'll let that rest here, in suport of my previous comment. — Banno

You spake as if you had an alternative.

that’s what I’m doing. I’m enjoying her humour, although it is stuck-up, stifling English. — Banno

Yeah, I do like how openly frustrated she is with her contemporaries. Her prose is clunky. I don't get the sense that she's constitutionally incapable of good prose (i dunno haven't read her before); it just seems like she has some holistic sense of what she wants to say, but is having trouble laying out all the nuances serially. Slightly constipated. & so you get sections like the brute fact one. I've now forged (sometimes impatiently) through the essay and think I have a vague understanding of what she's trying to say, but I'm going to go back to the step-by-step approach to see if I can make it clearer to myself. I left off at the brute fact section.


I'm going to try to put it in my own words, and I think I stand a good chance of erring, but here goes:

Almost all 'facts' are high-level ways to 'wrap up' lower level of facts. They are descriptions that add something to the concatenation of these lower-level facts. I might say 'a football game is happening'. If we break this down analytically, we might say e.g., 'there are two teams on the field, both trying to get a football into the endzone.' But all of these facts are themselves higher-level 'wrap-ups'. What are we calling a team, or a ball or and endzone? And we can do this endlessly, just as philosophers used to talk about the indefinite division of matter. For that reason, it doesn't make sense to 'cut off' this progression at some arbitrary level and say : everything above this level is illegitimately deriving an description from some set of facts which don't, in-and-of-themselves lead to it. That I owe the butcher for the meat he delivered is equally description and brute fact, depending on what level you look at it. ('The butcher is vengefully pursuing his debtors' would take [owing the butcher] as a brute fact.) As humans we occupy the level on which 'owing the butcher' is itself a kind of brute fact. It doesn't really work to push one level back [He delivered me meat] as though that were some incorruptible pure 'is-not-ought' level, and everything above it goes an unsanctioned step. The next level-back, by that logic, could have the same charges levied against it: 'He delivered meat' breaks down to [ he picked up meat, and dropped it here] and so on indefinitely.

In addition, there are certain cases where all the usual 'brute level' facts that usually imply a certain high-level description are present, but, because of extenuating circumstances, the situation is different. There's no foolproof way around it - some art is required to make sense of these border cases.

Anscombe things Hume is wrong, but that his analysis has the virtue of opening a space for this more subtle exploration.
(That may be even clunkier than Anscombe, but that's my best stab so far.)

My experience with Nietzsche says we should spend a little time trying to understand her point rather than unwinding the package it's coming in, — frank

Yes! So we perhaps agree I think on a method - read the detail with an eye on the overall argument.

I read her as rejecting law-bound morality in favour of developing virtue. SO the attack - pp. 2-3 - her antecedents is an attack on the very notion of doing ethics by examining what is good; the section you cite is arguing that "should," "needs," "ought," "must" have been taken out of their usual place in our discourse and forced into an unnatural alliance with words such as "obligation"... And again this harks back to Wittgenstein's warnings about philosophers using words in peculiar ways.

Anscombe was very Catholic, so keep the Modus Tollens reading mentioned in the OP in the back of one's mind.

tldr; of my post: If 'the butcher delivered meat' can be taken as an 'is', then so can 'I owe the butcher".

Broadly that's a good summation.

What counts as a brute fact seems ot Anscombe to depend on what one is doing - think of Wittgenstein's discussion of what counts as simple. That's very different form, say, Searle, who talks in terms of a hierarchy, brute facts giving way to institutional facts. So the brute fact of a bunch of people running around on a field are insufficient to explain your football game; Searle would invoke brute facts, then individual and then group intent in his explanation. But it seems Anscombe would simply accept that there are different sorts of explanations for what is gong on.

