Anscombe's Relative Bruteness Jacob Sparks Ethical beliefs are not justified by familiar methods. We do not directly sense ethical properties, at least not in the straightforward way we sense colors or shapes. Nor is it plausible to think – despite a tradition claiming otherwise – that there are self-evident ethical truths that we can know in the way we know conceptual or mathematical truths. Yet, if we are justified in believing anything, we are justified in believing various ethical propositions e.g., that slavery is wrong. If ethical beliefs are not justified in these familiar ways, how are they justified? In her widely read, "Modern Moral Philosophy," and in her short complimentary paper, "On Brute Facts," G.E.M. Anscombe answers this question with a compelling and unorthodox account of justification in ethics. Because of her polemical tone and because "Modern Moral Philosophy" does so much else besides, this contribution is easy to overlook. But her account is worth taking seriously, since (a) it is an underappreciated yet plausible account that sidesteps traditional controversies, (b) it offers rich conceptual tools for interpreting and critiquing ethical theories, (c) it suggests an appealing account of the place of ethical theory in ethical knowledge and, (d) it provides useful guidance for doing applied ethics. 1. Relative Bruteness G.E.M. Anscombe helped to revive virtue ethics in the English speaking world, made important contributions to action theory, and inspired renewed interest in "thick" ethical concepts.1 In this paper, I focus on a less discussed aspect of Anscombe's thought which is both independent from, and sheds significant light on, her other achievements.2 The part of Anscombe's view I will discuss centers on the concept of "relative bruteness," a relation that holds between categories of fact. To explain the relation, she uses the example of ordering potatoes from a grocer: facts like «Anscombe ordered the potatoes,» and «the grocer delivered them,» are brute with respect 1 See, for example, B. Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy. Harvard University Press, 1985. 2 The view of Anscombe's I'm articulating is found in G.E.M. Anscombe, "Modern Moral Philosophy," in «Philosophy» 33 (124), January, 1958, p. 1-19 and G.E.M. Anscombe, "On Brute Facts," in «Analysis» 18 (3), January, 1958, p. 69-72. 136 JACOB SPARKS Philosophical News to the fact that Anscombe owes the grocer his fee. Calling some fact brute with respect to others means that belief in the brute facts is sufficient to justify belief in the resultant fact. Disputes about resultant facts are generally settled with investigation into the brute facts: to decide whether Anscombe owes her grocer, we would consult the facts about orders and deliveries. Anscombe sees this bruteness relation in a variety of places. A fact like «Anscombe made such-and-such an utterance in the presence of her grocer» is brute with respect to the fact that Anscombe ordered potatoes. A fact like «the grocer placed a sack of potatoes on Anscombe's doorstep» is brute with respect to the fact that he delivered them. Facts like, «Anscombe owes her grocer,» along with the rest of the "owes" and "is owed" facts about Anscombe, are brute with respect to facts about her financial solvency. In each case, belief in one kind of fact is sufficient to justify belief in the other. The overall picture is of a complex hierarchy of thought, with many different bruteness relations holding between, e.g. physical facts («the grocer placed the potatoes») and sociological facts («he made a delivery»), sociological facts («she ordered and he delivered») and ethical facts («Anscombe owes her grocer»), etc. On Anscombe's view, belief in a brute fact can justify belief in a resultant one, even though the resultant fact does not always result given the brute fact. For example, in a case where the grocer placed a sack of potatoes on Anscombe's doorstep and then arranged to have the sack taken away immediately thereafter, it would not be true that he delivered the potatoes. Still, believing that the grocer placed potatoes on Anscombe's doorstep is sufficient to justify the belief that he delivered them. The belief that no such arrangement was made by the grocer is not required to justify the belief that he delivered the potatoes. Call the facts that would prevent the placing of the potatoes from constituting a delivery defeaters, and reflect on the number and diversity of the defeaters in the case of the delivery. If believing that there are no defeaters were an essential part of the justification for believing that the grocer made a delivery, then it would be hard to know that the grocer made a delivery. But it is not at all hard to know that sort of thing. Granted, an