Abstract
In “Modern Moral Philosophy,” Anscombe argued that the moral vocabulary does not correspond to any concept in Aristotelian ethics, that it derives from a confused response to the ethics of divine command, and that it is literally meaningless. This essay contends that Anscombe was wrong. Morality corresponds to Aristotle’s general sense of “justice,” which is complete virtue in relation to others. But Anscombe’s question remains: what is it for an action to be morally wrong, not merely something one should not do? The answer is not that wrongness warrants blame or that an action is wrong when it wrongs another person, but that an action is morally wrong when it is something one should not do that one has no right to do. In the absence of rights, Anscombe’s question has no answer.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Here I follow Doyle (2017): Part One.
Again, my account of Anscombe agrees with Doyle (2017): Part One.
Or we could make do with the concept of virtue alone, following David Hume (1739–1740: Book Three). Note that Hume’s virtues are not distinctively moral: he includes among the virtues of character prudence, industry, assiduity, and enterprise.
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1129b11-4, translated by W. D. Ross and Lesley Brown (2009); henceforth cited in the main text as NE.
For a helpful discussion of these issues, on which I have relied, see Kraut (2002: Chap. 4).
“For this same reason justice, alone of the virtues, is thought to be ‘another’s good’, because it is related to another; for it does what is advantageous to another, either a ruler or a co-partner” (NE 1130a3-5, responding to Plato’s Republic).
For this reading of Aristotle, see Thompson (2004: 5–6).
This identification has been disputed. Scanlon defends journalistic freedom and free speech on grounds of public interest. But there is no reason to expect that the strongest complaint against illiberal principles will be that of the speaker, as opposed to his or her audience. Contractualism appears to misidentify who is wronged when a speaker is silenced. On this point, see Wenar (2013: 392–393, 395). More generally, insofar as it appeals to the social effects of a principle’s adoption, Contractualism makes the facts about right and wrong implausibly sensitive to irrelevant features of our environment; see Rosen (2009).
For discussion and further argument, see Dorr (2016: 43–45). Note that this does not preclude a “fitting attitude” theory of any ethical property whatsoever. For instance, to be blameworthy is to warrant blame. Such theories are ruled out only when the relevant explanatory claim is true, as it is not in this case: you can’t explain why an action is blameworthy by appeal to the fact that it warrants blame, or the reverse. The problem I am raising is specific to the case of moral wrongness, which does explain why an action warrants blame.
The claim that directed obligation and wrongdoing are correlative has been challenged by Nicolas Cornell, who argues that we can wrong other people without violating a right they have against us or a duty that is owed to them (Cornell, 2015; see the discussion of Hart, 1955 at Cornell, 2015: 115–119). I am not persuaded by Cornell’s arguments, which turn on an unduly circumscribed conception of rights, but discussing them here would take us too far afield.
See Wallace (2019: 173). The complication about disregarding (not just violating) moral obligations is explained at Wallace (2019: 10–11, 73–75); it will not be relevant to us. For what seems to be an earlier endorsement of Moral Wrongness as Directed Wrongdoing, see, ironically, Anscombe (1967). She infers from the premise that an action wrongs no particular individual that it is not wrong.
Niko Kolodny (forthcoming: §14) offers a response: a way to identify those who are wronged in the case of gratuitous waste.
Wallace (2019: 27).
Wallace (2019: 28, 49–51).
The proposal is schematic: it would take some work to specify the kind of explanation involved in the “because.” Does it simply mean that the right or its ground is among the reasons in virtue of which A should ϕ? That threatens to be too expansive. Others may object that there are directed obligations without corresponding rights, as when I have an obligation to save a drowning child at little cost and would wrong the child if I refused. If we think of claim-rights as protecting our autonomy, not as demanding positive aid, my refusal is a case of directed wrongdoing that does not violate a right. But I see no reason to accept this limited conception: the child has a right against me that I save her at little cost.
