Elizabeth Anscombe on Consequentialism and Absolute Prohibitions

Elizabeth Anscombe revolutionized the study of intention in modern analytic philosophy. Most 20th-century readers of Intention were primarily concerned with questions of language and mind, seeking to identify the characteristics of action that make it a special kind of event, and, further, what makes actions 'intentional.' Oddly enough, however, these interpreters have had little to say regarding the work's importance for moral philosophy. This is a failure to read Intention in light of Anscombe's underlying ethical concerns. This dissertation tries to set the record straight by exploring the place of Anscombe's account of intentional action in her moral philosophy. More specifically, I argue that her account of intention makes possible absolute moral prohibitions and therefore should be adopted over theories of intention that yield consequentialist consequences. I conclude by arguing that the existence of such moral absolutes-and the notion of intention upon which these absolutes dependis indispensable for any sound moral theology.

European Journal of Philosophy

This paper is divided into two parts. In the first I outline and defend Elizabeth Anscombe's claim that consequentialism is a shallow philosophy by considering how two contemporary consequentialists reach opposing but equally outlandish moral conclusions on a matter as fundamental as whether it is good or bad that the human race continues. In the second I argue that in order to show what is wrong with the consequentialist arguments presented in part one, we need to deploy a wider range of critical resources than what typically appears in contemporary analytic moral philosophy. One example of a relevant and under-appreciated resource I then consider is satire as a mode of moral thought. 1 | INTRODUCTION Elizabeth Anscombe's article 'Modern Moral Philosophy' has been enormously influential. At the same time, it has been seen as unreasonably dismissive of someeven mostof the modern moral philosophers she so very briefly discusses, and is in relation to at least one kind of moral philosopher downright rude. I refer of course to her discussion of consequentialism and its representative for her, Sidgwick. In this paper I will consider one specific thing she says about consequentialism, that it is essentially a shallow philosophy. One might, especially if one is a consequentialist, take offence at this remark, but for reasons I explain this response to Anscombe just serves to illustrate her point. Anscombe's point, as I understand it, has a significance that has not been properly grasped in the voluminous commentary on her paper. I turn now to the context of Anscombe's remark.

G.E.M. Anscombe and the Catholic Intellectual Tradition, 2016

Although Anscombe’s moral philosophy is often described as an “absolutism”, commentators on Anscombe have confused what kind of absolutism she held. In this paper, I argue that to properly understand Anscombe’s position on ethical absolutism one must see it as essentially tied to her work on intention and not on external activities performed. When Anscombe’s view is understood in such a manner, it renders her moral philosophy more closely harmonious not only with her other philosophical works, but the Catholic intellectual tradition especially Thomism. And while one might extrapolate from this harmony Anscombe’s indebtedness to this tradition, one might just as easy see her philosophical work as itself being a clarifying force for contemporary accounts of ethics in the Catholic tradition. To be able to accomplish this, the paper first argues for a proper understanding of Anscombe’s ethical absolutism according to her contemporary commentators. One I have established this proper understanding, I indicate how, in the second part of the paper, ethicists working more directly in the Catholic intellectual tradition are closer to Anscombe’s authentic ethical account of absolutism than her own commentators. After exploring a place of seemingly inflexible disagreement for contemporary Catholic ethicists, I lay out how Anscombe’s account of intention can both illuminate the nature of her ethical absolutism and simultaneously contribute to that tradition from which she at least seems to have received.

Oxford Handbook for Elizabeth Anscombe, 2022

Drawing on my archival and biographical research on Anscombe, I argue that Anscombe’s work in moral philosophy was driven by her concern to recover the absolute moral prohibition on murder, and the virtue of justice as the appropriate basis for it. Oxford moral philosophy made the mistake of giving priority to abstract moral theorizing over the most fundamental moral convictions. Anscombe, following the wisdom of great philosophical and religious traditions, recognized that the prohibition of killing innocent people as a requirement of natural justice as a prerequisite for legitimate theorizing about morality. She thus attacked what she took to be the naïve, frivolous and/or degenerate moral theorizing of the ‘Oxford moral philosophers.’

Kinesis, 2009

Anscombe (1958) believes her article demonstrates: (1) ethics cannot move forward without an adequate philosophical psychology (2) the emphatic sense of “ought” ought to bediscarded and (3) modern moral philosophers from Sidgwick to the present exhibit very few differences. Anscomberemarks that all the modern moral philosophers use the term“ought” in such a way that it demands a lawgiver. However,none of them admit of a lawgiver. Thus, she believes theyshould all be rejected. Among the modern moral ethicists,she is very critical of John Stuart Mill. I argue that Mill hasa fully developed philosophical psychology that explicatesthe importance of sympathy. From this, he is not only ableto counter her charges against utilitarianism, but also escapethe problem of using “ought” emphatically.

Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, 2016

Anscombe argues in "Modern Moral Philosophy" that obligation and "moral" terms only have meaning in the context of a divine Lawgiver, whereas terms like "unjust" have clear meaning without any such context and, in at least some cases, are incontrovertibly accurate descriptions. Because the context needed for obligation-terms to have meaning does not generally obtain in modern moral philosophy, she argues that we should abandon the language of obligation, adopting instead the yet clear and meaningful language of injustice. She argues further that we should develop an account of human flourishing to answer the question why we need to be just. The essay contends that Aquinas has an account of obligation that requires neither a god nor an account of human flourishing, and that proceeds immediately from the common apprehension of justice Anscombe noted.

Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 2010

To consequentialise a moral theory means to account for moral phenomena usually described in nonconsequentialist terms, such as rights, duties, and virtues, in a consequentialist framework. This paper seeks to show that all moral theories can be consequentialised. The paper distinguishes between different interpretations of the consequentialiser's thesis, and emphasises the need for a cardinal ranking of acts. The paper also offers a new answer as to why consequentialising moral theories is important: This yields crucial methodological insights about how to pursue ethical inquires.

Etica & Politica / Ethics & Politics, 2017

I discuss the second of the three theses advanced by Anscombe in 'Modern Moral Philosophy'. The focus is the nature of entities to which – if Anscombe's diagnosis is correct – ought and cognate modals are assumed by modern moral philosophers to refer. I reconstruct the alternative account offered by Anscombe of viable and justified 'Aristotelian' modals – as contrasted with mysterious and unjustified 'Kantian' modals; I discuss the nature and status of 'Aristotelian necessity' to which such legitimate modals refer to. I conclude with the claims that Anscombe's account of modern moral philosophy is viciously parochial, reducing it to Oxford philosophy from the Thirties and Forties and its immediate antecedents; that her historical reconstruction is vitiated by lack of awareness of the existence of law-views of morality preceding Christian theology, artful anticipation of secularization in order to fit her picture of modern moral philosophy as the 'day after' of Christianity; that Aquinas's and her own view of natural morality as made of rational moral judgments laws is incompatible with both her predilection for 'divine law' instead of plain down-to-earth 'natural law'; that her strained reconstruction of a Christian-Jewish-Stoic view of morality as law promulgated by God has little to share with any reconstruction of the Biblical moral traditions meeting academic standard and in more detail there is no possible translation of Torah as Law; and that her criticism hits just targets from the old little British world she was familiar with, while leaving Kantian ethics unaffected.

The Oxford Handbook of Elizabeth Anscombe, 2022

Introduction In a list of twenty opinions common among Anglo-American philosophers that are inimical to the Christian religion, Anscombe includes this: "Ethics is formally independent of the facts of human life, and, for example, human physiology" (GG2, 67). Not only is that belief contrary to Christianity, it is also, on Anscombe's view, "a philosophical error and can be argued to be such on purely philosophical grounds" (GG2, 68). Here we find a characteristic of Anscombe's views on ethics generally: there is a complementarity between a purely philosophical approach and an approach informed by faith. In her treatment of the concept of sin, she offers two definitions; according to the first, a sin is a behaviour against right reason. According to the second, it is a behavior against divine law (GG2, 117). Initially, the first definition might seem at odds with her view that ethics must take account of the facts of human life. Yet, the definition must be read along with her rejection of the autonomy of ethics (GG2, 67). For her, what accords with right reason is thoroughly shaped by the facts of human life. Further, for Anscombe, these two definitions of sin are connected. If human beings were different in any of various ways, for example if we were born able to talk, never slept, sprang back to life when killed if properly kept, then what accords with right reason would be different. Moral virtues and vices would likewise be different, and so would the divine law, for it would command what is in accordance with that different nature. Hence, Anscombe adheres to a 'law conception of ethics' in the sense that she gives this term in "Modern Moral Philosophy," where it is defined as the view that "what is needed for conformity with the virtues failure in which is the mark of being bad qua man… is required by divine law" (CP3, 30). On her view, then, those who do not embrace theism can have sound ethical views: they are views about what makes one good or bad qua human being. Anscombe follows Aristotle and Aquinas in taking human beings to be themselves the starting points of a certain sort of action, that is to say, we characteristically initiate change on the basis of appetites that are shaped by a normative conception of the good. Human actions can be defective, exhibiting vice, or not, exhibiting virtue depending on whether our reasoning and appetites operate as they should. As Anscombe unequivocally puts it "'That was a morally good action' is equivalent to… 'That was a good human action', and 'That was a morally bad action' is equivalent to… 'That was a bad human action.'" (GG1, 203). Ethical norms can thereby be grounded on the kind of thing that we are, which can be grasped independently of affirming or denying any views on God. Still, the rejection of theism is not without consequences for our ethical views, according to

Philosophical Papers, 2006