I read her as rejecting law-bound morality in favour of developing virtue. SO the attack - pp. 2-3 - her antecedents is an attack on the very notion of doing ethics by examining what is good; the section you cite is arguing that "should," "needs," "ought," "must" have been taken out of their usual place in our discourse and forced into an unnatural alliance with words such as "obligation"... And again this harks back to Wittgenstein's warnings about philosophers using words in peculiar ways.

yes, she does reject secular moral systems like utilitarianism and kantian deontology, but she is a catholic so I don't think she rejects all law-bound morality because that would include biblical morality. it's been years since i've read this essay but i remember gleaning it from it that the greeks (originators of virtue ethics) considered the project of morality in a much different sense than later thinkers like kant or mill or like how we consider it today. morality was more about cultivating the right virtue and finding, say, the golden mean between cowardice and rash action in regard to bravery. the greeks held a teleological worldview which christian thinkers would incorporate quite nicely into christian thought in the middle ages.

I always interpreted that teeth-mashing quote you mentioned earlier as just the disjointment in the way ethics was discussed between these two eras (greeks versus modern conception) but my reading could be wrong and again... it's been like a decade.

What counts as a brute fact seems ot Anscombe to depend on what one is doing - think of Wittgenstein's discussion of what counts as simple. That's very different form, say, Searle, who talks in terms of a hierarchy, brute facts giving way to institutional facts. So the brute fact of a bunch of people running around on a field are insufficient to explain your football game; Searle would invoke brute facts, then individual and then group intent in his explanation. But it seems Anscombe would simply accept that there are different sorts of explanations for what is gong on. — Banno

Yes, I think we're on the same page here (& I do think Anscombe is right.) To take her idea of exceptions: we can imagine something that looks exactly like a football game, only it's entirely choreographed, perhaps as part of some avant-garde performance piece about Masculinity & Sport. In that case, all the brute facts would appear to be there, yet there's still not a football game being played. I feel like there's tons to be said about exceptions like this, and why we can recognize them as exceptions, even those though the brute facts are present, but in any case, we're always already 'in' the level we're in, and our 'high-level' descriptions are as much facts as anything at a lower level.



Next step:

Owing - and so bilking - can thus be understood on a factual level. What about justice? For now all we can say is that justice is a family-resemblances sort of category. We recognize a cluster of things as being injust. We'll let that lay for now.

Now are injust men bad? That depends on whether justice is a virtue. Anscombe thinks we can't understand this without turning to motive and intent.

She takes the example of a machine that 'ought' to be oiled. I think it's fair to say that, in this case, she's talking about something like a Kantian 'hypothetical' ought. You ought to do x, if you want y. If you want the machine to run welll, you ought to oil it. This, of course, is not an 'ought' in the 'special, moral sense.'

Anscombe thinks this special moral sense happens when Law enters the picture. Now, this hypothetical ought gets linked up with an Absolute Law and becomes an 'obligation' that one is 'bound' by. And this happens through Abrahamic religion

[ Aside: she focuses on christianity but I think this is historically and theologically incorrect. She does mention the Torah, but seems not to take into account what I think is a rather glaring fact: Paul, the author of Christianity, systematically replaces law with grace. She does sort of address this, but describes it as a protestant development. Though, maybe, in an ultimate historical sense, she's right that Paul's subtle theological developments in Romans etc were bulldozed over by the church fathers and only reemerged through Luther. Maybe.]

So a standard analysis would be something like:

• The butcher delivered the meat
• If the butcher delivered the meat then you ought pay for the meat
• You ought pay for the meat

...with the second premise justified by some universal law about paying one's debts or seeking the greater happiness of the butcher or whatever.

Anscombe would have us avoid this by our comprehending what is implicit in the transaction involving the delivery from the butcher, perhaps together with an appreciation of the virtue of integrity.

And actually I think that at the least a sufficiently interesting approach to be worthy of discussion. It bypasses a part of ethics that seems - well - almost autistic; lacking in a theory of mind.

but she is a catholic so I don't think she rejects all law-bound morality because that would include biblical morality. — BitconnectCarlos

That's the modus tollens reading. While you may be right - she is obtuse enough to have argued in favour of law-bound morality by on the face of it arguing against it - I think we need to get the modus ponens reading right before we give this more consideration.