See Thomson (1990: Chap. 3).
To establish this would take more argument, but it strikes me as a the germ of truth in a point that is framed by Michael Thompson (2004) in unhelpfully epistemic terms. Roughly speaking, Thompson argues that, when A is obligated to B, both A and B must be in a position to know that they are joined by this obligation, and that such knowledge is possible only if it has a common ground for each. Hence the need for an external relation between them. For objections to the epistemology behind this argument, see Wallace (2019: 119–121). The point in the main text drops the epistemic framing, the need for a common ground of knowledge, in favour of a practical one: the need for a common ground of practical reasons.
Wallace (2019: 112, 115–116, 157–158, 170–175).
Wallace (2019: 81–85).
It is possible that, when you should not do something and others could simply prevent you without infringing your rights, they should prevent you if they have no reason not to. I am not sure if this follows, but even so, it does not follow that we are morally obligated to simply prevent wrongdoing, whenever we can. For it does not follow that others could simply prevent us from simply preventing wrongdoing without infringing our rights.
What does this imply about children’s autonomy? At a very young age, children are unable to respond to reasons and are not truly subject to “shoulds.” We may address “should”-claims to them proleptically, but no more. Suppose, however, we are past that point. Your child should not eat any more Halloween candy, perhaps, but it would not be morally wrong for them to do so. It follows from my view that you would infringe their rights, perhaps justifiably, by simply preventing them. In other words: as soon as a child is subject to reasons, they have autonomy rights of the same sort we do, and deserve apologies in much the same way. If paternalism is more routine in relation to children, that is not because they lack such rights but because we are more often justified in breaching them.
Again, see Dorr (2016: 43–45).
See also White (1984: 59): “the presence of a duty (or obligation) not to V implies the absence of a right to V”.
For a nuanced development of this idea, in relation to Kant, see Ripstein (2009), though the suggestion in the text is not committed to the details of his account.
Hart suggests that this is true of promissory obligation, in general: only the promisee may determine how the promisor shall act (Hart 1955: 184).
Why not adopt the more inclusive view that an act is morally wrong when someone could simply prevent it without infringing your rights? Because you can give someone permission to prevent you from doing what you should not do without making it morally wrong to do it, as when you give me permission to stop you from drinking too much. What if you give everyone permission to prevent you from drinking? Would you then meet the condition in Moral Wrongness as the Absence of a Right? No: because it is impossible to give permission to an arbitrary individual or third party, as opposed to the particular individuals with whom one interacts.
See Cooper (1996) on the legacy of Hegel’s “principle of subjective freedom”.
References
Adams, R. M. (1984). Saints. Journal of Philosophy, 81, 392–401.
Anscombe, G. E. M. (1958). Modern moral philosophy. Philosophy, 33, 1–19.
Anscombe, G. E. M. (1967). Who is wronged? Oxford Review, 5, 16–17.
Aristotle. (2009). Nicomachean ethics (W. D. Ross & Lesley Brown, Trans.). Oxford University Press.
Bolinger, R. (2017). The right to do wrong revisited. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 95, 43–57.
Cooper, J. M. (1996). Justice and rights in Aristotle’s Politics. Review of Metaphysics, 49, 859–872.
Cornell, N. (2015). Wrongs, rights, and third parties. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 43, 109–143.
Darwall, S. (2006). The second-person standpoint. Harvard University Press.
Darwall, S. (2017). What are moral reasons? Amherst Lecture in Philosophy.
de Kenessey, B. (2020). Promises as proposals in joint practical deliberation. Noûs, 54, 204–232.
Dorr, C. (2016). To be F is to be G. Philosophical Perspectives, 30, 39–134.
Doyle, J. (2017). No morality, no self: Anscombe’s radical skepticism. Harvard University Press.
Dworkin, R. (1978). Taking rights seriously. Duckworth.
Feinberg, J. (1973). Social philosophy. Prentice-Hall.
