Philippa Foot has for many years been one of the most distinctive and influential thinkers in moral philosophy. Long dissatisfied with the moral theories of her contemporaries, she has gradually evolved a theory of her own that is radically opposed not only to emotivism and prescriptivism but also to the whole subjectivist, anti-naturalist movement deriving from David Hume. Dissatisfied with both Kantian and utilitarian ethics, she claims to have isolated a special form of evaluation that predicates goodness and defect (...) only to living things considered as such; she finds this form of evaluation in moral judgements. Her vivid discussion covers topics such as practical rationality, erring conscience, and the relation between virtue and happiness, ending with a critique of Nietzsche's immoralism. This long-awaited book exposes a highly original approach to moral philosophy and represents a fundamental break from the assumptions of recent debates. Foot challenges many prominent philosophical arguments and attitudes; but hers is a work full of life and feeling, written for anyone intrigued by the deepest questions about goodness and human. (shrink)

Philippa Foot; V—Moral Beliefs, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 59, Issue 1, 1 June 1959, Pages 83–104, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristotelian/59.

One of the reasons why most of us feel puzzled about the problem of abortion is that we want, and do not want, to allow to the unborn child the rights that belong to adults and children. When we think of a baby about to be born it seems absurd to think that the next few minutes or even hours could make so radical a difference to its status; yet as we go back in the life of the fetus we (...) are more and more reluctant to say that this is a human being and must be treated as such. No doubt this is the deepest source of our dilemma, but it is not the only one. For we are also confused about the general question of what we may and may not do where the interests of human beings conflict. We have strong intuitions about certain cases; saying, for instance, that it is all right to raise the level of education in our country, though statistics allow us to predict that a rise in the suicide rate will follow, while it is not all right to kill the feeble-minded to aid cancer research. It is not easy, however, to see the principles involved, and one way of throwing light on the abortion issue will be by setting up parallels involving adults or children once born. So we will be able to isolate the “equal rights” issue and should be able to make some advance... (shrink)

'Foot stands out among contemporary ethical theorists because of her conviction that virtues and vices are more central ethical notions than rights, duties, justice, or consequences - the primary focus of most other contemporary theorists. This volume brings together a dozen essays published between 1957 and 1977, and includes two new ones as well. In the first, Foot argues explicitly for an ethic of virtue, and in the next five discusses abortion, euthanasia, free will/determination, and the ethics of Hume and (...) Nietzsche. The final eight essays chart her growing disenchantment with emotivism and prescriptivism and their account of moral arguments. All the essays embody to some extent her commitment to an ethics of virtue... Foot's style is straightforward and readable, her arguments subtle, ingenious, and some of them important.' Choice. (shrink)

Moral Dilemmas is the second volume of collected essays by the eminent moral philosopher Philippa Foot, gathering the best of her work from the late 1970s to the 1990s. It fills the gap between her famous 1978 collection Virtues and Vices and her acclaimed monograph Natural Goodness, published in 2001. In this new collection Professor Foot develops further her critique of the dominant ethical theories of the last fifty years, and discusses such topics as the nature of moral judgement, (...) practical rationality, and the conflict of virtue with desire and self-interest. Moral Dilemmas, alongside her other two books, completes the summation of her distinctive and lasting contribution to twentieth-century moral philosophy. (shrink)

Moral Dilemmas is the second volume of collected essays by the eminent moral philosopher Philippa Foot, gathering the best of her work from the late 1970s to the 1990s. It fills the gap between her famous 1978 collection Virtues and Vices and her acclaimed monograph Natural Goodness, published in 2001. In this new collection Professor Foot develops further her critique of the dominant ethical theories of the last fifty years, and discusses such topics as the nature of moral judgement, (...) practical rationality, and the conflict of virtue with desire and self-interest. Moral Dilemmas, alongside her other two books, completes the summation of her distinctive and lasting contribution to twentieth-century moral philosophy. (shrink)

Within the historiography of early modern science, trust and credibility have become synonymous with genteel identity. While we should not overlook the cultural values attached to social hierarchy and how it shaped the credibility of knowledge claims, this has limitations when thinking about how contemporaries regarded the origins of that knowledge and its location in different types of workers and skillsets. Using the example of seamen in the circles of the Royal Society, this article employs the category of experience, and (...) by extension expertise, to illustrate how recognized forms of knowledge and skill acted as routes to credibility and authority in early modern science. It argues that, within the experimental community, the seaman’s authority derived from their direct experience of novel and remote phenomena and the cumulative effect of their wider experience. The accumulated experience they acquired from frequent practice, observation, and exposure translated into a form of “expertness” that rendered seamen trustworthy and credible observers and thinkers. The gentlemanly trust model does not accommodate nor acknowledge the ways the seaman’s direct and accumulated experience (and that of many other professional groups) were recognized and valued in inquiry and discourse. The article therefore sets out a new model for understanding trust, credibility, and authority in early modern science that can take us beyond a restrictive mono-model that locates trust in one sociocultural category to highlight the multiple, and sometimes competing, claims to epistemological authority. (shrink)

