Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T00:25:08.675Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Does Modern Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 May 2022

Anthony O'Hear
Affiliation:
University of Buckingham
Rachael Wiseman
Affiliation:
University of Liverpool
Get access

Summary

Someone once told me that the average number of readers of a philosophy article is about six. That is a particularly depressing thought when one takes into account the huge influence of certain articles. When I think of, say, Gettier’s article on knowledge, or Quine’s ‘Two Dogmas’, I begin to wonder whether anyone is ever likely to read anything I write. Usually the arguments of these very influential articles have been subjected to widespread analysis and interpretation. The case of Elizabeth Anscombe’s ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’, published in 1958, is something of an exception.1 That article has played a significant part in the development of so-called ‘virtue ethics’, which has burgeoned over the last three decades in particular. But there has been less close attention to its arguments than one might have expected.2

Type
Chapter
Information
Moral Philosophy , pp. 118 - 146
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anscombe, G. E. M. 1997. ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’, repr. in Crisp and Slote, 1997, 26–44. Orig. pub. Philosophy, 33, 119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aristotle, 1894. Ethica Nicomachea (EN), ed. Bywater, J.. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Aristotle, 1965. De Arte Poetica, ed. Kassel, R.. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Baier, K. 1988. ‘Radical Virtue Ethics’, in French, Uehling and Wettstein, 1988, 126–35.Google Scholar
Bernardete, S. 1965. ‘XRH and DEI in Plato and Others’, Glotta, 43, 285–98.Google Scholar
Crisp, R. 1997. Mill on Utilitarianism. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Crisp, R. and Slote, M. (eds.). 1997. Virtue Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Crisp, R. 2003. ‘Socrates and Aristotle on Happiness and Virtue’, in Heinaman, 2003, 55-78.Google Scholar
Crisp, R. forthcoming. ‘Hume on Virtue, Utility, and Morality’, in Gardiner, forthcoming.Google Scholar
Diamond, C. 1988. ‘The Dog that Gave Himself the Moral Law’, in French et al., 1988, 161–79.Google Scholar
Dodds, E. R. 1951. The Greeks and the Irrational. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dover, K. J. 1994. Greek Popular Morality in the Time of Plato and Aristotle. Repr. Indianapolis: Hackett.Google Scholar
Foot, P. 1978. ‘Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives’, repr. in Virtues and Vices, Oxford: Blackwell, 157–73.Google Scholar
French, P. A., Uehling, T. E., and Wettstein, H. K. (eds.) 1988. Ethical Theory: Character and Virtue, Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 13. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Gardiner, S. forthcoming. Virtue Ethics: Old and New.Google Scholar
Goodell, T. D. 1914. ‘XRH and DEI’, Classical Quarterly, 8, 91102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guthrie, W. K. C. 1971. The Sophists. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hartigan, R. S. 1966. ‘Saint Augustine on War and Killing: The Problem of the Innocent’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 27, 195204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heinaman, R. 2003. Plato and Aristotle’s Ethics. Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Hesiod. 1990. Opera et Dies, ed. Solmsen, F., 3rd edn. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Hume, D. 1998. An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, ed. Beauchamp, T.. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Joyce, P. 2001. The Myth of Morality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kagan, S. 1989. The Limits of Morality. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Katz, L. D. (ed.) 2000. Evolutionary Origins of Morality: Cross-disciplinary Perspectives. Thorverton: Imprint Academic.Google Scholar
Liddell, H. G. and Scott, R. 1940. Greek—English Lexicon. 9th edn. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Lloyd-Jones, , 1983. The Justice of Zeus. Rev. edn. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Maclntyre, A. 1981. After Virtue. London: Duckworth.Google Scholar
Mackie, J. L. 1977. Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
Mitchell, B. 1985. Old English Syntax. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moore, G. E. 1903. Principia Ethica. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Nietzsche, F. 1967. On the Genealogy of Morals, trans. Kaufman, W. and Hollingdale, R.J., New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Oxford English Dictionary, http://dictionary.oed.com/Google Scholar
Phillips-Griffiths, A. (ed.). 1993. Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pigden, C. 1988. ‘Anscombe on “Ought”‘, Philosophical Quarterly, 38, 2041.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richter, D. 1995. ‘The Incoherence of the Moral “Ought”‘, Philosophy, 70, 6985.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robinson, D. N. 2002. Praise and Blame: Moral Realism and its Applications. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Ross, W. D. 1930. The Right and the Good. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Schneewind, J. 1998. The Invention of Autonomy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Schopenhauer, A. 1995. On the Basis of Morality. Rev. edn., trans. E. Payne. Providence and Oxford: Berghahn Books.Google Scholar
Sidgwick, H. 1907. The Methods of Ethics. 7th edn. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Skorupski, J. 1993. ‘The Definition of Morality’, in Phillips-Griffiths, 1993, 121–44.Google Scholar
Sophocles, 1990. Fabulae, ed. Lloyd-Jones, H. and Wilson, N. G.. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Wiggins, D. 1998. Needs, Values, Truth. 3rd edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, B. 1981. Moral Luck. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, B. 1985. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy. London: Fontana.Google Scholar
Williams, B. 1993. Shame and Necessity. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wood, A. 1990. Hegel’s Ethical Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×