Virtue: Philippa Foot/Angelica Kohlmann

2019 ◽  
pp. 47-60
Author(s):  
Santiago Iñiguez
Keyword(s):  
Philippa Foot

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Kirchin
Keyword(s):  
Hilary Putnam ◽  
Bernard Williams ◽  
General Methodology ◽  
Thick Concepts ◽  
History Of ◽  
Philippa Foot ◽  
The Difference

This chapter introduces the distinction between thin and thick concepts and then performs a number of functions. First, two major accounts of thick concepts—separationism and nonseparationism—are introduced and, in doing so, a novel account of evaluation is indicated. Second, each chapter is outlined as is the general methodology, followed, third, by a brief history of the discussion of thick concepts, referencing Philippa Foot, Hilary Putnam, Gilbert Ryle, and Bernard Williams among others. Fourth, a number of relevant contrasts are introduced, such as the fact–value distinction and the difference between concepts, properties, and terms. Lastly, some interesting and relevant questions are raised that, unfortunately, have to be left aside.

Philippa Foot, l'utilitarisme et la promesse

Dialogue ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 59 (4) ◽  
pp. 627-649
Author(s):  
Vincent Boyer
Keyword(s):  
Philippa Foot

RÉSUMÉDans cet article, nous revenons sur la critique tout à fait originale de l'utilitarisme que Philippa Foot propose dans son œuvre de philosophie morale. Nous montrerons que la confrontation avec cette théorie éthique normative fut l'une des causes qui conduisit la philosophe britannique à reprendre à nouveaux frais la notion de rationalité pratique dans la dernière partie de son œuvre, notamment lors de la discussion qu'elle engage avec l'utilitarisme sur le fondement de l'obligation des promesses dans son livre de 2001, Le Bien naturel.

Νεο-αριστοτελική αρετολογική ηθική

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Αναστάσιος Καρακατσάνης
Keyword(s):  
Philippa Foot

Στην παρούσα διδακτορική διατριβή παρουσιάζεται και αναλύεται τόσο περιγραφικά όσο και κριτικά, μια συγκεκριμένη εκδοχή νέο-αριστοτελικής αρετολογίας του τύπου της ηθικής φυσιοκρατίας, αυτή των Philippa Foot, Rosalind Hursthouse και Michael Thompson. Για την εν λόγω εκδοχή η ηθική αγαθότητα ανήκει σε εκείνο τον τύπο της σχετικής ως προς το είδος φυσικής αγαθότητας που είναι ανάλογη με εκείνη που αποδίδεται στις άλλες μορφές ζωής όταν αποτιμώνται ως προς τα γεγονότα της φύσης τους. Και οι ηθικές αρετές κατανοούνται ως εκείνα τα γνωρίσματα που καθιστούν τους ανθρώπους αγαθούς, με τον ίδιο, τηρουμένων των αναλογιών, τρόπο που συγκεκριμένα γνωρίσματα και λειτουργίες καθιστούν καλές τις άλλες μορφές ζωής. Η εργασία, λοιπόν, επικεντρώνεται στη φυσιοκρατική διάσταση αυτής της φιλοσοφικής γραμμής, δηλαδή στη φιλοσοφική θεμελίωση της αξίωσης που προβάλλει η φιλοσοφία αυτή ως μια φυσιοκρατική προσέγγιση. Εξετάζονται και αντικρούονται ενστάσεις από τη θεωρία της εξέλιξης και την κοινωνική ψυχολογία που αμφισβητούν το φυσιοκρατικό χαρακτήρα της θεωρίας και την ψυχολογική πραγματικότητα των αρετών. Παράλληλα αναδύεται η ύπαρξη ενός δομικού χαρακτηριστικού που στηρίζει ουσιωδώς το νέο-αριστοτελικό οικοδόμημα των Foot, Hursthouse και Thompson, και την επιχειρούμενη αναλογία μεταξύ έλλογων και μη ελλόγων ζώων, το οποίο δεν είναι άλλο από την έννοια του φυσικού βιότοπου ή ιδιοπεριβάλλοντος του ανθρώπου. Η απροσδιοριστία και η αοριστία του φυσικού ιδιοπεριβάλλοντος καθιστά τον προσδιορισμό της ανθρώπινης μορφής ζωής και άρα των αρετών όχι απλά ένα κοινωνικό αλλά κι ένα πολιτικό ζήτημα.

