Anscombe on the Moral Ought and Moral Corruption

Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 87, A Centenary Celebration: Anscombe, Foot, Midgley, and Murdoch, 2019

Kinesis, 2009

Anscombe (1958) believes her article demonstrates: (1) ethics cannot move forward without an adequate philosophical psychology (2) the emphatic sense of “ought” ought to bediscarded and (3) modern moral philosophers from Sidgwick to the present exhibit very few differences. Anscomberemarks that all the modern moral philosophers use the term“ought” in such a way that it demands a lawgiver. However,none of them admit of a lawgiver. Thus, she believes theyshould all be rejected. Among the modern moral ethicists,she is very critical of John Stuart Mill. I argue that Mill hasa fully developed philosophical psychology that explicatesthe importance of sympathy. From this, he is not only ableto counter her charges against utilitarianism, but also escapethe problem of using “ought” emphatically.

Etica & Politica / Ethics & Politics, 2017

I discuss the second of the three theses advanced by Anscombe in 'Modern Moral Philosophy'. The focus is the nature of entities to which – if Anscombe's diagnosis is correct – ought and cognate modals are assumed by modern moral philosophers to refer. I reconstruct the alternative account offered by Anscombe of viable and justified 'Aristotelian' modals – as contrasted with mysterious and unjustified 'Kantian' modals; I discuss the nature and status of 'Aristotelian necessity' to which such legitimate modals refer to. I conclude with the claims that Anscombe's account of modern moral philosophy is viciously parochial, reducing it to Oxford philosophy from the Thirties and Forties and its immediate antecedents; that her historical reconstruction is vitiated by lack of awareness of the existence of law-views of morality preceding Christian theology, artful anticipation of secularization in order to fit her picture of modern moral philosophy as the 'day after' of Christianity; that Aquinas's and her own view of natural morality as made of rational moral judgments laws is incompatible with both her predilection for 'divine law' instead of plain down-to-earth 'natural law'; that her strained reconstruction of a Christian-Jewish-Stoic view of morality as law promulgated by God has little to share with any reconstruction of the Biblical moral traditions meeting academic standard and in more detail there is no possible translation of Torah as Law; and that her criticism hits just targets from the old little British world she was familiar with, while leaving Kantian ethics unaffected.

With fifty-four chapters charting the development of moral philosophy in the Western world, this volume examines the key thinkers and texts and their influence on the history of moral thought from the pre-Socratics to the present day. Topics including Epicureanism, humanism, Jewish and Arabic thought, perfectionism, pragmatism, idealism and intuitionism are all explored, as are figures including Aristotle, Boethius, Spinoza, Hobbes, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Mill, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre and Rawls, as well as numerous key ideas and schools of thought. Chapters are written by leading experts in the field, drawing on the latest research to offer rigorous analysis of the canonical figures and movements of this branch of philosophy. The volume provides a comprehensive yet philosophically advanced resource for students and teachers alike as they approach, and refine their understanding of, the central issues in moral thought. Read more at http://www.cambridge.org/it/academic/subjects/philosophy/history-philosophy/cambridge-history-moral-philosophy#SKuHy5AdTDKYDw3K.99

If morality is a socially legitimate system of normative principles and rules for the positive regulation of human behavior, it is reasonable to recognize a very important difference between morality and moralism. Let's take "moralism" as a peculiar stance that leads people to falsely take their preferred system of duties as legitimate. This being so, an obvious conclusion is that moralism is dangerous, since it promotes behavior under the pretext of doing what is right and just beyond the rules that legitimately guide liberty and justice. Here I will argue for the distinction between morality and moralism in two parts. In the first, I will argue for the moral epistemological view that people can have true moral beliefs, including moral beliefs regarding duties. I will sustain a realist view on the matter against nihilism. After this metaethical preliminary, I will present an (albeit incomplete) argument on the moral distinction between morality and moralism. If we take moralism as the view that every action is either fulfillment or violation of a duty, the conclusion is that there is no modal difference between duties and privileges (or permissions). One consequence, then, is absolutism, that is the complete conflation between all moralistic duties and all other requirements to action we may consider reasonable. Following Judith Thomson, I will suggest that we should distinguish duties from "practical oughts". Other consequences are outside the scope and space of this paper, but it is pretty clear that we should prefer a stricter view on duties (coincident with the requirements of justice and positive law) and take "moralism" as a label for an equivocal and prejudicial view about our commitments and moral (not only reasonable) requirements to action.

Review of Metaphysics

Review of K. Lee, A New Basis for Moral Philosophy. Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985.

The Modern Law Review, 1996

2017

With fifty-four chapters charting the development of moral philosophy in the Western world, this volume examines the key thinkers and texts and their influence on the history of moral thought from the pre-Socratics to the present day. Topics including Epicureanism, humanism, Jewish and Arabic thought, perfectionism, pragmatism, idealism and intuitionism are all explored, as are figures including Aristotle, Boethius, Spinoza, Hobbes, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Mill, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre and Rawls, as well as numerous key ideas and schools of thought. Chapters are written by leading experts in the field, drawing on the latest research to offer rigorous analysis of the canonical figures and movements of this branch of philosophy. The volume provides a comprehensive yet philosophically advanced resource for students and teachers alike as they approach, and refine their understanding of, the central issues in moral thought. Read more at http://www.cambridge.org/it/academic/subjects/philosophy/history-philosophy/cambridge-history-moral-philosophy#GekVz0OSWwdvzoAw.99

Philosophical Investigations, 2007

Each of these books is grappling with one or another aspect of a supposedly impersonal and universalist element of morals. Two of them aim to show the good sense that can be made of that element from a specific perspective: Hilary Putnam from the perspective of post-metaphysical (or post-ontological) philosophy, and Christine Swanton from the perspective of virtue theory. Jonathan Dancy's relation to that element is different. He targets for criticism one specific and common way, via an understanding of reasons for action, in which a universalist (or "generalist") conception has been promoted. I shall begin with Dancy: in discussing him I explicitly thematise the issue of universalism. (Because for most of this article I explore my differences with these authors, I should state clearly that all three books are well worth reading. Each is fertile, well-pondered and illuminating in a range of ways; and in what follows I take a great many of the merits of each for granted.)