agent who believed that the grocer delivered the potatoes on the basis of her belief that the grocer placed them on Anscombe's doorstep, must not believe that a defeater holds. But that is not the same thing as believing, of each defeater, that it does not hold. Nor is it the same as believing that no defeater holds. That is why Anscombe does not require beliefs about the absence of defeaters to justify beliefs in resultant facts. There is a similar point to be made about what Anscombe calls "institutions." Consider all the background facts that must hold for the fact that Anscombe ordered and the grocer delivered to result in the fact that Anscombe owes the grocer his fee. If certain facts about contract, money, or customs surrounding payment were different, then it might not follow that Anscombe owes her grocer. Still, none of those institutional facts are part of the justification that she owes him his fee. Again, if these institutional facts were part of the justification, it would be difficult for anyone to know that Anscombe owes her grocer – an exceedingly ordinary kind of knowledge. Philosophical News ANSCOMBE'S RELATIVE BRUTENESS 137 In the papers mentioned, Anscombe often appears to have a metaphysical sense of "bruteness" in mind, where brute facts constitute or otherwise ground resultant facts. I am emphasizing the epistemic side of her notion3, but it is worth noting one metaphysical aspect of the concept I am expounding. It would be wrong to say that the fact, «the honest witness says Anscombe owes her grocer,» is brute with respect to the fact that she owes him. Though it might be reasonable to believe the latter on the basis of the former, knowing the testimony of the honest witness – even knowing that he is honest – is insufficient for knowing why she owes him his fee. This "knowing why" is the kind of knowledge that is involved in understanding, being an expert, and being in a position to teach others. As Anscombe uses the "bruteness" relation, brute facts do not just provide us with justification for knowing that the resulting facts, but for understanding, having expertise, or knowing why the resultant facts. This requires that the brute facts do not just justify, but also explain (in a way that can ground understanding) the resultant facts. This additional aspect of bruteness will play an important role below in the discussion of ethical theory, and I will simply assume it from here out. But it is worth pausing to note that as long as you take "justification" and "knowledge" in the full-throated sense that includes knowing why, understanding, etc. you could express Anscombe's view about bruteness as I originally did, as a thesis about one kind of fact being sufficient to justify another. Like Anscombe, I favor the more robust sense of these terms since it is knowledge and justification in this robust sense that we aim for when thinking about ethics. There are some non-ethical facts, like the fact that some medicine would be effective, where a sort of thin justified true belief is all we really care about (unless we are scientists aiming for the more robust kind of knowing). But when we investigate ethical claims, we almost always want to know why they are true. We can summarize Anscombe's account: Relative Bruteness: Some fact, A, is brute with respect to another fact, B, when belief in A both explains and is sufficient to justify belief in B. Importantly, (1) B need not always result given A, (2) A must not include a specification of the conditions where B doesn't result, and (3) A must not include a description of the "institutions" that enable B to result, when it does, given A. 2. Moral Regress Anscombe introduces the bruteness relation to show what is wrong with a familiar reading of Hume's remarks about "is" and "ought." This reading implies 3 There are key passages that invite my reading. See, e.g., "On Brute Facts" p. 71 (<<But I can know perfectly well that the grocer has supplied me with potatoes>> and p.72 (<<if one is asked to justify A, the truth of [B] is in normal circumstances an adequate justification: A is not verified by any further facts.