So a standard analysis would be something like:

The butcher delivered the meat
If the butcher delivered the meat then you ought pay for the meat
You ought pay for the meat

...with the second premise justified by some universal law about paying one's debts or seeking the greater happiness of the butcher or whatever.

Anscombe would have us avoid this by our comprehending what is implicit in the transaction involving the delivery from the butcher, perhaps together with an appreciation of the virtue of integrity.

And actually I think that at the least a sufficiently interesting approach to be worthy of discussion. It bypasses a part of ethics that seems - well - almost autistic; lacking in a theory of mind. — Banno

I think so, only I'd flip the first two. 'If the butcher delivered the meat then you ought pay for the meat' seems to be the major premise. And it seems like the major premise, in some way, 'carries' the whole background 'form of life' that brings us to the 'higher level'. 'The butcher delivered meat' can only get to 'you ought pay for the meat' by jumping up a level, and the major premise contains that. (and of course it's not always the case that if he delivers the meat, you ought pay him. Maybe it's thanksgiving & the butcher is your uncle, and butcher-uncles, at thanksgiving, deliver without obligating you to pay. The major premise is sort of like a crude way of representing a higher level in a lower-level, and so doesn't always work exactly.)

Yes - again, I agree.

I don't much care about Paul's soul, though.

I don't much care about Paul's soul, though. — Banno

Have to agree with you there- Paul was a real piece of work. On a prolonged bible kick though, & can't help myself with the religious digressions - no point in learning all this stuff if I can't peacock it a little.

Sure.

I'm struck by the similarity to an argument I have used elsewhere. You take your car to a mechanic to have a clunking noise in the engine looked at, and being of a sceptical disposition the mechanic proceeds to explain that there need be no link between the phenomenology of the clunk you seem to hear and the mooted existence of a problem in your engine. You go to another mechanic who has a better understanding of what it is you want.

:cool:

That's the modus tollens reading. While you may be right - she is obtuse enough to have argued in favour of law-bound morality by on the face of it arguing against it - I think we need to get the modus ponens reading right before we give this more consideration.

just to clarify, if by "law-bound morality" we're referencing that kind of "thou shalt not" morality which has its roots in the old testament then she is definitely not rejecting that. i'm familiar with her theological work and she is definitely not rejecting that. she probably only rejects their secular manifestations.

Half way through... no more time.

Very, very, interesting take though... through page seven.

I like it. Why continue to categorize modern moral thinking in terms of - remnants and vestiges leftover from - archaic conceptions?

i'm familiar with her theological work — BitconnectCarlos

Then you would go along with the modus tollens reading...?

(1) If religiously based ethics is false, then virtue ethics is the way moral philosophy ought to be developed.
(2b) It is not the case that virtue ethics is the way to develop moral philosophy
(3b) Therefore, it is not the case that religiously based ethics is false.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/anscombe/#VirEth



Edit: now archived at https://plato.stanford.edu/Archives/win2021/entries/anscombe/

I just got up to take a pain killer for 1. arthritic pain and 2. you. — god must be atheist

Cheers. I'm only here because hospital and enforced rest. Next week I get to go Do The Things again.

My advice, which I live and breath: Take the drugs.

no, i go by the majority, straight-forward view described in the stanford article you linked. this is going to me my last post before i go to bed, by the way.

i suspect that religious, law-bound morality and virtue ethics are actually compatible to an extent; they occupy different territory. law-bound religious morality dictates in absolute rules, while virtue theory only seeks to mold people into decent individuals with good moral character. i think anscombe is trying to promote virtue ethics and its development and can do so without it impugning her own religious views.

on the other hand, one can not be a utilitarian or a kantian and a religious christian.... not a serious one, at least.

