-
3Foot, PhilippaIn Hugh LaFollette (ed.), The International Encyclopedia of Ethics, Blackwell. 2013.Philippa Foot (1920–2010) is widely regarded as one of the foremost Anglo-American moral philosophers of the twentieth century. Her published work, spanning 50 years, consisted entirely of essays until its culmination in her only monograph, Natural Goodness (2001). Although her work forms, by and large, a coherent whole, subsets of the essays relate to different areas of ethics, in each of which she made a substantial contribution. In applied ethics, most of the essays are on abortion (1967, 197…Read more
-
21Neo-Aristotelian Ethical NaturalismIn Hugh LaFollette (ed.), The International Encyclopedia of Ethics, Blackwell. 2013.The proponents of neo-Aristotelian ethical naturalism (henceforth “Aristotelian naturalism” for short) include Foot (2001), Geach (1956, 1977), Hursthouse (1999), McDowell (1995), MacIntyre (1999), Nussbaum (1993, 1995), and Thompson (1995); and also Anscombe because her work has influenced so many others. (Gaut [1997, 2002] should also be known as a significant contributor.) Their views are so unlike those of other proponents of ethical naturalism (see Naturalism, Ethical), and they occupy such…Read more
-
8Moral StatusIn Hugh LaFollette (ed.), The International Encyclopedia of Ethics, Blackwell. 2013.The concept of moral status has developed from three initially independent philosophical discussions that became prominent in the 1970s. It figured in the three in rather different ways, which explains why the current concept has some of the vagaries that it has.
-
3AristotleRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 20 33. 1986.Aristotle (384–322 BC) was born in Stagira, Macedonia. He went to Athens and entered Plato's Academy when he was eighteen. He remained there until Plato's death in about 347 BC, when he left Athens to spend the next five years at Assos in Asia Minor and at Mytilene on the island of Lesbos, working on philosophy and biology. In 343 he was invited to return to Macedonia to tutor the son of Philip II of Macedonia, the future Alexander the Great. This lasted three or four years. After a further peri…Read more
-
258Emotional Reason: Deliberation, Motivation and the Nature of Value (review)Mind 111 (442): 418-422. 2002.This book has an ambitious aim—to make convincing the rejection of the hard and fast cognitive–conative divide currently so prevalent in philosophy of mind and moral psychology. Only such a rejection, Helm believes, can solve—or dissolve—the two major problems of practical reason. The ‘motivational problem’ is ‘a puzzle about the connection between our choosing something as the outcome of deliberation and our being motivated to pursue it’ (p. 1); the ‘deliberative problem’ concerns ‘how delibera…Read more
-
284Philippa Ruth Foot (Bosanquet, 1939)Somerville College Report 1011 81-83. 2011.Very soon after Philippa Foot’s death, there was a flood of newspaper obituaries and ‘posts’ on blogs referring to her as one of the greatest moral philosophers of the twentieth century. She was also, though very few of the writers were in a position to say so, a particularly loyal Somervillian. She read PPE at Somerville during the war, started teaching there after war work in London in 1947, became its first Philosophy Tutorial Fellow in 1949, Vice Principal in 1967, and, although she resigned…Read more
-
87Foot, Philippa Ruth, 1920-2010Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the British Academy Xi. 2012.PHILIPPA RUTH FOOT was born on 3 October 1920, the second daughter of William Bosanquet, who had done mathematics at Cambridge and became the manager of a steelworks in Yorkshire, and Esther Cleveland, daughter of President Grover Cleveland. She was educated mainly at home in the country by governesses, and not well. She said, many years later, that, ‘unsurprisingly’, she had been left ‘extremely ignorant’, and when the last one, ‘who actually had a degree’, suggested to her that she should go t…Read more
-
8Virtuous ActionIn Timothy O'Connor & Constantine Sandis (eds.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Action, Wiley‐blackwell. 2010.This chapter contains sections titled: References Further reading.
-
12Virtue Theory and AbortionIn Daniel Statman (ed.), Virtue Ethics: A Critical Reader, Edinburgh University Press. pp. 227-244. 1997.The sort of ethical theory derived from Aristotle, variously described as virtue ethics, virtue-based ethics, or neo-Aristotelianism, is becoming better known, and is now quite widely recognized as at least a possible rival to deontological and utilitarian theories. With recognition has come criticism, of varying quality. In this article I shall discuss nine separate criticisms that I have frequently encountered, most of which seem to me to betray an inadequate grasp either of the structure of v…Read more
-
36Virtue Ethics and the EmotionsIn Daniel Statman (ed.), Virtue Ethics: A Critical Reader, Edinburgh University Press. pp. 99-117. 1997.
-
1Environmental Virtue EthicsIn Rebecca L. Walker & Philip J. Ivanhoe (eds.), Working Virtue: Virtue Ethics and Contemporary Moral Problems, Oxford University Press Uk. 2006.
