What seems to have happened, according to Anscombe, is that we've carried forth a whole ethical machinery involving obligation, while jettisoning the idea of divine legislation which contextualizes and grounds it — csalisbury
Again, I think this fits the space-clearing view. — csalisbury
argued that both deontology and consequentialism assume a foundation for ethics in the concept of obligation, which makes no sense in the absence of a lawgiver which or who imposes it.
I would reject the modus tollens reading... — Banno
Anscombe's argument has nothing to do with private languages. It is only a presuasive use of the word "legislate". See p. 11. She uses a single sentence: It is absurd. — David Mo
So. My problem with the detail starts at 'brute facts'. It seems to me from the opening that Anscombe is looking to a more psychological understanding of morality. So we could see what is 'unjust as a fact about the psychological state of justice (rather than the legal one). But if that's the case, then we just have morality brought into Naturalism, which I'm fine with - but then this weird argument about brute facts, as if there were something further to say, other than the standard argument for Naturalism, and I just don't get what she's trying to do with it. Is it her personal defense of naturalism, or some other point which I've missed completely? — Isaac
Yeah, one might suppose that you just made up this intuition to fill the space left by the removal of a commanding divinity. — Banno
We ought not tackle ethics by looking for other universal rules - deontic or utilitarian - to replace divine rules, but by looking more directly at what we do, at what is virtuous. — Banno
If there are no universal or divine rules pertaining to human actions, then: Moral Relativism (which is untenable, because it provides no common basis for discussing ethics). — Galuchat
Anscombe describes this ought as having a 'mesmeric' force, even though divorced from its religious origins.
It's not unlike the kabbalistic idea of 'reshimu':
'The reshimu is compared to the fragrance of the wine which remains in the glass after having been poured out of it.'
It contains a hint of what used to sustain it, though what sustained it has since evaporated. — csalisbury
Yep. Is your criticism that she wrote an article instead of a book?Another surprising thing in this article is the brevity with which each previous moral theory is dismissed. — Isaac
Hume defines 'truth' in such a way as to exclude ethical judgements from it, and professes that he has proved that they are so excluded. He also implicitly defines 'passion' in such a way that aiming at anything is having a passion. His objection to passing from 'is' to 'ought' would apply equally to passing from 'is' to 'owes' or from 'is' to 'needs'. (However, because of the historical situation, he has a point here, which I shall return to.)
Kant introduces the idea of 'legislating for oneself', which is as absurd as if in these days, when majority votes command great respect, one were to call each reflective decision a man made a vote resulting in a majority, which as a matter of proportion is overwhelming, for it is always 1-0. The concept of legislation requires superior power in the legislator. His own rigoristic convictions on the subject of lying were so intense that it never occurred to him that a lie could be relevantly described as anything but just a lie (e.g. as 'a lie in such-and-such circumstances'). His rule about universalisable maxims is useless without stipulations as to what shall count as a relevant description of an action with a view to constructing a maxim about it.
It seems to me from the opening that Anscombe is looking to a more psychological understanding of morality. — Isaac
Yep. Is your criticism that she wrote an article instead of a book? — Banno
Hm, which passages do you have in mind that give warrant to this reading? — StreetlightX
It's a dismissal of the very practice of moral philosophy thus far. These people are not merely wrong on technical ground. If that were the case then Anscombe is either an unrivalled genius or she's missed responding technically to the thousands and thousands of pages which have been written about each of these theories, each of which clearly disagrees with her in more complex ways that she addresses. No, she's dismissing the entire endeavour. No need to get into the technicality. Like dismissing the need for a Window 7 handbook, it doesn't matter about it's technicalities, Windows 7 has gone so the handbook's no longer needed. — Isaac
We already have a basis from which to do moral philosophy; everyday life. Moral analysis begins in our socially saturated world not in the miracle of stone tablets or abstract principles. — fdrake
As A points out, social norms obviously aren't the basis of morality (considering what those norms are apt to be.) — frank
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