Does Modern Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?

Anscombe begins her 1958 polemic ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’ (MMP) by presenting three theses: (MMP1) We should stop doing moral philosophy, ‘at any rate until we have an adequate philosophy of psychology, in which we are conspicuously lacking’; (MMP2) We ought, ‘if this is psychologically possible’, to jettison the concepts of moral obligation, moral duty, the morally right, the morally wrong, and the moral ought; and (MMP3) ‘The differences between the well-known English writers on moral philosophy from Sidgwick to the present day are of little importance’. My question in this essay is how MMP1–3 have held up in the sixty years since Anscombe published ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’. One upshot will be exegetical: it is MMP3 that bears the main emphasis in MMP. So in this discussion MMP3 will come first and get the lion’s share of space; I won’t even get to MMP1 and MMP2 till section 5.7. Contrary to what is probably the majority reading of MMP, I see MMP1 and MMP2 as little more than auxiliary theses, and MMP3 as—to echo the essay’s very last sentence—her main complaint. The main upshot of my enquiry will be an answer to the question how MMP1–3 have held up since 1958. My answer will be that they have held up remarkably well.

Escaping the Shadow

Under one particular reading of it, Anscombe's 'Modern Moral Philosophy' is considered a seminal text in the revival of virtue ethics. Seen thus, Anscombe is implying that it is possible to do ethics without using concepts such as 'moral ought' or 'moral obligation', the perfect example being Aristotelian ethics. On the other hand, Anscombe claims that it is not useful at present to engage in moral philosophy since she finds that 'philosophically there is a huge gap… which needs to be filled by an account of human nature, human action, …and above all of human "flourishing"' (Anscombe, 1958: 18). The gap Anscombe refers to appears where there should be a 'proof that an unjust man is a bad man'. My aim in this paper is to discuss the various ways in which Anscombe's theses can be interpreted, recalling two other philosophers for whom Aristotelian virtue ethics was also essential: P. Foot and J. McDowell. I will argue that Anscombe did not expect Aristotelian ethics to answer the problems modern ethics poses.

In this brief paper we undertake a reflection on the apparent failure of modern moral philosophical theories to provide any adequate guidance in moral decision-making. Anscombe, for example, contends that moral philosophy will never advance until there is an adequate moral psychology. MacIntyre laments that moral philosophers have not been clear about what their central questions are. This leads us to consider whether we need normative moral theories at all, leading to a discussion of the viability of intuitionism as a guide to moral actions, and if one of the central moral questions is about the nature of the good, whether it is as unanalysable as G.E. Moore proposed. We conclude that its unanalysability opens the door for a theological answer to the nature of the good. Finally, concluding that the nature of the good is not the expression of human passions, but is external to human beings, we provide a short classification of moral theories according to whether they are realist or anti-realist, cognitivist or non-cognitivist.

The paper discusses the concept of virtue in the modern ethics. The author reveals the specifics of this concept in modern moral philosophy, identifies the place of the concept of virtue in the system of other moral concepts, such as law, duty, obligation, etc., by means of which the modern conceptions of morality has been constructed. The analysis of contemporary research and the works of modern moral philosophers shows that the main change in the concept of virtue is that it is no longer considered as the main concept around which the conceptions of morality are elaborated. The concept of virtue is most often used as an auxiliary concept to express the consistency and determination of a person (his will) in the fulfilment of the prescriptions of the moral law or considered as a result of the consistent fulfilment of moral duty. In terms of moral content, virtue in most modern moral-philosophical conceptions was associated with love, or benevolence. Love, or benevolence, opposes the sphere of justice, which, unlike the sphere of virtue, is regulated by precisely formulated laws and rules. Both spheres are recognized as extremely important: justice as a sphere of laws and rules ensures the survival of society, and love and benevolence as a sphere of virtue promote the maintenance of proper human relations and improve the quality of public life. Besides that, the doctrines constituted around the concept of virtue emphasize that the inner character of moral motivation is a key feature of morality. The distinction in the conceptions of morality between the spheres of laws, rules, on the one hand, and virtues, on the other hand, implies that the modern moral philosophers understood complexity and heterogeneity of the phenomenon of morality and supposed that a more complex conceptual apparatus is required to grasp it.