Gilbert, M. (2018). Rights and demands: A foundational inquiry. Oxford University Press.
Godwin, W. (1798). Enquiry concerning political justice. Edited by K. Codell Carter. Oxford University Press, 1971.
Hart, H. L. A. (1955). Are there any natural rights? Philosophical Review, 64, 175–191.
Hume, D. (1739–1740). A treatise of human nature. Edited by D. F. Norton and M. J. Norton. Oxford University Press, 2000.
Kamm, F. (2002). Owing, justifying, and rejecting. Mind, 111, 323–354.
Kolodny, N. (forthcoming). Saving posterity from a worse fate. In J. McMahan, T. Campbell, J. Goodrich, & K. Ramakrishnan (Eds.), Ethics and existence: The legacy of Derek Parfit. Oxford University Press.
Kraut, R. (2002). Aristotle: Political philosophy. Oxford University Press.
Mill, J. S. (1861). Utilitarianism. Edited by George Sher. Hackett Publishing, 2001.
Miller, F. D. (1995). Nature, justice, and rights in Aristotle’s politics. Oxford University Press.
Parfit, D. (2011). On what matters: Volume one (Vol. Oxford). Oxford University Press.
Raz, J. (1979). The authority of law: Essays on law and morality. Oxford University Press.
Ripstein, A. (2009). Force and freedom: Kant’s legal and political philosophy. Harvard University Press.
Rosen, G. (2009). Might Kantian contractualism be the supreme principle of morality? Ratio, 22, 78–97.
Scanlon, T. M. (1998). What we owe to each other. Harvard University Press.
Setiya, K. (2007). Reasons without rationalism. Princeton University Press.
Setiya, K. (2012). Internal reasons. In K. Setiya & H. Paakkunainen (Eds.), Internal reasons: contemporary readings (pp. 1–34). MIT Press.
Setiya, K. (2014a). What is a reason to act? Philosophical Studies, 67, 221–235.
Setiya, K. (2014b). Intention, plans, and ethical rationalism. In M. Vargas & G. Yaffe (Eds.), Rational and social agency: Essays on the philosophy of Michael Bratman (pp. 56–82). Oxford University Press.
Thompson, M. (2004). What is it to wrong someone? A puzzle about justice. In R. J. Wallace, P. Pettit, S. Scheffler, & M. Smith (Eds.), Reason and value: Themes from the moral philosophy of Joseph Raz (pp. 333–384). Oxford University Press.
Thomson, J. J. (1990). The realm of rights. Harvard University Press.
Waldron, J. (1981). A right to do wrong. Ethics, 92, 21–39.
Wallace, R. J. (2007). Reasons, relations, and commands: Reflections on Darwall. Ethics, 118, 24–36.
Wallace, R. J. (2012). Duties of love. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary, 86, 175–198.
Wallace, R. J. (2019). The moral nexus. Princeton University Press.
Wenar, L. (2013). Rights and what we owe to each other. Journal of Moral Philosophy, 10, 375–399.
White, A. R. (1984). Rights. Oxford University Press.
Wolf, S. (1982). Moral saints. Journal of Philosophy, 79, 419–439.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to: Caroline Arruda, Alisabeth Ayers, Sophie Grace Chappell, Rowan Cruft, Sandy Diehl, Jimmy Doyle, Adam Etinson, Max Hayward, Caspar Hare, Brendan de Kenessey, Daniel Muñoz, Sarah Paul, Anni Räty, Gideon Rosen, Cat Saint-Croix, Tamar Schapiro, Matty Silverstein, Eliot Watkins, Eliza Wells, and Alex Worsnip; to students in a fall 2019 seminar at MIT, which I taught with Jimmy Doyle; to audiences at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, New York University, Abu Dhabi, St. Andrews University, and the University of Michigan; and to several anonymous readers.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Setiya, K. What is morality?. Philos Stud 179, 1113–1133 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-021-01689-y
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-021-01689-y