>>) 138 JACOB SPARKS Philosophical News that, because you «can't derive an "ought" from an "is,"» there must always be some primary ethical notion that serves to justify the rest of our ethical beliefs. If someone said, «Anscombe owes her grocer because she ordered and he delivered,» an advocate of this reading of Hume would complain that the reasoning is elliptical. There must be some ethical assumption like, e.g., fees are owed for orders delivered. Anscombe, in contrast, would call «fees are owed for orders delivered» not an assumption, but an institution. She would think that it is perfectly reasonable to believe that she owes her grocer simply on the basis of the fact that she ordered and he delivered.4 If Anscombe is right – if there are cases where non-ethical facts are brute with respect to ethical facts – then traditional debates among intuitionists, and between intuitionists and coherentists, are largely misguided. Under the influence of the Humean doctrine mentioned, these debates begin from the notion that, if an ethical belief is justified inferentially, the beliefs that do the justifying must include some primary ethical belief. Of course, these justifying ethical beliefs must themselves be justified. If they are justified inferentially, then there must be further ethical beliefs among their justifiers. A regress threatens, and disputes arise over how to avoid it. Intuitionists claim that the chains always come to an end with an immediately justified ethical belief, though they disagree among themselves about the form of these beliefs. Some say they are highly general, self-evident ethical claims, and they model inquiry into these truths after mathematics.5 Others say the immediately justified beliefs are about what would be right in some particular circumstances, and they model inquiry into these after perception.6 Both groups of intuitionists disagree with coherentists who think the "chain" metaphor is inappropriate, preferring instead the image of a web, where every ethical belief is supported by others, and where there is no objectionable circularity in this system of mutual support.7 Anscombe, in contrast, holds that ethical beliefs may be justified by non-ethical beliefs alone, and thus avoids the regress entirely. She need not posit the existence of self-evident moral principles or a faculty of moral perception. And she avoids 4 There is a puzzle about Anscombe's notion of an institution. It is plausible to think that inferences to conclusions involving concepts like "owes" are licensed as a matter of convention. Thus, calling «fees are owed for ordered delivered» an institution seems appropriate. But it isn't so clear in the case of concepts like "ought," "good," "courageous," or "just". Is Anscombe committed to a response-dependent view of the propriety of inferences involving these concepts? Or are we to understand her "institutions" as, at least in some cases, independent of our conventions? 5 See, for example, H. Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics. Hackett Publishing. 1981; R. Shafer-Landau, Moral Realism: A Defence. Clarendon Press. 2003; D. Parfit, On What Matters: Volume Two. Oxford University Press, Oxford. 2013. 6 Examples include R. Audi, Moral Perception. Princeton University Press. 2013 and S. McGrath, "Moral Knowledge by Perception," in «Philosophical Perspectives,» 2004, p. 209–28. 7 See D.O. Brink, Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. 1989 and G. Sayre-McCord, "Coherentist Epistemology and Moral Theory," in Moral Knowledge? New Readings in Moral Epistemology, Oxford University Press, 1996, pp. 137-189. Philosophical News ANSCOMBE'S RELATIVE BRUTENESS 139 the standard objection to coherentism: that it leads to an insidious relativism by allowing that any system of mutually supportive ethical beliefs is justified. On the traditional views about justification in ethics, ethical thought begins from pure reflection, pure observation, or the interplay between them. Anscombe's position is that ethical thinking begins from beliefs about how things are, nonethically. Her view captures what it is like to investigate ethical questions. We standardly focus our attention onto some distinct class of non-ethical facts, passing directly from our views about the relevant non-ethical facts to an ethical conclusion, without the use of any well formulated moral principle. Anscombe's view thus represents a plausible and largely ignored alternative to the traditional views about justification in ethics.8 And, as we will see below, her position has appealing implications for how we should do moral philosophy, both when constructing ethical theories and when doing applied ethics. 