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The i/f distinction: distinguishing intent from foresight

T. A. Cavanaugh

in Double-Effect Reasoning: Doing Good and Avoiding Evil

This chapter analyzes the intended/foreseen (i/f) distinction: how to name it, how to make it, and how to apply it to the classic cases of euthanasia/terminal sedation, craniotomy/hysterectomy, and ... More

This chapter analyzes the intended/foreseen (i/f) distinction: how to name it, how to make it, and how to apply it to the classic cases of euthanasia/terminal sedation, craniotomy/hysterectomy, and terror bombing/tactical bombing. Addressing the problem of closeness Foot moots, inadequate responses to this problem are considered such as paring one’s intentions, the counter-factual test, and conceptual necessity. The chapter presents an account of the i/f distinction based on the resources found in Aquinas, Anscombe, and Bratman who indicate how intention characteristically differs from foresight insofar as the former is while the latter is not a plan of action formed in deliberation embodying practical knowledge.Less

Questions of Logic

Maximilian de Gaynesford

in I: The Meaning of the First Person Term

‘The guarantee’, or the claim that any use of I is logically guaranteed against reference-failure as a matter of the meaning of the term, is a myth. If security is a semantic truth, I cannot be a ... More

‘The guarantee’, or the claim that any use of I is logically guaranteed against reference-failure as a matter of the meaning of the term, is a myth. If security is a semantic truth, I cannot be a genuinely singular referring term. There is no argument for ‘the guarantee’, which is independent of ‘rule theory’ and ‘independence’. Even professed advocates of ‘the guarantee’ turn out to defend a non-semantic explanation of security.Less

 Primum Mobile

Michael Ward

in Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C. S. Lewis

The problem of occasion: why did Lewis write the Chronicles of Narnia? Writing was always the way to freedom for him, and the debate about Naturalism with Elizabeth Anscombe at the Socratic Club ... More

The problem of occasion: why did Lewis write the Chronicles of Narnia? Writing was always the way to freedom for him, and the debate about Naturalism with Elizabeth Anscombe at the Socratic Club caused him difficulties which may have required mental and imaginative liberation. In Miracles, his defence of Idealism, he had argued that human reason was monarchical and that Naturalists preferred to live in a democratic universe. In part, the first Narnia Chronicle was written to demonstrate the same case imaginatively as he had made propositionally in his apologetics.Less

Arguments for the No‐Reference View of ‘I’

Lucy O'Brien

in Self-Knowing Agents

This chapter presents an extended discussion of Anscombe on the problem of first-person reference. It introduces and criticizes the internal perceptual model for first-person reference. It also ... More

This chapter presents an extended discussion of Anscombe on the problem of first-person reference. It introduces and criticizes the internal perceptual model for first-person reference. It also introduces and undercuts the motivation behind Anscombe's sceptical and unacceptable view that ‘I’ does not refer.Less

Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe 1919–2001

Jenny Teichman

in Proceedings of the British Academy, Volume 115 Biographical Memoirs of Fellows, I

Elizabeth Anscombe, Fellow of the British Academy and an Honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, was a philosopher who worked at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Her ... More

Elizabeth Anscombe, Fellow of the British Academy and an Honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, was a philosopher who worked at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Her published works include Intention (1957, 1963, 2000) and An Introduction to Wittgenstein's Tractatus (1959). Obituary by Jenny Teichman.Less

Motivation and Desires

Maria Alvarez

in Kinds of Reasons: An Essay in the Philosophy of Action

Chapter 3 focuses on motivation in action with a view to answering the question what our reasons for action –what are called ‘motivating reasons’—are. After a discussion of motives, the focus moves ... More

Chapter 3 focuses on motivation in action with a view to answering the question what our reasons for action –what are called ‘motivating reasons’—are. After a discussion of motives, the focus moves to the relation between motivation and desires. It is argued that an adequate understanding of desires and of their relation to motivation is not possible without paying proper attention to the distinction between bodily appetites and rational desires, which stand in importantly different relations to reasons; and to the act/object ambiguity inherent in the term ‘desire’—since the term can be used to refer to my desiring something or to what I desire. These distinctions are explained and explored in preparation to answering the question at the centre of the following chapter: whether desires are motivating reasons.Less

Desires and Motivating Reasons

Maria Alvarez

in Kinds of Reasons: An Essay in the Philosophy of Action

This chapter examines and rejects the idea that desires are motivating reasons, whether we focus on bodily appetites or on rational desires, and whether we think of a desire as what is desired, or as ... More

