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Revisiting Modern Moral Philosophy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 June 2020

Jennifer A. Frey
Jennifer A. Frey*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of South Carolina
*
[email protected]
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Abstract

This essay revisits Elizabeth Anscombe's ‘Modern Moral Philosophy' with two goals in mind. The first is to recover and reclaim its radical vision, by setting forth a unified account of its three guiding theses. On the interpretation advanced here, Anscombe's three theses are not independently intelligible; their underlying unity is the perceived necessity of absolute prohibitions for any sound account of practical reason. The second goal is to show that Anscombe allows for a thoroughly unmodern sense of ‘moral' that applies to human actions; the paper concludes with some reasons to think that this unmodern sense of ‘moral' is worthy of further philosophical attention and defense.

Type
Papers
Information
Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 87: A Centenary Celebration: Anscombe, Foot, Midgley, Murdoch , July 2020 , pp. 61 - 83
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 2020

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References

1 Philosophy 53 (1958) 1–19 (hereafter, ‘MMP’). Reprinted in Human Life, Action and Ethics: Essays by G.E.M. Anscombe, eds., Mary Geach and Luke Gormally (Charlottesville, Va: Imprint Academic) 169–194 (hereafter ‘HLAE’).

2 For her arguments that President Harry Truman is a mass murderer, see ‘Mr. Truman's Degree’ in The Collected Philosophical Papers of Elizabeth Anscombe Volume III: Ethics, Religion and Politics (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1981) 51–71 (hereafter, ‘TD’)

3 Op. cit. note 1, MMP, 169.

4 Op. cit. note 1, MMP, 170.

5 Op. cit. note 1, MMP, 174.

6 Op. cit. note 1, MMP, 174.

7 In ‘Thought and Action in Aristotle’ in The Collected Philosophical Papers of G.E.M. Anscombe, Volume I: From Parmenides to Wittgenstein (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1981) 71–72, Anscombe argues that Aristotle could not account for cases of deliberate akrasia or malice; for this, she argues, we would need recourse to a concept of intention, which Aristotle lacks.

8 Op. cit. note 1, MMP, 188, emphasis in original.

9 Intention (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000) was originally published one year prior to MMP. For interpretations of Intention that pay due attention to its connection with both MMP see Jennifer A. Frey, ‘Elizabeth Anscombe on Practical Knowlede and the Good’ forthcoming Ergo, John Schwenkler, Anscombe's Intention: A Guide, Wiseman, Rachael, Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Anscombe's Intention (Oxford: Routledge, 2016)Google Scholar.

10 For an excellent discussion of the divorce between theories of action and ethics since the publication of MMP, see Constantine Sandis, ‘Modern Moral Philosophy Before and After Anscombe’ Constantine Sandis, forthcoming in Enrohanar eds., Sofia Miguens and Dolores Garcia-Arnaldos.

11 Op. cit. note 1, MMP, 179. For a recent and provocative discussion of this passage, see Doyle, JamesNo Morality, No Self: Anscombe's Radical Skepticism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2018)Google Scholar.

12 Op. cit. note 1, MMP, 177.

13 Op. cit. note 1, MMP, 180.

14 Op. cit. note 1, MMP, 188, emphasis in original.

15 For a discussion of ethical naturalism as a development within the natural law tradition, see Frey, Jennifer A. ‘Neo-Aristotelian Ethical Naturalism’ in The Cambridge Companion to Natural Law Ethics, ed., by Angier, Tom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) 92–108Google Scholar.

16 Op. cit. note 1, MMP, 193.

17 Op. cit. note 1, MMP, 174.

18 It is true that virtue ethics has been concerned to give an account of moral psychology, in particular, a search for a proper account of moral motivation (as opposed to other kinds, including merely prudential considerations). But Anscombe is opposed to the use of moral in this sense, even with respect to motivation. See her discussion in ‘Good and Bad Human Action’ (Op. cit. note 1, HLAE, 195–201).

19 Hursthouse, Rosalind, On Virtue Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999) 28Google Scholar (hereafter, ‘VE’). See back cover for full endorsement by Blackburn.

20 Op. cit. note 19, VE, 29.

21 Op. cit. note 19, VE, 26.

22 I take the distinction between radical and routine virtue ethics from Solomon, 2003. ‘Virtue Ethics: Radical or Routine?’ in eds., Linda Zagzebski and Michael DePaul, Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology (New York City: Oxford University Press, 2003) 57–80.