3. Ethical Theory It is easy to be impressed with Anscombe's opening claim in "Modern Moral Philosophy." She writes, «[I]t is not profitable for us at present to do moral philosophy, [it] should be laid aside at any rate until we have an adequate philosophy of psychology.» We should not be misled by this claim into thinking that she has nothing useful to contribute to ethical theorizing. In the last section, we saw how the bruteness relation can be used to characterize the overall relationship between ethical and non-ethical beliefs. We can also use the bruteness relation to better characterize and critique traditional ethical theories, which can be understood as views about what is brute with respect to what. For example, we can understand consequentialism as the view that facts about the value of an action's consequences are brute with respect to facts about the propriety of that action. A fully articulated version of consequentialism will also make claims about what is brute with respect to the facts about the value of consequences, and so the most obvious way to distinguish versions of consequentialism is by the facts they select as brute with respect to the facts about the value of consequences. If facts about pleasure are brute with respect to facts about the value of consequences, we have a hedonistic consequentialism. We could also have versions of consequentialism which make facts about preference satisfaction, desire satisfaction, etc. brute with respect to facts about the value of consequences. One way of critiquing an ethical theory starts from the idea that, if X-facts are brute with respect to Y-facts, then you can't investigate the Y-fact without a good 8 For a more complete defense of a view resembling Anscombe's, see J. Sparks, "Is, Ought, and the Regress Argument" in «Australasian Journal of Philosophy,» July 2019, p. 528543. 140 JACOB SPARKS Philosophical News grasp of the X-facts.9 It's a problem for an ethical theory if our knowledge of the brute facts is insufficient to ground what we take to be our knowledge of the resultant facts. Anscombe uses this idea to attack hedonistic theories. Because she thinks the concept of pleasure is insufficiently clear, she doesn't think these pleasurefacts can be understood well enough to justify those beliefs about value that we are clearly justified in believing.10 And even if we did understand pleasure sufficiently well, there are cases where it is obvious that some consequence would be bad even though it isn't at all obvious how much pleasure or pain attends that consequence.11 There are additional ways to distinguish versions of consequentialism. It is common to pick out a specific subset of the facts about the value of consequences as brute with respect to the facts about the propriety of actions. For instance, Anscombe thinks that, if any facts about consequences are brute with respect to facts about the propriety of an action, they are only facts about the intended consequences of that action. Another way to critique an ethical theory, then, is to show that it postulates irrelevant facts as brute with respect to some class of ethical facts. Anscombe thus criticizes traditional consequentialist views for including, among the facts that are brute with respect to facts about the propriety of actions, facts about the unintended consequences of those actions. Different versions of consequentialism can also be distinguished by the structure of the bruteness relation connecting facts about the value of consequences to facts about the propriety of actions. A direct consequentialist would think that, in attempting to discover the facts about the propriety of actions, you must investigate directly into the value of the consequences. In contrast, a virtue-theoretic consequentialist would think that, in attempting to discover the facts about the propriety of actions, you first have to discover if those actions are courageous, cowardly, generous, kind, or just and that the correct method for doing this will 9 This principle is controversial, since beliefs may have multiple sources of justification. So even if X-facts are brute with respect to Y-facts, we might be able to know the Y-facts in some other way. The requirement that brute facts explain resultant facts in a way that grounds understanding may partially mitigate this worry, as it is plausible to think that facts have only one understanding-grounding explanation. Thanks to Dallas Amico for pressing this point. 10 A critique with the same basic structure is the reason Anscombe claims that we can't do moral philosophy without advances in our philosophy of psychology. As we'll see below, Anscombe thinks that the most important ethical facts are facts about virtue and that certain facts supplied by the philosophy of psychology are required for saying anything helpful about what's brute with respect to facts about virtue. For instance, the distinction between intended and unintended consequences – a distinction Anscombe sees as problematic and poorly understood – is essential for characterizing the difference between conscientiousness and kindness. So any progress in learning about these virtue-facts, about which actions are conscientious and which are kind, will have to wait for resolution of certain psychological-facts that, according to Anscombe, remain obscure. 