I'm struck by the similarity to an argument I have used elsewhere. You take your car to a mechanic to have a clunking noise in the engine looked at, and being of a sceptical disposition the mechanic proceeds to explain that there need be no link between the phenomenology of the clunk you seem to hear and the mooted existence of a problem in your engine. You go to another mechanic who has a better understanding of what it is you want. — Banno

I like that. Maybe the first mechanic was almost touching on something - only he hamfistedly applied a by-the-numbers version of the teachings of a disciple of a disciple of a legitimate master mechanic, for whom the theoretical stuff was just his reflections after mastering the pragmatic aspects, and practicing for a long time. Though, as someone who needs to get your car fixed, all that matters is who gets what's actually going on, right now. And whoever can do that, probably is closer to the car-guru, then the disciple of his disciple.

Though maybe the first mechanic was almost touching on something — csalisbury

Indeed, he might be right. Hence

i suspect that religious, law-bound morality and virtue ethics are actually compatible to an extent; — BitconnectCarlos

At the least they do not contradict, one the other. But if we can fix the car without the metaphysics, then that's what I'd choose.

It's interesting that this paper is so commonly associated with the revival of virtue ethics; there's definite warrant for it - it is even perhaps it's point - but if you go looking, the paper has very little to say about virtue in any direct way. At best, her remarks on virtue function as promissory or as a place-holder for an alternative to the points of view she does in fact engage. These passages are about as close as she gets to talking about virtue, and they are both incredibly indeterminate and hesitant:

"Eventually it might be possible to advance to considering the concept "virtue"; with which, I suppose, we should be beginning some sort of a study of ethics."

"It can be seen that philosophically there is a huge gap, at present unfillable as far as we are concerned, which needs to be filled by an account of human nature, human action, the type of characteristic a virtue is, and above all of human "flourishing." And it is the last concept that appears the most doubtful". — MMP

Anyway, I say this only because I'd like to warn against coming at this paper by placing it into an immediate 'virtue ethics' box: its argument is largely negative, a kind of attempt at ground-clearing, although the way it goes about this is by establishing a minimally 'positive' account of what kind of thing 'moral oughts' are, and the role they play. I'd even say it might be best to bracket any talk of virtue whatsoever unless directly sanctioned by the passages in the paper itself.

I think, at its limit, virtue ethics just is clearing space so that you can understand how what matters in terms of ethics and virtue is extraphilosophical. I don't know if the fly-in-bottle approach works for every field of philosophy, but in terms of virtue and ethics, I think it does.

Perhaps; but even that would need a philosophical account of why virtue functions extraphilosophically (a meditation on philosophy and its limits, from within philosophy). Which I don't doubt can be done, but I don't think that at least that project is being pursued in this paper.

I think it might even be fair to say that in some of her other work, Anscombe saw herself as supplying at least part of what she claims is needed in order to properly account for ethics. Especially this bit:

"That an unjust man is a bad man would require a positive account of justice as a "virtue." This part of the subject-matter of ethics is, however, completely closed to us until we have an account of what type of characteristic a virtue is - a problem, not of ethics, but of conceptual analysis - and how it relates to the actions in which it is instanced ... For this we certainly need an account at least of what a human action is at all, and how its description as "doing such-and such" is affected by its motive and by the intention or intentions in it; and for this an account of such concepts is required" - her book Intention can be read as an attempt to provide exactly such an account, or at least part of it.

Next part:

What seems to have happened, according to Anscombe, is that we've carried forth a whole ethical machinery involving obligation, while jettisoning the idea of divine legislation which contextualizes and grounds it.

Let's consider flourishing : It's simply a fact that a plant needs x to flourish. But what we're really after is something like the idea of a good, such that that idea bears on our actions. This doesn't apply to plants. When it comes to us, the idea of what we need influences what we want. But this is ccomplicated. When we bring in 'wanting' [we can just say 'desire' here, no?], we can want stuff even if it goes against our needs. And this 'want' brings us to a next step. We can admit things like 'owing' as facts. And we can admit things like need in relation to flourishing. But there still remains, left over, our 'wanting' [desiring]. The moral 'ought' still remains outside all of this.

