Blackwell Reference Online

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Philippa Foot is among the handful of the twentieth century's very best moral philosophers. Her achievement consists not so much of truths presented as of her distinctive voice in philosophy. In this way, she is like Moore or Rawls, or most pertinently Wittgenstein. To read her is immediately to struggle with the real stuff of the subject, to the highest standards; the subject is not the same for one again. Her work divides into several, diversely overlapping, strands: the major themes of ethics, such as its objectivity and its rationality; middle range issues, such as freedom of the will, virtues and vices, the critique of utilitarianism, and moral dilemmas; more specific ethical distinctions and problems, such as the doctrine of double effect, abortion, euthanasia, and capital punishment. I will focus on the major themes. Her treatment of the issues of morality's objectivity and of rationality falls into three phases. These phases relate to three Humean (or neo-Humean) orthodoxies: (1) the fact/value distinction, (2) the practicality of morality, and (3) the end-relative conception of practical reason. Roughly, Foot starts by rejecting (1) while accepting (2) and (3). She then rejects (2) as well. Finally she rejects (3) in favor of a more Aristotelian conception of practical reason and comes to reassert (2). From the first, Foot has taken mainstream contemporary moral philosophy ... log in or subscribe to read full text