Moral Realism

2021 ◽  
pp. 328-346
Author(s):  
Kevin Carnahan
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Moral Realism ◽  
Martha Nussbaum ◽  
Divine Command ◽  
Divine Nature ◽  
Isaiah Berlin ◽  
Moral Reality ◽  
Moral Ideals ◽  
Philippa Foot ◽  
Multiple Categories

Reinhold Niebuhr’s moral realism can be confusing, as he draws upon multiple categories that are often in tension in contemporary discussions of moral reality. This chapter lays out three frameworks Niebuhr used to discuss moral reality: naturalism, moral ideals, and divine nature and command. It argues that these frameworks are mutually supportive in Niebuhr’s thought and locates each in the context of contemporary discussions in moral philosophy. In relation to naturalism, Niebuhr’s thought is compared with the neo-Aristotelian thought of Philippa Foot and Rosalind Hursthouse. Concerning ideals, Niebuhr is put in dialogue with philosophers such as W. D. Ross, Martha Nussbaum, and Isaiah Berlin. Niebuhr’s treatment of divine command and nature is compared with the work of Robert M. Adams.

How a critical Humean naturalism is possible: Contesting the Neo-Aristotelian reading

2020 ◽  
pp. 019145372094841
Author(s):  
Martin Hartmann
Keyword(s):  
David Hume ◽  
John Mcdowell ◽  
Philippa Foot ◽  
David Wiggins

Ethical naturalists such as Philippa Foot, John McDowell or Sabina Lovibond have critically distinguished their version of naturalism from the version ascribed to David Hume. This article defends Hume’s naturalism against this criticism in constructing a more plausible version of it. The article briefly delineates John McDowell’s reading of Hume in his well-known ‘Two Sorts of Naturalism’. Based on Nietzsche, the article then offers the concept of ‘historical naturalism’ as alternative to McDowell’s reading, concentrating in particular on the charge of Hume’s naturalism being narrowly empiricistic. The concept of historical naturalism will be contrasted with David Wiggins’ Humean variant of vindicatory naturalism. In conclusion, Annette Baier’s suggestion of reconstructing Hume’s naturalism as critical is taken up and elaborated upon. While the spirit of Baier’s approach is adopted, its application to the problem of deeply entrenched sexism will be treated as overly optimistic.

Good For and Good About

Philosophy ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 78 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-121
Author(s):  
Jenny Teichman
Keyword(s):  
Life Sciences ◽  
Alasdair Macintyre ◽  
Polluted Water ◽  
Individual Animal ◽  
Field Of Study ◽  
Fresh Meat ◽  
Philippa Foot ◽  
Objective Fact ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
Good For

Ethical relativists and subjectivists hold that fact must be distinguished from value, ‘is’ from ‘ought’ and reason from emotion. Their distinctions have been called into question, notably by Philippa Foot (Natural Goodness 2001), also by Alasdair Macintyre (Dependent Rational Animals 1999).Reason in the form of the life sciences—ethology, biology—indicates that what is good or bad for an individual animal and its species are matters of objective fact. There is nothing relativistic about the idea that fresh meat is good for wolves and it is a fact, a paradigm fact, that polluted water is bad for dolphins. Moreover what is good for an animal is often something that is good about it. Sharp ears and great speed are good for deer and are also what makes a deer a good specimen of its kind.These general remarks apply to the human animal as well as to ‘ordinary’ animals. The good and bad discussed by moral philosophers cannot be radically different from the good and bad known through reason. But if it were it would normally be a remarkably indigent field of study.

