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Aristotelian Necessity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 June 2020

Candace Vogler
Candace Vogler*
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
*
[email protected]
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Abstract

At the center of contemporary neo-Aristotelian naturalism is the thought that we can account for a great deal of ethics by thinking about what is needful in human life generally. When we think about practices like promising, virtues like justice or courage, and institutions that serve to produce, maintain, and help to reproduce well-ordered social life we can make some headway we consider the sense in which our topic makes some forms of human good possible and even, in some cases, actualizes the very good made possible thereby. G.E.M. Anscombe introduced this kind of thinking about ethics, which Philippa Foot named ‘Aristotelian Necessity'. In this essay, I take a hard Look at Anscombe’s work on the topic, and then consider her later insistence that crucial aspects of ethics could not be understood in these terms.

Type
Papers
Information
Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 87: A Centenary Celebration: Anscombe, Foot, Midgley, Murdoch , July 2020 , pp. 101 - 110
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 2020

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References

1 I have in mind Anscombe's ‘Authority in Morals,’ read at a 1960 conference at Bec Abbey in Normandy, and first published in Todd, John, editor, Problems of Authority, (London: Darton, Longman, and Todd, 1962)Google Scholar.

2 This gloss on the relevant sense of necessity is from St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle's Metaphysics, Ch. 5, Lesson 6: Secundum modum ponit ibi, et sine dicit, quod secundo modo dicuntur necessaria, sine quibus non potest esse vel fieri bonum aliquod, vel vitari aliquod malum, vel expelli; sicut bibere pharmacum, idest medicinam laxativam, dicimus esse necessarium, non quia sine hoc vivere animal non possit; sed ad expellendum, scilicet hoc malum quod est infirmitas, vel etiam vitandum. Est enim hoc necessarium ut non laboret, idest ut non infirmetur aliquis. Similiter navigare ad Aeginam, scilicet ad illum locum, est necessarium, non quia sine hoc non possit homo esse; sed quia sine hoc non potest acquirere aliquod bonum, idest pecuniam. Unde dicitur, quod necessaria est talis navigatio, ut aliquis pecuniam recipiat.

3 Anscombe, G.E.M., ‘On Promising and its Justice, and Whether it Need be Respected in Foro Interno,’ reprinted in Anscombe, Collected Philosophical Papers of G. E. M. Anscombe, Vol. III, Ethics, Religion and Politics, (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1981)Google Scholar, hereafter, ‘CP’, 15.

4 G.E.M. Anscombe, On the Source of the Authority of the State,’ in CP op. cit. note 3, 139.

5 G.E.M. Anscombe, ‘Authority in Morals, in CP op. cit. note 3,  43.

6 G.E.M. Anscombe, ‘On the Source of Authority of the State, in CP op. cit. note 3, 132.

7 G.E.M. Anscombe, ‘Rules, Rights and Promises,’ in CP op. cit. note 3 100-101.

8 G.E.M. Anscombe, ‘Rules, Rights and Promises’, in CP op. cit. note 3, 101.

9 Winch, Peter, ‘Professor Anscombe's Moral Philosophy’, in Alanen, Lilli, Heinamaa, Sarah, and Wallgren, Thomas, editors, Commonality and Particularity in Ethics, (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1997), 185Google Scholar.

10 Foot, Philippa, Natural Goodness, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 15Google Scholar.

11 G.E.M.  Anscombe, ‘Rules, Rights and Promises’, in CP, op. cit. note 3, 100.

12 In a brilliant discussion of this topic, in the context of a larger exploration of Anscombe's practical philosophy than any I will attempt here, Katharina Nieswandt marks the crucial aspect by saying that rules, rights, and promises are necessarily ‘self-referential’.  See Nieswandt, Katharina, ‘Anscombe on the Sources of Normativity,’ The Journal of Value Inquiry, 51 (2017): 141-163CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 If I understand him, this is part of what Roger Teichmann brings out in stressing that such “reasons” are categorical rather than hypothetical.  See Teichmann, Roger, ‘Explaining the Rules’, Philosophy, 77 (2002): 597-613CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 G.E.M.  Anscombe, ‘Rules, Rights and Promises’, in CP op. cit. note 3, 101-102.

15 G.E.M. Anscombe, ‘Rules, Rights and Promises’, in CP, op. cit. note 3,. 101.

16 G.E.M. Anscombe, ‘Authority in Morals’, in CP,op. cit. note 3,  47.

17 G.E.M. Anscombe, ‘Rules, Rights and Promises,’ in CP, op. cit. note 3, 101.

18 G.E.M. Anscombe, ‘On Promising and its Justice, and Whether it Need be Respected in Foro Interno ’, in CP, op. cit. note 3, 18.

19 G.E.M. Anscombe, ‘Authority in Morals’, in CP, op. cit. note 3,. 43.

20 Op. cit. note 8, 187-189.

21 G.E.M. Anscombe, ‘On the Source of Authority of the State,’ in CP op. cit. note 3, 145.

22 Müller, Anselm, ‘’Why Should I?’ Can Foot Convince the Sceptic,’ in Hacker-Wright, John, editor, Philippa Foot on Goodness and Virtue, (London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2018), 151-185CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 Op. cit. note 22, 162-163.

24 Anscombe, G.E.M., ‘Murder and the Morality of Euthanasia’, in Geach, Mary and Gormally, Luke, editors, Human Life, Action, and Ethics: Essays by G. E. M. Anscombe, (Exeter: Imprint Academic, 2005), 266Google Scholar