11 A similar complaint can also be lodged against the consequentialist's claim that facts about the value of consequences are brute with respect to facts about the propriety of actions. Intuitively, we may know that some acts are right or wrong without knowing the value of their consequences. Philosophical News ANSCOMBE'S RELATIVE BRUTENESS 141 ultimately require investigation into facts about the value of consequences.12 Both views agree that the value of consequences are, in some sense, brute with respect to the propriety of actions.13 But there is a more important sense in which they disagree. Only virtue-theoretic consequentialism – a view plausibly ascribed to Mill and Sidgwick – posits additional structure, claiming that facts about the value of consequences are brute with respect to virtue facts which are, in turn, brute with respect to facts about the propriety of actions. Virtue-theoretic consequentialism thus gives an essential role to "thick" moral terms. A wide variety of virtuetheoretic consequentialist views could be distinguished by the specific thick terms they select as brute with respect to the facts about what is right. Anscombe would not accept the idea that what is brute with respect to facts employing thick terms are just facts about the value of consequences. But her more profound disagreement with the virtue-theoretic consequentialist is over the claim that facts about virtue are brute with respect to facts about what is right. She does not think any facts are brute with respect to facts about what is right. She writes: «It would be a great improvement if instead of "morally wrong" we always named a genus like "untruthful," "unchaste," "unjust." We should no longer ask whether doing something was "wrong," passing directly from some description of an action to this notion; we should ask whether, e.g. it was unjust, and the answer would sometimes be clear at once». ("Modern Moral Philosophy," p. 8-9) Anscombe recommends against using a concept like "right action." Concepts like "morally right" and "morally wrong," she claims, have survived in a corrupted sense outside the context that made them intelligible.14 Even if Anscombe were mistaken about the historical context of "right," it is still exceedingly difficult to say anything useful about what's brute with respect to what's right. A more tractable problem – the one Anscombe thinks is reasonable to pursue – would involve theorizing about what is brute with respect to what is truthful, chaste, just, etc.15 12 Virtue-theoretic consequentialism bears some resemblance to rule-consequentialism. The difference is that rule-consequentialism is usually understood to provide an analysis of right action in terms of the action's accordance with rules that, if adopted, would maximize the value of consequences. Virtue-theoretic consequentialism, in contrast, is a theory about how beliefs about what's right are justified. 13 Strictly speaking, virtue-theoretic consequentialism doesn't hold that facts about the value of consequences are brute with respect to facts about the propriety of actions. Relative bruteness is not a transitive relation. Still, if X is brute with respect to Y, and Y is brute with respect to Z, there is some important relationship between X and Z. 14 For an Anscombe-inspired defense of this claim, see A. MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, Third Edition, University of Notre Dame Press, 2007. 15 Virtue theory is sometimes characterized as offering an analysis of "right action" in terms of what a virtuous person would do. See, for example, R. Hursthouse, On Virtue Ethics, Vol. 2. Oxford University Press, 1999; R. Stangl, "Asymmetrical Virtue Particularism," in «Ethics» 121 (1), October, 2010, p. 37–57; F. Svensson, "Virtue Ethics and the Search for an Account of Right Action," in «Ethical Theory and Moral Practice» 13 (3), June, 2010, p. 255271; and C, Swanton, "A Virtue Ethical Account of Right Action." in «Ethics» 112 (1), October, 2001, p. 32-52. It's remarkable that anyone who traces the origins of modern virtue theory to Anscombe would adopt this view, since she clearly wishes to do away with the concepts like 142 JACOB SPARKS Philosophical News We have seen that ethical theories can be expressed as views about what is brute with respect to what, and that the ambition of many traditional ethical theories – like versions of consequentialism – is to trace these bruteness relations, starting from some well-defined class of non-ethical facts and ending at facts about what's right or wrong. Anscombe casts doubt on these stories from both ends. She is generally suspicious of the specific classes of non-ethical facts from which these stories start. And she does not think you can say what is brute with respect to anything more general than the facts about what is unjust, unchaste, or untruthful. But that does not mean that nothing useful can be said about what is brute with respect to what. If we keep a sufficiently open mind about what non-moral facts might be relevant, we can make progress thinking about what is brute with respect to the facts about things like justice, chastity, and truthfulness. Tracing these more modest bruteness relations is – on Anscombe's view – the only productive way to theorize about ethics. 