Philippa Foot

Aristotelian Naturalism is an ethics on which moral goodness is a species of natural goodness—the kind of goodness we find on display in other creatures whose habits and activities enable them to thrive. What it takes for humans to be good is to have habits and engage in activities that contribute to human flourishing. The primary aim of the book is to present a version of Aristotelian Naturalism enriched by empirical evidence and responsive to criticisms from feminist and disability ethics. (...) On the revisionist, Pluralist Aristotelian Naturalism developed here, human goodness is not a single, unitary ideal to which all humans should aim. Instead, it instead admits of real diversity, just as goodness in general admits of diversity across various species. There is a plurality of human goodnesses, and consequently, a variety of sets of human virtues that promote human flourishing in its many forms. The book explicates an Aristotelian methodology of ethics on which we must use philosophical reasoning to integrate observational evidence about the shape life forms take and the dispositions that contribute to good human lives. When we observe about what humans are and do in order to thrive in a wide array of bodies, social-political contexts, and environments, this puts pressure on the standard Aristotelian Naturalist singular ideal of human goodness as depicted by a flourishing neurotypical, able-bodied, resource-rich mature adult. Rather, we have reason to think that there is such substantial variation in human forms of life, and in what people can do and be in order to flourish, that there is not one human goodness and one set of virtues. Instead, there is a diversity of forms of human goodness, all equally valuable—whether the goodness of young children, adolescents, for people with intellectual disabilities, in old age, for people living in affluent democratic states, and for those managing to be good while under oppression in authoritarian regimes. Moreover, when we achieve one kind of human goodness, this changes what we are able to do and be. By being good in one way, we acquire the capacity to be good in another way. Thus we learn that most of us, for most of our lives, are simultaneously being and becoming good. (shrink)

This article proposes a metaethical route from neo-Aristotelian naturalism, as developed in particular by Philippa Foot, to virtue-ethical longtermism. It argues that the metaethical assumptions of neo-Aristotelian naturalism inherently imply that a valid description of the life-form of a species must satisfy a formal requirement of internal sustainability. The elements of a valid life-form description then serve as a normative standard. Given that humans have the ability to influence the fate of future generations and know about their influence, this article (...) posits that our future as a species becomes a part of the description of the human life-form. Consequently, in our case, the sustainability requirement is extended into the future, leading to a minimal and humanist version of longtermism. As in Rosalind Hursthouse’s naturalistic virtue ethics, the focus of the proposed virtue-ethical longtermism remains on developing virtues as the only reliable way for the agent to achieve the good life. However, since what can count as virtue must be compatible with a life-form description that, taken as a whole, facilitates the long-term survival of our species, this position still implies a genuine longtermism, although it contrasts with the quantifying and maximizing logic of consequentialism. (shrink)

Eine neutrale Einführung in die Tugendethik – den ältesten ethischen Ansatz in der Philosophiegeschichte, der auf Aristoteles und Platon zurückgeht, aber seit der Aufklärung an Bedeutung verlor. Ende des 20. Jahrhunderts erlebte die Tugendethik eine Renaissance und gilt heutzutage, neben dem Konsequentialismus und der Deontologie, als eines der drei großen Paradigmen der normativen Ethik. Die Rolle der Tugend im Sinne der Vortrefflichkeit des Charakters und des Verstandes lässt sich dabei von verschiedenen (meta-)ethischen Positionen aus begründen. Die vorliegende Einführung führt im (...) Rahmen einer neuen Systematik in die Vielzahl der tugendethischen Ansätze ein – verständlich, übersichtlich und mit einem Fokus auf moderne Ansätze. (shrink)

Aristotelian theory, as found in Michael Thompson and Philippa Foot, claims that to be good is to be good as a member of that kind. However, I contend that something can satisfy kind-relative standards but nonetheless be bad—I propose a hypothetical Ebola-like microbe that meets its kind-standards of being destructive for its own sake, but it would plausibly be bad for doing so. I anticipate an Aristotelian objection that evaluations should only be made from "within" the lifeform conception rather than (...) from without. (shrink)

Recent scholarship has focused on the provocative suggestion that there is a deep unity linking the philosophical projects of Iris Murdoch, Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, and Mary Midgley. In addition to providing scholars with the opportunity to consider what these four shared, the unanimity story also offers an occasion to reflect on what is distinctive about each. Whereas Anscombe, Foot, and Midgley each turn to broadly Aristotelian resources for developing an alternative to the dominant non‐cognitivism of their day, Murdoch turns (...) to Platonic ones. The nature of Murdoch's Platonism, however, is not always well understood and has been identified as a “recurring question.” This paper aims to contribute to the ongoing attempt to understand Murdoch's distinctive, Platonic alternative to the ethical non‐cognitivism of her day. I contend that Murdoch's philosophical method, especially its transcendental elements, is an unexplored resource for better understanding the character of her Platonism as a modest one. (shrink)

Neo-Aristotelian naturalism purports to explain morality in terms of human nature, while maintaining that the relevant aspects of human nature cannot be known scientifically. This has led some to conclude that neo-Aristotelian naturalism is not a form of ethical naturalism in the standard, metaphysical sense. In this paper, I argue that neo-Aristotelian naturalism is in fact a standard form of ethical naturalism that is committed to metaphysical naturalism about moral truths and presents a distinctive and underappreciated argument for it. I (...) reconstruct the neo-Aristotelian argument for ethical naturalism in terms of a continuity between the ethical domain and the natural domain of life. I argue that clarifying the meta-ethical import of neo-Aristotelian naturalism not only helps to situate it among other positions in meta-ethics, but also facilitates better critical engagement with the view. (shrink)

I contend there exists a platonistic good that all other good (excellent) things must resemble, supplementing this theory with Aristotelian features. Something’s goodness holds in virtue of the thing’s own properties being such as to satisfy its kind-based standards, and those K-standards resembling the platonic good. As for the latter condition, the K-standards resemble it firstly with respect to requiring activities, and secondly also at the level of what teleology those activities are directed towards.

