Are There Any Intrinsically Unjust Acts?

Abstract

In ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’, Anscombe characterises the virtue of justice by reference to two features of the just person: (a) that of having a standing intention not ‘to commit or participate in any unjust actions for fear of any consequences, or to obtain any advantage, for himself or anyone else’; and (b) that of being someone who ‘quite excludes’ certain types of action from consideration (viz. intrinsically unjust ones). I investigate what (a) and (b) together amount to and entail. The investigation covers a number of issues, including the nature of moral dilemmas, the relevance or irrelevance of motive to the question whether an act manifests a given virtue (e. g. justice), backward-looking reasons and practical wisdom (phronesis), and the idea of moral bedrock, or moral ‘hinge propositions’. I conclude with a tentative endorsement of the view that there are intrinsically unjust kinds of acts, i. e. acts that are always and everywhere unjust.