This chapter examines and rejects the idea that desires are motivating reasons, whether we focus on bodily appetites or on rational desires, and whether we think of a desire as what is desired, or as our desiring something. It is argued that what is desired is a goal or purpose for the sake of which someone acts, which can also be the intention in acting, and the starting point in practical reasoning. Thus, what is desired can motivate us to act—but it motivates as a goal rather than as a reason. On the other hand, it is further argued, someone's desiring something is not what motivates that person to act—rather, desiring something is being motivated to act. If this is right, then the question remains what our reasons for acting are, which is answered in the following chapter.Less

Virtue for Procrastinators

Elijah Millgram

in The Thief of Time: Philosophical Essays on Procrastination

One type of procrastination is a result of the surprising temporal structure of some important human goods, whose benefits cannot be accounted for as the sums of benefits of momentary goods. Virtue ... More

One type of procrastination is a result of the surprising temporal structure of some important human goods, whose benefits cannot be accounted for as the sums of benefits of momentary goods. Virtue for such a procrastinator consists in adopting compensating strategies, one of which is artificially imposing instrumental structure on an activity. If many agents are procrastinators and the device is widespread, then one of the deepest motivations for instrumentalism—the evident pervasiveness of instrumentally structured activity—is misleading.Less

On the Guise of the Good

Joseph Raz

in Desire, Practical Reason, and the Good

The chapter examines the main argument for, and the presuppositions of the claim that intentional actions are actions taken in, and because of, a belief that there is some good in them. An analysis ... More

The chapter examines the main argument for, and the presuppositions of the claim that intentional actions are actions taken in, and because of, a belief that there is some good in them. An analysis of intentional actions, and of action for a (normative) reason, followed by a consideration of a number of objections to the thesis of the Guise of the Good force various revisions and refinements of the thesis yielding a defensible version of it. It is argued that the revised thesis is supported by the same argument that inspired the Guise of the Good from the beginning and that the thesis plays a crucial role in uniting theories of action, rationality, and normativity.Less

Knowledge of Action

Adrian Haddock

in The Nature and Value of Knowledge: Three Investigations

This chapter argues that knowledge of one's intentional action can also be understood as knowledge of a transparent fact, which constitutes an entitlement to the belief this knowledge involves. It ... More

This chapter argues that knowledge of one's intentional action can also be understood as knowledge of a transparent fact, which constitutes an entitlement to the belief this knowledge involves. It describes some differences between this account and the above account of the second-order knowledge involved in visual knowledge. It elucidates the connection between knowledge of intentional action and the above account of the value of knowledge. Finally, the present account of knowledge of intentional action is compared with Anscombe's account of such knowledge. According to both accounts, knowledge of this sort is not only knowledge without observation, but practical knowledge, on account of (i) the kind of entitlement it involves; (ii) the fact that it is acquired ‘in intention’; and (iii) the fact that it has a mind-to-world and a world-to-mind direction of fit.Less

Introduction

Talbot Brewer

in The Retrieval of Ethics

This Introduction starts by discussing the purpose of looking at ethics in philosophy and examines the history of ethics in a wider context. Virtue ethics is mentioned in relation to Elizabeth ... More

This Introduction starts by discussing the purpose of looking at ethics in philosophy and examines the history of ethics in a wider context. Virtue ethics is mentioned in relation to Elizabeth Anscombe's ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’ and Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue. These two works are discussed in detail. The Introduction goes on to outline the place virtue ethics has in contemporary philosophy. It then outlines the main concern of the book, which is to develop and extend some of the more radical themes sounded by Anscombe and MacIntyre and analyse them in a new light.Less

Antirealist Expressivism and Quasi-Realism

Simon Blackburn

David Copp (ed.)

in The Oxford Handbook of Ethical Theory

Expressivism is the view that the function of normative sentences is not to represent a kind of fact, but to avow attitudes, prescribe behavior, or the like. The idea can be found in David Hume. In ... More

Expressivism is the view that the function of normative sentences is not to represent a kind of fact, but to avow attitudes, prescribe behavior, or the like. The idea can be found in David Hume. In the 20th century, G.E. Moore’s Open Question Argument provided important support for the view. Elizabeth Anscombe introduced the notion of “direction of fit,” which helped distinguish expressivism from a kind of naive subjectivism. The central advantage of expressivism is that it easily explains the motivational force of moral conviction. Its chief problem is it has difficulty explaining the “realist surface” of moralizing. Quasi-realism is a strategy for explaining the realist surface without abandoning the underlying ideas of expressivism. It aims to explain moral error as well as deal with the so-called Frege-Geach problem. This chapter explains quasi-realism, and evaluates it by comparison with its chief rivals: Aristotelian approaches, Kantian approaches, realist moral naturalism, and fictionalism.Less