Anscombe describes this ought as having a 'mesmeric' force, even though divorced from its religious origins.

It's not unlike the kabbalistic idea of 'reshimu':

'The reshimu is compared to the fragrance of the wine which remains in the glass after having been poured out of it.'

It contains a hint of what used to sustain it, though what sustained it has since evaporated.

Yes. I think that those parts you've just quoted and others seem to be a clear indication that she is after a fact-based methodological approach, and is fond of somehow incorporating virtues or something virtue-like into this new approach. I'm only on page seven, and I very well may be misreading her, but that's the overall impression I'm getting so far.

Perhaps; but even that would need a philosophical account of why virtue functions extraphilosophically (a meditation on philosophy and its limits, from within philosophy). Which I don't doubt can be done, but I don't think that at least that project is being pursued in this paper — StreetlightX

That's fair. I think this paper does a good job of laying much of the groundwork for what that account would look like, but I agree that that does not appear to be her aim.

Anyway, a small commentary on the structure of the (early sections) of the paper. It seems to be something like this:

(1) Quick survey (and dismissal) of the majority of prevailing moral theories.
(2) Discussion of Hume, and the relation between 'is' and 'owes'.
(3) Historical digression on law conceptions on ethics.
(4) Return to Hume, and and the relation between 'is' and 'needs'.
(5) Conceding that Hume was right in a way, but he mistook the force of his own argument: it doesn't vitiate ethics (pace Hume), nor does require that we need to bridge a gap from is to ought because that's not how 'is' and 'oughts' work! (this is what 'modern moral philosophy' ties to do).

(6) With the above in place, lets vivisect 'modern moral philosophy'.

(5) Conceding that Hume was right in a way, but he mistook the force of his own argument: it doesn't vitiate ethics (pace Hume), nor does require that we need to bridge a gap from is to ought because that's not how 'is' and 'oughts' work! — StreetlightX

That's much the way I've taken it as well. She clearly suggests dropping the notion of morally ought, altogether... on page seven, and fourteen as well(in favor of just "ought").

I think it might even be fair to say that in some of her other work, Anscombe saw herself as supplying at least part of what she claims is needed in order to properly account for ethics. Especially this bit:

"That an unjust man is a bad man would require a positive account of justice as a "virtue." This part of the subject-matter of ethics is, however, completely closed to us until we have an account of what type of characteristic a virtue is - a problem, not of ethics, but of conceptual analysis - and how it relates to the actions in which it is instanced ... For this we certainly need an account at least of what a human action is at all, and how its description as "doing such-and such" is affected by its motive and by the intention or intentions in it; and for this an account of such concepts is required" - her book Intention can be read as an attempt to provide exactly such an account, or at least part of — StreetlightX

You added this part after I responded, but I want to respond to this too. I've only read the essay once through so far, and my first read-through of any paper, or at least papers for the forum, is often rushed because I want to get to talking and commenting.

That said, my sense regarding her focus on intention, at least in this essay (I haven't read 'Intention' so I welcome correction here) is that she wants to move the scope of ethics from a removed image of actions in a matrix of action and consequence, already seen by the actor in a removed, calculating way - to action as it occurs in life. Again, I think this fits the space-clearing view. (If you want a contemporary example, you can set Anscombe against Effective Altruism). Of course any neat division is too neat. Actual ethical action usually has wrapped up in it both immediate intention and some sense of how things will ripple out. She's trying to counterballast a tendency to take one half of that and elevate it. &, to that end, she has some good psychological insights about how rationalization of bad actions often involves taking a broader perspective. I'll have to come back to that though, because I don't think I've digested this enough to fully approach those arguments.