4. Ethical Knowledge Anscombe's view also suggests an answer to the question about the role of ethical theory in ethical knowledge. On the standard intuitionist view, knowledge of particular ethical facts, like what would be good or just in a specific situation, depends on the application of an ethical theory. Ethical theories, on this view, are the necessary foundation for the rest of our ethical knowledge. On the perceptual intuitionist view, knowledge of particular ethical facts is obtained via a sensory or perceptual capacity, and ethical theories are derived by generalizing over our knowledge of particulars. Ethical theories, on this view, are the culmination of the rest of our ethical knowledge. Coherentist views put particular ethical beliefs and ethical theories on a par. The justification of each kind of belief depends on its coherence with the rest of what we believe about ethics. All three of these views have in common the notion that there is some dependence (in one direction, the other, or both) between our knowledge of ethical theories and our knowledge of particular ethical facts. Anscombe's picture is radically different in that it does not require any such dependence. Particular ethical beliefs can be justified by relevant non-ethical facts. Ethical theories can be justified by relevant non-ethical facts. Neither kind of ethical belief is required for the justification of the other. There is an important difference between general ethical claims and theoretical ones. You might believe, for example, that it is unkind to throw hot coffee at fellow cafe patrons. The general ethical claim, «it's unkind to throw hot coffee,» would not qualify as an ethical theory, despite its generality. If we were looking for the non-ethical facts that are brute with respect to «it's unkind to throw hot coffee,"» we might find general non-ethical claims like, «throwing hot coffee causes pain "right action." For a defense of Anscombe's eliminativism about "right," see J. Hacker-Wright, "Virtue Ethics without Right Action: Anscombe, Foot, and Contemporary Virtue Ethics." in «The Journal of Value Inquiry» June 1, 2010, p 209-224. Philosophical News ANSCOMBE'S RELATIVE BRUTENESS 143 and distress.» An ethical theory, in contrast, is not just a general ethical claim, but a general claim about the bruteness relations obtaining between some ethical and non-ethical facts. Thus, the claim «causing pain and distress is unkind,» might plausibly be interpreted as a theory of unkindness. To understand which non-ethical facts might be brute with respect to claims like, «causing pain and distress is unkind,» recall the notion of a defeater from §1. Even though the fact that some act causes pain and distress is brute with respect to the fact that it is unkind, there may be cases where causing pain and distress is not unkind. For example, someone may consent to the pain and distress, or the pain and distress might be required for some greater good, etc. On Anscombe's view, you do not need to know that there are no defeaters in order to know that some act is unkind on the basis of your belief that it causes pain and distress. But this is compatible with thinking that general facts about the absence of defeaters are required to be justified in believing the ethical theory that claims causing pain and distress is unkind. In particular, the fact that people generally don't consent to pain and distress, or that pain and distress aren't usually required for achieving some important greater good, are the kinds of facts that could be brute with respect to our theory about unkindness – the theory that says facts about pain and distress are brute with respect to facts about unkindness. In general, ethical theories can be justified by non-ethical beliefs about the absence of defeaters. One implication of this view is that ethical theory is more difficult than everyday ethical reasoning. Both particular and general ethical beliefs – that it is unkind in this case to throw the coffee or that it is generally unkind to throw coffee – can be justified by relatively mundane non-ethical beliefs – that throwing coffee in this case would cause pain and distress or that throwing coffee generally causes pain and distress. But the ethical theory that asserts that facts about pain and distress are brute with respect to facts about unkindness requires a more complicated story about the general