-
26The Grammar of Goodness in Foot’s Ethical NaturalismIn Micah Lott (ed.), Philippa Foot on Goodness and Virtue, Palgrave-macmillan. pp. 25-46. 2018.This essay treats the development of Foot’s efforts to produce a naturalistic theory of moral judgement from her early “Moral Beliefs” to her 2001 book Natural Goodness. Although she consistently attempts to isolate and defend a notion of goodness that is grounded in goodness in living things, she is not attempting to get ethics out of biology, especially not evolutionary biology: “species/life-form” in her and Thompson is the everyday concept not the specialised evolutionary theory one. She is …Read more
-
237Aristotle, Nicomachean EthicsRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 20 35-53. 1986.Our understanding of the moral philosophy of Aristotle is hampered by a number of modern assumptions we make about the subject. For a start, we are accustomed to thinking about ethics or moral philosophy as being concerned with theoretical questions about actions—what makes an action right or wrong? Modern moral philosophy gives two different sorts of answers to this question. One is in terms of a substantial ethical theory—what makes an action right or wrong is whether it promotes the greatest …Read more
-
23Virtue Theory and AbortionIn Roger Crisp & Michael Slote (eds.), Virtue Ethics, Oxford University Press. 1997.The sort of ethical theory derived from Aristotle, variously described as virtue ethics, virtue-based ethics, or neo-Aristotelianism, is becoming better known, and is now quite widely recognized as at least a possible rival to deontological and utilitarian theories. With recognition has come criticism, of varying quality. In this article I shall discuss nine separate criticisms that I have frequently encountered, most of which seem to me to betray an inadequate grasp either of the structure of v…Read more
-
351Virtue EthicsStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2022.Virtue ethics is currently one of three major approaches in normative ethics. It may, initially, be identified as the one that emphasizes the virtues, or moral character, in contrast to the approach that emphasizes duties or rules (deontology) or that emphasizes the consequences of actions (consequentialism). Suppose it is obvious that someone in need should be helped. A utilitarian will point to the fact that the consequences of doing so will maximize well-being, a deontologist to the fact that…Read more
-
60On the Grounding of the Virtues in Human NatureIn Matthias Lutz-Bachmann & Jan Szaif (eds.), Was Ist Das Für den Menschen Gute? / What is Good for a Human Being?: Menschliche Natur Und Güterlehre / Human Nature and Values, Walter De Gruyter. 2004.
-
331Environmental virtue ethicsIn Rebecca L. Walker & Philip J. Ivanhoe (eds.), Working virtue: virtue ethics and contemporary moral problems, Oxford University Press. pp. 155--172. 2007.
-
49An Interview with Rosalind Hursthouse: Philosophy in the Open UniversityCogito 12 (1): 5-10. 1998.Rosalind Hursthouse took her undergraduate degree in New Zealand and her B. Phil. and D. Phil. at Oxford. She taught in Oxford for six years before joining the Open University in 1975. As part of her work for the O.U. she has published Beginning Lives (Blackwell, 1987) on the morality of abortion; this generated Virtue theory and abortion, Philosophy and Public Affairs, 1991) which has already been reprinted five times. She has published numerous other articles on virtue ethics, the most recent …Read more
-
24The Virtuous Agent's Reasons: A Response to WilliamsIn Robert Heinaman (ed.), Aristotle and Moral Realism, Westview Press. 1995.
-
402Virtues and Reasons: Philippa Foot and Moral Theory: Essays in Honour of Philippa Foot (edited book)Clarendon Press. 1995.Philippa Foot is one of the most original and widely respected philosophers of our time; her work has exerted a lasting influence on the development of moral philosophy. In tribute to her, twelve leading philosophers from both sides of the Atlantic have contributed essays exploring the various topics in moral philosophy to which she has made a distinctive contribution--virtue ethics, naturalism, non-cognitivism, relativism, categorical requirements, and the role of rationality in morality.
-
239Normative Virtue EthicsIn Roger Crisp (ed.), How Should One Live?: Essays on the Virtues, Oxford University Press. pp. 19-33. 1996.
-
27Hume on JusticeIn Charles R. Pigden (ed.), Hume on Motivation and Virtue, Palgrave-macmillan. pp. 264. 2009.What motivates the benevolent or charitable agent is regard for another’s good or well-being, but talk about regard for others’ good or well- being is simply talk about benevolence or charity in different terms. Yet Hume clearly holds that the regard for another’s good is a motive to produce benevolent acts that is distinct from a sense of their benevolence. So what is the difference? ‘Well’, one might say, ‘intuitively, rights are very different from wellbeing.’ Yes indeed. And that, I shall co…Read more
-
123Denoting in the principles of mathematicsSynthese 45 (1). 1980.In "the principles of mathematics" russell accepts (a) that word meaning (e.G., That 'fido' means fido) is irrelevant to logic and (b) that such sentences as 'all men are mortal' do not express quantified propositions but are about things (in this case, The class of men). If we note these confusions, And also that (b), Though not (a) has been abandoned by 'on denoting', We see what denoting is and how russell relates to frege on sinn and bedautung
-
316Virtue Ethics vs. Rule-Consequentialism: A Reply to Brad Hooker: Rosalind HursthouseUtilitas 14 (1): 41-53. 2002.In On Virtue Ethics I offered a criterion for a character trait's being a virtue according to which a virtuous character trait must conduce to, or at least not be inimical to, four ends, one of which is the continuance of the human species. I argue here that this does not commit me to homosexuality's being a vice, since homosexuality is not a character trait and hence not up for assessment as a virtue or a vice. Vegetarianism is not up for such assessment either, for the same reason, but, as a p…Read more
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Action |
Applied Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Action |
Normative Ethics |