23 Op. cit. note 19, VE, 87. Other prominent virtue ethicists and put forward theories that seem fairly obviously opposed to the existence of intrinsically wicked acts. This usually comes by way of emphasizing the fundamental importance of motive for the specification of the morally right action, or by emphasizing the diversity and holism of the right making properties of action. For the former strategy, see Slote, Michael, ‘Agent Based Virtue Ethics’ in Moral Concepts: Midwest Studies in Philosophy 20, eds., French, Perter A., Uehling, Theordore E. Jr., and Wettstein, Howard K. (1996) 83–101Google Scholar; for the latter strategy, see Swanton, Christine, Virtue Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press) 242Google Scholar.

24 The distinctions between motives, the intention with which someone acts, and the further intentions for the sake of which someone acts is central to Anscombe's account of action in Intention, and also figures in her analysis of Truman as a mass murderer unworthy of honors in TD.

25 This problem is noted in Christopher Miles Coope 2006, ‘Modern Virtue Ethics’ in T. D. J. Chappell (ed.), Values and Virtues: Aristotelianism in Contemporary Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 51-52. Henceforth ‘MVE’. All this is not to deny that motives matter to the goodness or badness of a human action (a particular performance in a particular circumstance). But prohibitions are general, so they attach to human action descriptions or action concepts first and foremost.

26 For a discussion of the marginalization of justice in virtue ethics, see MVE.

27 Op. cit. note 1, MMP, 181.

28 Sinnot-Armstrong, Walter, ‘Consequentialism’ in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2019 Edition), ed., Zalta, Edward N.Google Scholarhttps://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2019/entries/consequentialism.

29 Op. cit. note 1, MMP, 183.

30 Op. cit. note 1, MMP, 184.

31 Op. cit. note 1, MMP, 190.

32 This is exactly what is at stake in her analysis of Truman's decision to drop atomic bombs on civilian targets (see TD).

33 As Anselm Mueller has pointed out in ‘Radical Subjectivity: Morality versus Utilitarianism’ Ratio 19 (1977) 115–132, these points are also necessary in order to formulate the Socratic maxim that it is better to suffer wrong than to inflict it upon another.

34 It is clear that Anscombe, like Aquinas and Aristotle, thinks of absolute prohibitions as first principles of practical reason; they tell us the sort of actions we must always avoid because they are evil (taking for granted that practical reason, quite generally, is thought about what goods to pursue and what evils to avoid). There are very few such acts but our knowledge of them as evil is unsophisticated and pre-theoretical. This knowledge structures our sense of what constitutes sound practical deliberation prior to engaging in it; as evil acts, we know that good reasoning will never be in the service of realizing them. If she did not think of absolute prohibitions in this way, then it is very difficult to understand her account of murder.

35 Op. cit. note 1, HLAE, 207–226.

36 See Intention, 28–30; op. cit. note 1, HLAE, 209–210. For discussion of the importance of this point for an understanding of Anscombe's theory of the intentionality of both action and perception, see Christopher Frey and Jennifer A. Frey, ‘Anscombe on the Analogical Unity of Intention in Action and Perception’ Analytic Philosophy 58:3 (2017) 202–247.

37 Op. cit. note 1, 208.

38 Op. cit. note 1, 208.

39 Op. cit. note 1, 209.

40 For a more detailed discussion of the connection between practical knowledge and the good, see Jennifer A. Frey, ‘Anscombe on Practical Knowledge and the Good’, forthcoming in Ergo.

41 Op. cit. note 1, HLAE, 209, emphasis added.

42 Intention, op. cit. note 9.

43 For a careful discussion of how many activities are life form dependent, see Michael Thompson, Life and Action (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press), chapter one.

44 For this point, see her essay, ‘Practical Truth’ in HLAE, op. cit. note 1, 149–158.

45 For context, see Thomas Nagel, ‘Moral Luck’ in Mortal Questions (New York: Cambridge University Press).

46 Op. cit. note 1, HLAE, 213.

47 Op. cit. note 1, HLAE, 207–226.

48 Intention, 46–47.

49 Op. cit. note 1, HLAE, 195–206.

50 By ready to act, I mean the person is constituted so as to be able to perform the action skillfully and without difficulty.

51 Op cit. note 1, HLAE, 203.

52 Op cit note 3.