Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-m9kch Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-05T06:45:23.577Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Modern Moral Philosophy and the Problem of Relevant Descriptions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 May 2022

By
Onora O’Neill
Edited by
Anthony O'Hear
Foreword by
Rachael Wiseman
Anthony O'Hear
Affiliation:
University of Buckingham
Rachael Wiseman
Affiliation:
University of Liverpool
Get access

Summary

Anscombe’s indictment of modern moral philosophy is full-blooded. She began with three strong claims:

The first is that is not profitable to do moral philosophy… until we have an adequate philosophy of psychology, in which we are conspicuously lacking. The second is that the concepts of obligation and duty… and of the moral sense of ‘ought’, ought to be jettisoned… because they are derivatives… from an earlier conception of ethics… and are only harmful without it. The third thesis is that the differences between the well-known English writers on moral philosophy from Sidgwick to the present are of little importance.1

The connections between these three thoughts are not immediately obvious, but their influence is not in doubt. Many exponents of virtue ethics take Anscombe’s essay as a founding text and have endorsed all three thoughts. Many contemporary consequentialists and theorists of justice, who may reasonably be thought the heirs of the ‘modern moral philosophy’ that Anscombe criticized, have disputed or disregarded all three. Yet I believe that Anscombe’s essay is neither as reassuring for contemporary virtue ethics, nor as damaging to other strands in contemporary moral philosophy as this snapshot account of its influence could suggest.

Type
Chapter
Information
Moral Philosophy , pp. 468 - 493
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×