In her paper, Anscombe deals with our conception of the "moral ought" and "moral wrongs" and her conclusions are similar to the ones of Richard Taylor in the second essay of his I discussed earlier. However, she begins her paper by stating that philosophers are not in a position to do serious ethics because we do not know enough about the philosophy of psychology. Without truly understanding such things as intentions, motivations and actions, Anscombe does not think that we can even begin to answer the questions of ethics. She say that it is an ethical question whether or not an unjust man is a bad one, but what exactly "justice" is and, thus, what exactly virtues are, are questions not for ethics but for the philosophy of psychology. Because we do not know these answers she does not think that we can make much progress in ethics until answers are had.
I am not sure that I agree here. Given the nature of ethics, I do not think that it would be profitable to simply hold off in trying to answer ethical questions as they deal with issues of great importance where we must act in some way. To be fair, I think that she only means that philosophers should not write on the the subject because they do not know what they are talking about (yet), however I am not so sure about this. I know how to drive a car as well as the basics of keeping it operational despite the fact that I do not entirely understand how it works. Moreover, I would not refrain from trying to answer some sort of question which pertained to the driving of the car (not the workings of it though) despite the fact that I do not know how it works. For reasons such as these I do not think what one would need to completely understand human psychology in order to study ethics.
After this Anscombe talks about deriving an "ought" from an "is" and the problem that this poses for ethics. She thinks that it is really not a problem after all and that it is only a problem because of our conception of "morally ought" which is supposed to prompt action. She does not think that the ordinary sense of ought is like this and thus does not think that one can not derive it from and is. For example she takes the example of a plant which is suffering from a lack of watering. She thinks that it is obvious from this fact that such a plant needs water/should have water/ought to have water because such statements does not imply that the speaker wants the plant to have water but rather that the speaker recognizes the fact that the plant needs water in order to flourish. Similarly, to say that an engine should be oiled is simply to say that an engine with no oil runs badly or not at all (meaning that it does not function properly). None of this implies that these considerations have any sway over a person's actions unless that person wants see the plant flourish or the engine run. Thus there is no necessary connection between these needs and oughts and your wants and actions. However, there is such a connection when the needs are your own. (People tend to want what they need.) I found this interesting because it seems helpful to virtue ethics. If you can show that people need such an such for a flourishing life (in the way a plant needs water) then you can avoid the second problem of ethics (the why problem) of how you can get people to do good things.
Unlike the "moral ought" none of these "oughts" and "shoulds" are to be taken as having any sway over one's actions. The moral ought does however and thus it is this ought that can not be derived from is. The moral ought, according to Anscombe, only makes sense in terms of law be that divine law or a piece of Kant's self-legislation. What is important here is that the content the moral ought and the moral rights and wrongs comes from there being some sort of law that actions stand in relation to. However, given the fact that many no longer ascribe to such ideas about law ethics, Anscombe thinks that the moral oughts and rights and wrongs which are derived from them should be jettisoned as well, for without the laws they make no sense. (She also mentions a problem with thinking that such laws could be the basis for morality as there will then have to be some sort of moral imperative outside the system of laws which says that one should follow this particular system. Yet, this means that the system of laws is not enough by itself...) Despite thinking that such concepts should be thrown out, she still thinks we can do ethics because Aristotle in the ancients were perfectly able to consider ethical questions without worrying about moral oughts and rights and wrongs.
She then goes on to discuss Utilitarianism and Consequentialism and shows their many faults, yet that part was not directly relevant to virtue ethics so I will not write about it here. Near the end she talks a little about justice and distinguishes between intrinsically unjust and situationally unjust. What she sees as intrinsically unjust would be to try and judicially punish someone for something that he had not done. Whereas something that is situationally unjust would be to not pay a debt or to deprive another of his property, yet these actions could be rendered just given certain circumstance which is not the case when dealing with the intrinsically unjust. She says that a point in favor of using concepts of unjust over wrong is that in the case of an attempt to punish a man for something that he had not done there is not question whether or not it is unjust, yet one may wonder about whether or not it was wrong (in the moral sense of course). This is meant to show the superiority of the conception of justice over that of morally wrong as it is much easier to apply than the other which is fraught with difficulties.
I found this paper very interesting and also found some of its ideas to be very similar to those of Taylor (maybe he read Anscombe?). Anyway, the idea of certain moral terms being without content is something that I find very fascinating and, if true, seems to leave virtue ethics as one of the only viable alternatives.
Quick comment on the Vonnegut (sp?) story
I do not think that his story with the robot creating humanity so that they would create the materials for his ship repairs is the sort of purpose virtue ethicists are taking about. In virtue ethics the purpose that we are dealing with is the purpose of a human life qua humanity. Maybe I am wrong here, but I feel as though the considerations must in some way be internal in the sense of what is my purpose given that I am a human being, not the question is what is the purpose of human beings to, say, the universe or anything else external to humanity itself. This is very brief and underdeveloped, but I just wanted to touch on it so that I would remember it for discussion later.
