery; generosity lies between greed and prodigality, and so forth. By adding to ethical virtues the dianoetic virtues, Aristotle broadens this principle in the spirit of rigorism: he places particular importance on those virtues to which the individual is exclusively indebted to themselves.

In contemporary ethics, the concepts of virtues established in older systems are retained; in one form or another, it supplements inquiries into the origins and essence of moral goods. However, the main feature of this ethics lies in its aim to define objective values that should be regarded as moral goals. This objective question emerges for the first time when theological ethics, which combines transcendent Christian-Platonic views with secular Aristotelian perspectives, retreats to the background, thereby paving the way for independent philosophical reflection. At this time, the need arises for a purely secular grounding of morality, coinciding with the general shift of philosophy toward a secular science influenced by new scientific perspectives. Just as nature is recognized as a whole arising from itself according to immanent laws, so too is human moral behavior understood as stemming from a general drive to dominate and utilize nature for human purposes. Consequently, the question arises: whose interests should the beneficial activity directed toward the external world pursue—the interests of the individual or those of society, and if the former, then of the acting individual or their neighbor? Thus, two main directions of objective immanent ethics are primarily defined: individualistic and universalistic, with the former branching into two further directions: egoistic and altruistic. In the universalistic direction, from the very beginning, the idea of the gradual improvement of moral goods prevails: every societal activity views society not only as a collective whole but also as a developing entity that, in its common goals, transcends the boundaries of the present time and individual life. Therefore, universalistic ethics acquired an evolutionary character very early on. Morality, having society as its object, can recognize its value either in the individuals that comprise it or in the objective spiritual goods that emerge from it. Accordingly, evolutionary universalism may ultimately take on either a subjective or objective form.

The indicated differences in the directions within the history of modern philosophy manifest partly sequentially, one after another, and partly simultaneously. In general, the development tends to progress from individualistic systems to universalistic ones, from subjective to objective. However, various movements often arise in the opposite direction; conflicts frequently ignite among opposing currents, resulting in the simultaneous presence of all these indicated differences in directions within contemporary ethics, sometimes even intertwined with remnants of heteronomous and transcendent morality.

At the outset, new moral philosophy attempts to ground morality on egoism; this attempt closely aligns with ethical theories that completely sever ties with any tradition. It was articulated by Thomas Hobbes in connection with his teaching on political heteronomy. This connection is both natural and comprehensible: if a given legal order is acknowledged as the basis for existing morals, then the subsequent question of how this legal order itself arose is most simply resolved by presuming that egoistic motives were the cause of its emergence. For the first time, such a conjunction of autonomy and absolute heteronomy appears in sophistry; thereafter, any attempt to prioritize autonomy of will leads to pure heteronomy. Following Hobbes, French philosophy of the Enlightenment in the 18th century defended egoistic morality under the guidance of Helvétius, yielding similar results. At the same time, Helvétius and his like-minded peers emphasize the necessity of allowing alongside egoistic morality a political or religious heteronomy, as this is the only way to somewhat explain the facts of moral life. Therefore, the emergence of altruistic moral perspectives in these systems is explained by the acknowledgment that wise political rulers deem it beneficial and even necessary, in the interests of the individual, to curtail their initial boundless egoism, proposing heteronomous norms as a palliative measure. Consequently, egoistic morality, by prioritizing rational motives of will, becomes a rational morality. According to this view, humanity is seen as a being acting solely on the basis of rational considerations; will is a faculty guided exclusively by logical reasoning.

The same viewpoint largely prevails initially in altruism, the second form of individualistic ethics: altruistic ethics arises from egoistic ethics if one assumes that the establishment of a social order that eliminates boundless arbitrariness, which is established heteronomously according to the egoistic theory, must be autonomous for each individual, as a product of rational understanding of one’s true benefit. Thus, this primitive form of altruism, which is rational, rests on an egoistic foundation or, more precisely, represents an intermediate form between egoism and true altruism. In complete accordance with this is the fact that rational altruistic morality cannot do without the assistance of heteronomous elements, without religious morality and socio-political norms, from the combination of which it typically derives everyday morality. Rational altruism finds expression in the ethical system of John Locke; its essential foundations are retained in Bentham's "utilitarianism," which attempted to provide a precise formulation for rational altruism specifically concerning the question of what the norm of altruistic behavior should be. However, by recognizing the good of the greatest number of people as the goal of altruistic activity, he has already, of course, transcended the boundaries of individualistic morality.