absence of defeaters. Since no pithy description of the defeaters for particular bruteness relations is forthcoming, ethical theory, on Anscombe's view, is hard. 5. Applied Ethics Anscombe's view about justification makes ethical theorizing independent from, and more challenging than, everyday ethical reasoning. Her view also has implications for how to do applied ethics. The most important contrast with traditional approaches is that applied ethics is never, for Anscombe, the application of an ethical theory to some particular situation. If you want to investigate specific applied questions about, e.g., capital punishment or abortion, the best you can do is to learn about the relevant non-ethical facts that are brute with respect to the ethical facts in question. This may seem to be an unpalatable implication of Anscombe's view. It is common to imagine situations where, though we agree on all the non-ethical facts, we disagree about the ethical implications. It is also easy to imagine situations where, though you know all the relevant non-ethical facts, you remain stumped about the ethical facts. 144 JACOB SPARKS Philosophical News In such cases, it is often thought that an appeal to an ethical theory, or to consistency with other ethical beliefs, is the best method for investigating or resolving the dispute. Without this appeal to theory or consistency, Anscombe's view seems to lack the resources that would allow us to make progress in these situations. Anscombe's position on applied ethics is considerably more attractive than it initially appears. Recall the distinction made in §1 between a thin kind of knowledge and a more robust kind that includes knowledge-why and understanding. Anscombe's view, that the only way to investigate an ethical question is to investigate the relevant non-ethical facts, will appear more plausible if we remember that there is a wide variety of knowledge-like relations we can bear to the relevant non-ethical facts. Imagine, for example, that we are trying to think about the propriety of some particular abortion. Among the relevant brute facts are facts about what it is like to be the fetus, mother, and others involved, facts about the larger social effects, facts about the action-type this abortion falls under, etc. One might know that the abortion would be emotionally difficult but ultimately beneficial to the mother. That's a relatively thin kind of knowledge, which could be supplemented with an understanding of the feelings involved, of what it would be like to carry the fetus to term, of what it would be like to abort, of the felt impact, either way, to the mother, potential child, and any others involved, etc. The charge that knowing the brute non-ethical facts can still leave us guessing about the resultant ethical facts is, at least in part, a piece of philosophical fiction. Anscombe's view invites us to look more closely at the relevant non-ethical facts, to understand them in a more profound way, and to always return again to reexamine, redescribe, and reassess them when we remain uncertain about the resultant ethical facts. Her view is a welcome correction to the tendency to approach applied issues by finding a preferred theory, "applying" it to the case at hand, and ignoring other factors deemed irrelevant. There are a number of writers who have defended views resembling Anscombe's.16 Nevertheless, the position remains marginal. But perhaps this will change, given the usefulness of her notion of "bruteness" and the appealing implications of the thesis that non-ethical facts are brute with respect to ethical facts. Jacob Sparks University of California, San Diego, U.S.A. jacob.sparks@gmail.com 16 Examples include J.J. Thomson, Moral Relativism and Moral Objectivity. Wiley. 1996 and M.T. Nelson 2003. "Who Needs Valid Moral Arguments? (Dedicated to the Memory of R.M. Chisholm, 1916–1999)." in «Argumentation» 17 (1), March, 2003, p. 35-42. Zimmerman discusses a view like Anscombe's sympathetically in A. Zimmerman, Moral Epistemology, Routledge. 2010. Though he focuses on explanation and not justification, Berker presents a similar view in S. Berker, "The Explanatory Ambitions of Moral Principles." in «Noûs» December 2019, p. 904-936. Philosophical News ANSCOMBE'S RELATIVE BRUTENESS 145 Jacob Sparks is currently a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Institute for Practical Ethics at The University of California, San Diego. Starting in the fall of 2020, he will be an assistant professor at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. He received a PhD from Bowling Green State University and a B.S. from Tufts University. He works in metaethics, focusing on moral epistemology, and in applied ethics, focusing on privacy and artificial intelligence.