Résumé éditeur : This book tells two intertwined stories, centered on twentieth-century moral philosophers Elizabeth Anscombe, Mary Midgley, Philippa Foot, and Iris Murdoch. The first is the story of four friends who came up to Oxford together just before WWII. It is the story of their lives, loves, and intellectual preoccupations; it is a story about women trying to find a place in a man's world of academic philosophy. The second story is about these friends' shared philosophical project and their (...) unintentional creation of a school of thought that challenged the dominant way of doing ethics. That dominant school of thought envisioned the world as empty, value-free matter, on which humans impose meaning. This outlook treated statements such as “this is good” as mere expressions of feeling or preference, reflecting no objective standards. It emphasized human freedom and demanded an unflinching recognition of the value-free world. The four friends diagnosed this moral philosophy as an impoverishing intellectual fad. This style of thought, they believed, obscured the realities of human nature and left people without the resources to make difficult moral choices or to confront evil. As an alternative, the women proposed a naturalistic ethics, reviving a line of thought running through Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas, and enriched by modern biologists like Jane Goodall and Charles Darwin. The women proposed that there are, in fact, moral truths, based in facts about the distinctive nature of the human animal and what that animal needs to thrive.". (shrink)

According to neo-Aristotelian ethical naturalism, moral goodness is an instance of natural goodness, a kind of normativity supposedly already present in nature in the biological realm of non-human living things. Proponents of this view appeal to Michael Thompson’s conception of a life-form--the form of a living organism--to give an account of natural goodness. However, although neo-Aristotelians call themselves naturalists, they hardly ever consult the science of biology to defend their commitments regarding biological organisms. This has led many critics to argue (...) that the neo-Aristotelian account of natural normativity is out of touch with the findings of modern evolutionary biology. One line of response to this objection, presented by John Hacker-Wright and Micah Lott, claims that the neo-Aristotelian concept of a living organism has to be presupposed in evolutionary biology as long as organisms are the subjects of evolutionary explanation. In this paper, I examine this response by tracing the concept of organism in modern evolutionary biology. I first argue that the Modern Synthesis theory of evolution, which understands evolution as change in gene frequencies within a population, does not presuppose the relevant concept of organism. I then explore an alternative view of evolution that has emerged in the past twenty years from advances in evolutionary developmental biology. I argue that this so called ‘evo-devo’ approach makes room for an explanatory concept of organism that can be reconciled with the neo-Aristotelian view. Moreover, I argue that although the explanatory role of the concept of organism in evolutionary biology is still contentious, the well-established role of this concept in developmental biology can be used to defend the biological commitments of neo-Aristotelian naturalism. (shrink)

Foot discusses Nietzsche's immoralism in the light of the foregoing account of moral evaluation. She begins with a preliminary account of Plato's response to immoralism in the first two books of the Republic. Foot distinguishes three theses in Nietzsche that may be called ‘immoralist’: the denial of free will, the attack on Christian or ‘pity’ morality, and the denial of intrinsic badness in acts; she discusses only the latter two. Regarding the attack on Christian morality, Foot argues that Nietzsche got (...) the facts about human life wrong; regarding the claim that an act was right or wrong only in relation to the nature of the person who performs the act, Foot argues that this is a poisonous doctrine that has no sound basis in psychology. She concludes that Nietzsche's revaluation of all values might be valid for a different species, but cannot be valid for human beings. (shrink)

Philippa Foot has for many years been one of the most distinctive and influential thinkers in moral philosophy. Long dissatisfied with the moral theories of her contemporaries, she has gradually evolved a theory of her own that is radically opposed not only to emotivism and prescriptivism but also to the whole subjectivist, anti-naturalist movement deriving from David Hume. Dissatisfied with both Kantian and utilitarian ethics, she claims to have isolated a special form of evaluation that predicates goodness and defect only (...) to living things considered as such; she finds this form of evaluation in moral judgements. Her vivid discussion covers topics such as practical rationality, erring conscience, and the relation between virtue and happiness, ending with a critique of Nietzsche's immoralism. This long-awaited book exposes a highly original approach to moral philosophy and represents a fundamental break from the assumptions of recent debates. Foot challenges many prominent philosophical arguments and attitudes; but hers is a work full of life and feeling, written for anyone intrigued by the deepest questions about goodness and human. (shrink)

'Foot stands out among contemporary ethical theorists because of her conviction that virtues and vices are more central ethical notions than rights, duties, justice, or consequences - the primary focus of most other contemporary theorists. This volume brings together a dozen essays published between 1957 and 1977, and includes two new ones as well. In the first, Foot argues explicitly for an ethic of virtue, and in the next five discusses abortion, euthanasia, free will/determination, and the ethics of Hume and (...) Nietzsche. The final eight essays chart her growing disenchantment with emotivism and prescriptivism and their account of moral arguments. All the essays embody to some extent her commitment to an ethics of virtue... Foot's style is straightforward and readable, her arguments subtle, ingenious, and some of them important.' Choice. (shrink)