I am not sure that I agree here. Given the nature of ethics, I do not think that it would be profitable to simply hold off in trying to answer ethical questions as they deal with issues of great importance where we must act in some way. To be fair, I think that she only means that philosophers should not write on the the subject because they do not know what they are talking about (yet), however I am not so sure about this. I know how to drive a car as well as the basics of keeping it operational despite the fact that I do not entirely understand how it works. Moreover, I would not refrain from trying to answer some sort of question which pertained to the driving of the car (not the workings of it though) despite the fact that I do not know how it works. For reasons such as these I do not think what one would need to completely understand human psychology in order to study ethics.
After this Anscombe talks about deriving an "ought" from an "is" and the problem that this poses for ethics. She thinks that it is really not a problem after all and that it is only a problem because of our conception of "morally ought" which is supposed to prompt action. She does not think that the ordinary sense of ought is like this and thus does not think that one can not derive it from and is. For example she takes the example of a plant which is suffering from a lack of watering. She thinks that it is obvious from this fact that such a plant needs water/should have water/ought to have water because such statements does not imply that the speaker wants the plant to have water but rather that the speaker recognizes the fact that the plant needs water in order to flourish. Similarly, to say that an engine should be oiled is simply to say that an engine with no oil runs badly or not at all (meaning that it does not function properly). None of this implies that these considerations have any sway over a person's actions unless that person wants see the plant flourish or the engine run. Thus there is no necessary connection between these needs and oughts and your wants and actions. However, there is such a connection when the needs are your own. (People tend to want what they need.) I found this interesting because it seems helpful to virtue ethics. If you can show that people need such an such for a flourishing life (in the way a plant needs water) then you can avoid the second problem of ethics (the why problem) of how you can get people to do good things.
Unlike the "moral ought" none of these "oughts" and "shoulds" are to be taken as having any sway over one's actions. The moral ought does however and thus it is this ought that can not be derived from is. The moral ought, according to Anscombe, only makes sense in terms of law be that divine law or a piece of Kant's self-legislation. What is important here is that the content the moral ought and the moral rights and wrongs comes from there being some sort of law that actions stand in relation to. However, given the fact that many no longer ascribe to such ideas about law ethics, Anscombe thinks that the moral oughts and rights and wrongs which are derived from them should be jettisoned as well, for without the laws they make no sense. (She also mentions a problem with thinking that such laws could be the basis for morality as there will then have to be some sort of moral imperative outside the system of laws which says that one should follow this particular system. Yet, this means that the system of laws is not enough by itself...) Despite thinking that such concepts should be thrown out, she still thinks we can do ethics because Aristotle in the ancients were perfectly able to consider ethical questions without worrying about moral oughts and rights and wrongs.
She then goes on to discuss Utilitarianism and Consequentialism and shows their many faults, yet that part was not directly relevant to virtue ethics so I will not write about it here. Near the end she talks a little about justice and distinguishes between intrinsically unjust and situationally unjust. What she sees as intrinsically unjust would be to try and judicially punish someone for something that he had not done. Whereas something that is situationally unjust would be to not pay a debt or to deprive another of his property, yet these actions could be rendered just given certain circumstance which is not the case when dealing with the intrinsically unjust. She says that a point in favor of using concepts of unjust over wrong is that in the case of an attempt to punish a man for something that he had not done there is not question whether or not it is unjust, yet one may wonder about whether or not it was wrong (in the moral sense of course). This is meant to show the superiority of the conception of justice over that of morally wrong as it is much easier to apply than the other which is fraught with difficulties.
I found this paper very interesting and also found some of its ideas to be very similar to those of Taylor (maybe he read Anscombe?). Anyway, the idea of certain moral terms being without content is something that I find very fascinating and, if true, seems to leave virtue ethics as one of the only viable alternatives.
Quick comment on the Vonnegut (sp?) story
I do not think that his story with the robot creating humanity so that they would create the materials for his ship repairs is the sort of purpose virtue ethicists are taking about. In virtue ethics the purpose that we are dealing with is the purpose of a human life qua humanity. Maybe I am wrong here, but I feel as though the considerations must in some way be internal in the sense of what is my purpose given that I am a human being, not the question is what is the purpose of human beings to, say, the universe or anything else external to humanity itself. This is very brief and underdeveloped, but I just wanted to touch on it so that I would remember it for discussion later.
1 comment:
Aaron - We should think about this 'purpose' idea on Monday. Also your card example (that we forgot last time). Also Anscombe's claim that we can't do ethics until we understand intentions etc.
Anscombe seems to think there are different senses of 'ought'. Is she right? (Williams denies this, for whatever that is worth).
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