Philippa Foot's Virtue Ethics Has an Achilles' Heel

Dialogue ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 445-468 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott Woodcock
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
General Problem ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Moral Evaluation ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Natural Goodness ◽  
Human Goodness ◽  
Philippa Foot ◽  
Normative Implications

ABSTRACTMy aim in this article is to argue that Philippa Foot fails to provide a convincing basis for moral evaluation in her book Natural Goodness. Foot's proposal fails because her conception of natural goodness and defect in human beings either sanctions prescriptive claims that are clearly objectionable or else it inadvertently begs the question of what constitutes a good human life by tacitly appealing to an independent ethical standpoint to sanitize the theory's normative implications. Foot's appeal to natural facts about human goodness is in this way singled out as an Achilles' heel that undermines her attempt to establish an independent framework for virtue ethics. This problem might seem to be one that is uniquely applicable to the bold naturalism of Foot's methodology; however, I claim that the problem is indicative of a more general problem for all contemporary articulations of virtue ethics.

VIRTUE AND NATURE

2007 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher W. Gowans
Keyword(s):  
Social Group ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Moral Worth ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Virtuous Agent ◽  
Restricted Form ◽  
Group I ◽  
Nonhuman Animals ◽  
Philippa Foot ◽  
Moral Universalism

The Neo-Aristotelian ethical naturalism of Philippa Foot and Rosalind Hursthouse purports to establish a naturalistic criterion for the virtues. Specifically, by developing a parallel between the natural ends of nonhuman animals and the natural ends of human beings, they argue that character traits are justified as virtues by the extent to which they promote and do not inhibit natural ends such as self-preservation, reproduction, and the well-being of one’s social group. I argue that the approach of Foot and Hursthouse cannot provide a basis for moral universalism, the widely-accepted idea that each human being has moral worth and thus deserves significant moral consideration. Foot and Hursthouse both depict a virtuous agent as implicitly acting in accord with moral universalism. However, with respect to charity, a virtue they both emphasize, their naturalistic criterion (especially in the more elaborate form developed by Hursthouse) at best provides a warrant for a restricted form of charity that extends only to a limited number of persons. There is nothing in the natural ends of human beings, as Foot and Hursthouse understand these, that gives us a reason for having any concern for the well-being of human beings as such.

Subjectivism and Blame

2007 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 149-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Sobel
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Moral Norms ◽  
Philippa Foot ◽  
Do So

My own conclusion is that “One ought to be moral” makes no sense at all unless the “ought” has the moral subscript, giving a tautology, or else relates morality to some other system such as prudence or etiquette. I am, therefore putting forward quite seriously a theory that disallows the possibility of saying that a man ought (free unsubscripted “ought“) to have ends other than those he does have.- Philippa FootH.A. Prichard's “Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?”, like Descartes Meditations, is remembered better for the skeptical moment in the author's thinking than for its unskeptical conclusions. Prichard's paper is complicated, but the lore about its message is simple. The lore is that Prichard pointed out that in trying to vindicate the reason-giving power of morality we might do so by appealing to moral norms or to non-moral norms. If we appeal to moral norms, then we are only justifying a standard in terms of that standard and just about any old standard could survive such a test.

scholarly journals Medical ethics and the trolley problem

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriel Andrade
Keyword(s):  
Medical Ethics ◽  
Double Effect ◽  
Trolley Problem ◽  
Ethical Challenges ◽  
Doctrine Of Double Effect ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Ethical Decisions ◽  
Moral Decisions ◽  
Philippa Foot ◽  
Alternative Scenarios

The so-called Trolley Problem was first discussed by Philippa Foot in 1967 as a way to test moral intuitions regarding the doctrine of double effect, Kantian principles and utilitarianism. Ever since, a great number of philosophers and psychologists have come up with alternative scenarios to further test intuitions and the relevance of conventional moral doctrines. Given that physicians routinely face moral decisions regarding life and death, the Trolley Problem should be considered of great importance in medical ethics. In this article, five “classic” trolley scenarios are discussed: the driver diverting the trolley, a bystander pulling a lever to divert the trolley, a fat man being thrown from a bridge to stop the trolley, a bystander pulling a lever to divert a trolley so that a fat man may be run over, and a bystander pulling a lever so that a fat man falls off from a bridge to stop the trolley. As these scenarios are discussed, relevant moral differences amongst them are addressed, and some of the applications in medical ethics are discussed. The article concludes that Trolley scenarios are not the ultimate criterion to make ethical decisions in difficult ethical challenges in medicine cases but they do serve as an initial intuitive guide.    

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