Beginning from a short history of ethics offered in Korsgaard’s The Sources of Normativity, this chapter notes the practice—dating back to Anscombe’s ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’—of offering narratives about the history of modern ethics in order to unsettle the metaphysical picture underlying the rise of non-cognitivism or subjectivism in ethics. These narratives often feature Aristotelian virtue ethics as a potential alternative, and have shaped the reading of Aristotle’s ethics. The supposed ‘gap’ separating ancient and modern ethics is questioned, and with it the claim that Aristotle was unreflective about the grounding of his ethics; the supposition is also disputed that he regarded human nature as an ‘Archimedean Point’ to ground the demands of ethics, as the work of Williams and Foot might suggest. From a survey of modern appropriations of his ideas, two research questions are isolated: was Aristotle an Archimedean naturalist, and was he metaethically naive?

Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy

In 1958 Elizabeth Anscombe published a paper that was to change the focus of interest in moral philosophy.1 In ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’ she argued that moral philosophy should re-divert its attention to the work of Aristotle, embrace the Aristotelian emphasis on moral psychology and abandon the Kantian preoccupation with duty and obligation. She drew a picture of modern moral philosophy from Sidgwick onwards as sharply contrasted with the Aristotelian use of ‘moral’. She saw the dominance of the ideas of ‘duty’ and ‘obligation’ as arising from what she called a ‘law conception of ethics’, where: ‘To have a law conception of ethics is to hold that what is needed for conformity with the virtues failure in which is the mark of being bad qua man (and not merely, say, qua craftsman or logician) — that what is needed for this, is required by divine law.’2

Thirteen years ago Professor G. E. M. Anscombe gave reasons for thinking that it is not at present profitable for us to do moral philosophy. The steady flow of books since then shows how little notice was taken. The three I shall be considering in this article present an opportunity to consider the case she made and its continuing relevance.Miss Anscombe’s essay, ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’, is included in The Definition of Morality, together with twelve others which are meant to hang from the same peg: the question, ‘What is the meaning of “morality”?’ The most interesting of them get up and walk away with the peg, opening up issues beyond the matters of usage which the editors tidily catalogue in their introduction. This is certainly true of Miss Anscombe’s. Her quarrel with modern moral philosophers is not that they are wrong in the way they use or define ‘moral’ and ‘morality’, but that in the way they use them these terms mean nothing at all. She argues that the concept of obligation, with its related moral sense of‘ought’, which has been given pride of place by moral philosophers since the eighteenth century, is intelligible only within a law-conception of morality. To speak of a moral ‘law’, of being ‘bound’, ‘obliged’ and so on, makes no sense unless one believes that there is someone who issues the law. The decay of divine law as a basis for morality has left these terms bereft of content, but not, unfortunately, of their ‘mesmeric force’. The smell remains for some time even when the gas-works has been dismantled. When ‘ought’ lacks the content provided by some actual law, telling a man that he ought not to commit adultery gives him no reason at all for not doing so.

This chapter chronicles the philosophical development of the abrasive, brilliant Elizabeth Anscombe and her contribution to her friends’ implicit project of reshaping mid-century ethics: her all-out attack against “Oxford Moral Philosophy” epitomized by R.M. Hare, and her publication of the influential “Modern Moral Philosophy.” Anscombe was Wittgenstein’s apprentice and translator for much of her early career, rarely publishing original work. She was, nonetheless, a fearsome adversary of anyone she saw as glib or insufficiently serious, including C.S. Lewis and J.L. Austin. Anscombe’s real engagement with ethics began with her attempt to stop Oxford from bestowing an honorary degree on Harry Truman; she abhorred his decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki. She was invited to give a radio broadcast, “Oxford Moral Philosophy: Does It Corrupt the Youth?”—the opening salvo in a fight with R.M. Hare, which resulted in her influential essay “Modern Moral Philosophy.”