Pure, non-egoistic altruism could naturally develop only with the transition from rational morality to morality of feeling, assuming that immediate feelings of sympathy and love form the basis of altruistic action. This transition was successfully accomplished by Shaftesbury, who, by acknowledging the rights of both egoistic and altruistic motives, created a moral system applying the central idea of Aristotle's doctrine of virtues—the principle of the golden mean—to the ethical teaching on goods. Therefore, he sees the essence of morality in the harmonious relationship between egoistic and altruistic motives, the aspirations for one's own good and the good of others. This system was further developed by David Hume and Adam Smith, who skillfully utilized the psychological principle of association. However, this application essentially represents merely a rigorous psychological elaboration of the idea already expressed in altruistic rational morality, namely that any action directed toward the good of others arises under the influence of mentally transferring one’s own “self” onto them. This process of transference, difficult to conceive in the realm of reason, acquires an apparent internal plausibility when applied to feelings.

Universalist systems, which regard society as the sum of individuals, closely align with systems of individualistic altruism, often allowing for a subtle transition between the two. They typically share solidarity in the psychological motivation of morality, with their differences emerging only in the broader formulation of moral principles. For instance, Hume's principle of “sympathy,” due to the subjective nature of the feeling of sympathy, is considered individualistic; Bentham's principle of “the greatest happiness for the greatest number” is viewed as subjectively universalistic. The ethical system of Leibniz also belongs to this subjectively universalistic direction, standing in close relation to the “harmony of monads.” However, it strongly emphasizes the idea of evolution and includes elements of transcendent morality depending on its metaphysical foundation. Among the more recent systems that simultaneously defend, on one hand, evolutionism, and on the other, the subjective autonomy of will, are those of Herbert Spencer and other contemporary utilitarians. By considering “utility” or “the good of all” as the fundamental moral principle, utilitarianism, in a certain sense, is both individualistic and universalistic: the subjective happiness of the individual is recognized here as the ultimate goal of human life; however, it is also admitted that all people have an equal right to such happiness. The conditions for this last point generally include everything deemed beneficial from the standpoint of both sensual needs and higher spiritual aspirations; thus, utilitarianism usually grounds the definition of the ultimate goal of morality on a general practical consensus among people.

In complete opposition to this subjective or utilitarian universalism stands objective universalism. It measures the value of moral goods not by the subjective happiness they may bring to any individual, but by their objective significance for the overall spiritual life of humanity. Therefore, here all goods of spiritual life—religion, art, science, and other national and universal products—are recognized as objective goods, whose purpose does not depend on their subjective element—the ability to bring happiness to any individual. In the pure striving for these goods for their own sake, for their perfection, and for the external means necessary for their realization, objective universalism sees the essence of morality. Such a direction, moreover, carries a distinctly evolutionary character, prominently emerging in 19th-century German philosophy in connection with the inclination toward historical-philosophical research. The philosophy of Hegel most fully expresses this direction, although he has significantly obscured it under the influence of contemporary conditions and insufficient logical and metaphysical prerequisites introduced into his system.

As the above survey shows, the development of moral theories from the earliest times revolves around oppositions. It is hardly probable that these oppositions will ever entirely disappear: it is difficult to expect that autonomous and immanent views will fully displace heteronomous and transcendent ones. However, setting this aside, one should recognize an historical sequence in the development of perspectives on the nature and origin of morality, which simultaneously reflects the immanent regularity of scientific thought itself. Heteronomous views form the starting point. From them, through religious heteronomous morality, one transitions to those transcendent systems that are most closely related to heteronomous ones. Among transcendent systems, objective precedes subjective ones, and intuitionist or intellectualist systems precede imperative or voluntarist ones. The principle of autonomy first achieves complete dominance in immanent systems, which initially emerge in the form of the doctrine of virtues, recognizing the subjective immanence of morality, and then in the form of objective immanence in moral values or in the teaching about goods that arose from subjective activity. The teaching about goods, in turn, develops from an individualistic form to a universalistic one, with the first observing progress from rational morality to morality of feeling. In this regard, the morality of feeling ultimately forms a transitional stage from individualistic systems to universalistic ones. Rational motives are, by their nature, confined to the realm of subjective considerations, such that rational morality can never extend beyond attempts to derive individual altruism from egoism. On the contrary, feelings can easily transition into aspirations that directly imply the connection between the individual and society. The concept of social feelings that arises in this way is the closest impetus to the formation of subjective evolutionism, which transitions into objective evolutionism, as soon as the subjective products of moral development are subordinated to its objective products as constant elements of moral development.