Teleological Agency

Christopher Yeomans

in Freedom and Reflection: Hegel and the Logic of Agency

This chapter applies the results of chapter 10 (i.e., the reconstruction of Hegel's theory of causal productivity) to the problem of chapter 9 (i.e., the doubts about the reality of free will ... More

This chapter applies the results of chapter 10 (i.e., the reconstruction of Hegel's theory of causal productivity) to the problem of chapter 9 (i.e., the doubts about the reality of free will grounded in the idea that sufficient reasons cause what they explain). In the first section, Hegel's argument is profiled against some other arguments against determinism and other understandings of the relations between causal mechanisms and goal-directedness. In the second section, Hegel's theory of teleology is used to reconstruct a theory of action in conversation with the contemporary debate between interpretivist theories of action such as Anscombe's and causal theories of action such as Davidson's.Less

The Agent as a Locus of Self-Explanation

Christopher Yeomans

in Freedom and Reflection: Hegel and the Logic of Agency

This chapter applies the results of chapter 4 to the problem raised in chapter 3. That is, it shows how the conception of explanation Hegel articulates in his Logic eliminates the infinite regresses ... More

This chapter applies the results of chapter 4 to the problem raised in chapter 3. That is, it shows how the conception of explanation Hegel articulates in his Logic eliminates the infinite regresses that had seemed to plague the notion of self-determination or substantive free will. It focuses on the versions of the regress argument presented, in different ways, by Galen Strawson and G.E.M. Anscombe. The similarities between Hegel's view and Robert Nozick's conception of self-subsumption are then investigated in the light of arguments in the contemporary philosophy of action and Kant's Third Antinomy.Less

Aggregation and Two Moral Methods

F. M. Kamm

in Intricate Ethics: Rights, Responsibilities, and Permissible Harm

This chapter explores whether the number of people we can help counts morally in deciding what to do in conflict situations when we cannot help everyone. It begins by reconsidering the arguments of ... More

This chapter explores whether the number of people we can help counts morally in deciding what to do in conflict situations when we cannot help everyone. It begins by reconsidering the arguments of John Taurek and Elizabeth Anscombe as to whether the number of people we can help counts morally. It then examines arguments that numbers should count which has been give by Thomas Scanlon and criticism of them by Michael Otsuka. It discusses how different conceptions of the moral method known as pairwise comparison are at work in these different arguments and what the ideas of balancing and tiebreaking signify for decision making in various types of cases. It contrasts two subcategories of pairwise comparison—confrontation and substitution—by which conflicts might be resolved in a nonconsequentialist theory, and argues that substitution is permissible. The chapter concludes by considering how another moral method, known as “virtual divisibility,” functions and what it helps to reveal about an argument by Otsuka against those who do not think that numbers count.Less

Using “I” ‘as Subject’: Cartesian Reference or No Reference?

Dorit Bar-On

in Speaking My Mind: Expression and Self-Knowledge

The uniquely secure status of avowals apparently has something to do with the special way an avowing subject refers to herself by the pronoun ‘I’, as opposed to referring to herself by some ... More

The uniquely secure status of avowals apparently has something to do with the special way an avowing subject refers to herself by the pronoun ‘I’, as opposed to referring to herself by some description. However, the author argues in this chapter that excessive focus on the way ‘I’ refers has led people astray. In particular, she criticizes the view that we must see ‘I’ as referring to some special object, a Cartesian ego, as well as Anscombe’s view that ‘I’ in fact, does not refer at all. Both accounts fail to respect the Semantic Continuity of avowals with other empirical reports.Less

Against Virtue Ethics

Thomas Hurka

in Virtue, Vice, and Value

Having spent its bulk elaborating its own account of virtue, the book closes by arguing for this account's superiority over those defended under the heading of “virtue ethics.” It critically assesses ... More

Having spent its bulk elaborating its own account of virtue, the book closes by arguing for this account's superiority over those defended under the heading of “virtue ethics.” It critically assesses the virtue‐ethical views of Anscombe, Slote, Hursthouse, and others, considering their claims about the relation between virtue and right action, the nature of virtue, especially as related to flourishing or an aretaic concept of admirability, and the antitheoretical approach to ethics. One of the chapter's claims is that, despite virtue‐ethicists’ repeated denials, their view is objectionably egoistic or self‐centered.Less