Thirteen years ago Professor G. E. M. Anscombe gave reasons for thinking that it is not at present profitable for us to do moral philosophy. The steady flow of books since then shows how little notice was taken. The three I shall be considering in this article present an opportunity to consider the case she made and its continuing relevance.Miss Anscombe’s essay, ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’, is included in The Definition of Morality, together with twelve others which are meant to hang from the same peg: the question, ‘What is the meaning of “morality” ?’ The most interesting of them get up and walk away with the peg, opening up issues beyond the matters of usage which the editors tidily catalogue in their introduction. This is certainly true of Miss Anscombe’s. Her quarrel with modern moral philosophers is not that they are wrong in the way they use or define ‘moral’ and ‘morality’, but that in the way they use them these terms mean nothing at all. She argues that the concept of obligation, with its related moral sense of‘ought’, which has been given pride of place by moral philosophers since the eighteenth century, is intelligible only within a law-conception of morality. To speak of a moral ‘law’, of being ‘bound’, ‘obliged’ and so on, makes no sense unless one believes that there is someone who issues the law. The decay of divine law as a basis for morality has left these terms bereft of content, but not, unfortunately, of their ‘mesmeric force’. The smell remains for some time even when the gas-works has been dismantled. When ‘ought’ lacks the content provided by some actual law, telling a man that he ought not to commit adultery gives him no reason at all for not doing so.

Notes on Contributors - Introduction - Consequentialism in Modern Moral Philosophy and in 'Modern Moral Philosophy' C.Diamond - Is Anything Absolutely Wrong? N.Denyer - Natural Integrity and Biotechnology S.R.L.Clark - The Moral Uniqueness of the Human Animal B.Scarlett - In Defence of Speciesism T.Chappell - Young Human Beings: Metaphysics and Ethics G.Gillett - Medicine, Virtues and Consequences J.Cottingham - On Not Destroying the Health of One's Patients L.Simmons - Intentions in Medical Ethics J.L.A.Garcia - The Pre-eminence of Autonomy in Bioethics J.E.Smith - Innocence and Consequentialism: Inconsistency, Equivocation and Contradiction in the Philosophy of Peter Singer J.A.Laing - Voluntary Euthanasia and Justice D.S.Oderberg - Index

This chapter compares the general form and state of moral philosophy during the first half of the twentieth century (section 21.1) to how it stands today (section 21.3). These two overviews serve as the bread of a GEMA-filled sandwich. Section 21.2 accordingly considers Anscombe’s criticisms of ‘modern moral philosophy’ from Sidgwick to Ross. Anyone in sympathy with the general line of her criticisms must concede that the state of moral philosophy was in far better shape in the decades before she wrote her seminal 1958 paper than it has been ever since. Ironically, contemporary moral philosophy has become what it is partly due to Anscombe’s own unintended role in influencing (i) the formation of ‘virtue theory’ as yet another position within normative ethics and (ii) the fashioning of ‘moral psychology’ as an altogether distinct—and increasingly empirical— branch of moral philosophy.

As we have seen, Anscombe’s recommendation to moral philosophers is that they put aside moral philosophy, at least for the time being. She does not, though, suggest that ethics in itself is either an impossible practice or an incoherent notion. In this chapter I want to look at some approaches to moral philosophy that she suggests, from those she considers possible but undesirable, to her primary recommendation and then to some secondary remarks sprinkled through “Modern Moral Philosophy” about how, and how not, to do moral philosophy if one were to do so, against her explicit but temporary advice. This will be the concern of the last part of the chapter. The following two chapters will look in more detail at particular ways of doing moral philosophy, specifically those suggested by Sabina Lovibond, Renford Bambrough, Cora Diamond, Iris Murdoch, and Charles Taylor.

Elizabeth Anscombe’s paper “Modern Moral Philosophy”1 seems clearly to have failed in its task. This might seem surprising, given that Kurt Baier describes the paper as “widely discussed and much admired”2 and Peter Winch has called one of its three theses “enormously influential”3 within moral philosophy. That such descriptions indicate failure rather than success, though, is evident from, among other things, the fact that in that paper Anscombe says that “moral philosophy... should be laid aside.”4 She wanted, presumably, to have an influence on moral philosophy, not to be influential within it, the influence she wanted to have being to stop this, in her view, unprofitable practice. Needless to say moral philosophy has continued despite the influence of and admiration for Anscombe’s paper that Baier and Winch describe.