By illuminating the striking affinity between the most innovative aspects of postmodern thought and religious mystical discourse, Shadow of Spirit challenges the long established assumption that western thought is committed to nihilism. This collection of essays by internationally recognized scholars explores the implications of the fascination with the "sacred," "divine" or "infinite" which characterizes much contemporary thought. It shows how these concerns have surfaced in the work of Derrida, Baudrillard, Lyotard, Kristeva, Irigaray and others. Examining the connection between this postmodern (...) "turn" and the current search for a new discourse of ethics and politics, it also stresses the contribution made by feminist thought to this unexpected intellectual direction. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe increasing recognition of the negative impact of income inequality has highlighted the importance of taxation which can function as a redistributive mechanism. Previous critical social psychological research found that talk about restricting the welfare state, that is funded through tax, is formed of ideology that supports the maintenance of income inequality. Therefore, this research explores how speakers use talk about tax to justify income inequality during a UK BBC radio discussion, ‘Moral Maze: The moral purpose of tax’ which involved (...) public figures discussing the role of tax. This programme was analysed from a critical discursive psychological perspective. It was found that two contrasting constructions of tax were presented: tax as a collective responsibility or tax as an individual burden, whereby speakers drew on social justice and individualistic ideology respectively. Arguments for high tax rates are problematic due to the acceptability of inequality in a meritocracy. By presenting wealthy individuals as more deserving than the less affluent, arguments for higher tax come to be challenged. (shrink)

Personalisation is the new mantra in social care; this article focuses on how personalisation can be achieved in practice, by presenting an analysis of data from people with learning disabilities and their personal assistants, where traditional care relationships have often been shown to be disempowering. The focus here is on the ways in which both parties use references to shared knowledge, joint experiences or personal-life information. These strategies can be used for various social goals, and instances are given where shared (...) references are used during non task-related talk. Both parties are seen on occasion to attempt to refer to shared information, and dense layers of inference can result, which move the interaction onto an ordinary, more symmetrical and friendly footing. The article concludes that shared knowledge referencing creates a way to shift between the personal and the professional, to blur the boundaries, and to create a new and more personalised relationship. (shrink)

Kantian moral concepts concerning respect for human dignity have played a central role in articulating ethical guidelines for medical practice and research, and for articulating some central positions within bioethical debates more generally. The most common of these Kantian moral concepts is the obligation to respect the dignity of patients and of human research subjects as autonomous, self-determining individuals. This article describes Kant’s conceptual distinction between dignity and autonomy as values, and draws on the work of several contemporary Kantian philosophers (...) who employ the distinction to make sense of some common moral intuitions, feelings, and norms. Drawing on this work, the article argues that the conceptual distinction between dignity and autonomy as values is indispensable in the context of considering our obligations to those who are dependent and vulnerable. (shrink)

A Reply to Professor Frankena. Philippa Foot. Philosophy, Vol. 50, No. 194, 455-459. Oct., 1975. A Reply to Professor Frankena PHILIPPA FOOT Professor Frankena finds himself in a state of bewilderment.

Abstract:The career of Gervase of Tilbury (c.1150–1220) opens a window into the complexity of the late twelfth-century intellectual world. Often dismissed as a mere compiler, Gervase was a scholastic thinker outside the schools who adapted complex theological arguments for an English prince, a Sicilian king, and a German emperor. His writing reveals the "portability" of scholastic thought. It also demonstrates how scholastic authors were molded by their experiences of royal courts. Gervase's time in the Norman Sicilian kingdom shaped his attitude (...) to political authority and his experience of royal hospitality allowed him to fashion a distinctive view of heavenly beatitude. (shrink)

David Hume's view of virtue as agreeable and useful differs from the views of philosophers such as Immanuel Kant and Jean Jacques Rousseau who see virtue as sublime and noble. Hume does not differentiate between virtues, skills, and talents that, as such, all arouse approbation or pleasing sentiments in others. Hume's view commits him to subjectivism in his theory of ethics.

In this article the background, development, therapeutical value and praxis of film therapy in Christian counselling will be addressed. The second part of the article shows what the scenery beyond film therapy may look like and how this form of therapy may extend to other areas of digital and electronic media in the current counselling and pastoral care praxis. Postmodernity, as the context within which the society finds itself, is discussed, as well as the place of films in postmodernity. The (...) important use and application of narratives in the postmodern era is discussed. Film therapy’s development as an outgrowth of bibliotherapy is explained. It is further shown how film therapy as a tool in the praxis of therapy may provide the ideal atmosphere for learning, enjoyment and edification. The scope of the article also reaches beyond the current use of film therapy by suggesting the use of other social and electronic media in a therapeutical way as an ever-increasing possibility. The article ends with some pointers in the use of film therapy. (shrink)