The Five Characters at Essay’s End: Re-examining Anscombe’s “Modern Moral Philosophy”

American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 96 (1):81-111 (2022)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Anscombe ends her seminal 1958 essay “Modern Moral Philosophy” with a presentation of five characters, each answering an ancient (and contemporary) question as to “whether one might ever need to commit injustice, or whether it won’t be the best thing to do?” Her fifth character is the execrated consequentialist who “shows a corrupt mind.” But who are the first four characters? Do they “show a mind”? And what precisely is the significance (if any) of her presenting those five just then? In this paper, we interpret Anscombe’s essay with an eye to making sense of her character presentation. We argue that the first four characters can be seen to embody the chief negative and positive doctrines of the essay and to thereby represent and charter a pluralistic school of anti-consequentialist ethics. The upshot is something exegetically interesting yet of broader philosophical importance.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 98,072

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Pretense, Corruption, and Character in “Modern Moral Philosophy”.Lance Simmons - 2012 - American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 86 (2):271-291.
The Self-Centeredness Objection to Virtue Ethics.Yong Huang - 2010 - American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 84 (4):651-692.
The Intended and Unintended Consequences of Intention.Rachael Wiseman - 2016 - American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly.
The philosophy of Elizabeth Anscombe.Roger Teichmann - 2008 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Practical Truth in Aristotle.Sarah Broadie - 2016 - American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 90 (2):281-298.
I am NN”: A Reconstruction of Anscombe's “The First Person.Adrian Haddock - 2019 - European Journal of Philosophy 27 (4):957-970.

Analytics

Added to PP
2021-12-16

Downloads
65 (#265,766)

6 months
8 (#467,605)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author Profiles

Alex Plato
Franciscan University of Steubenville
Jonathan Reibsamen
Columbia International University

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references