¹ Anscombe, G. E. M., ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’ in Ethics, Religion and Politics: The Collected Philosophical Papers of G. E. M. Anscombe: Volume III (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1981), 26–42.Google Scholar

² Kurt, Baier, ‘Radical Virtue Ethics’, Midwest Studies in Philosophy Volume XIII, Ethical Theory: Character and Virtue, French, Peter A., Uehling, Theodore E.Jr. and Wettstein, Howard K. (eds) (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988), 126–135, 127.Google Scholar

³ Peter, Winch, ‘Professor Anscombe's Moral Philosophy’ (unpublished), 1. The pagination of my copy of this paper is peculiar to it, but I will cite page numbers from it in any case.Google Scholar

⁴ Anscombe, , p. 26. The quoted sentence continues ‘at any rate until we have an adequate philosophy of psychology, in which we are conspicuously lacking’.Google Scholar

⁵ Ibid., 38.

⁶ Ibid., 26.

⁷ Ibid.

⁸ Cora, Diamond, ‘The Dog that Gave Himself the Moral Law’, in French, Uehling and Wettstein, 161–179.Google Scholar

⁹ Anscombe, 29.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Ibid.

¹¹ Ibid.

¹² Alasdair, Maclntyre, After Virtue (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984).Google Scholar

¹³ Anscombe, 32.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Ibid.

¹⁵ Ibid., 30.

¹⁶ Ibid., 37.

¹⁷ See Anscombe, 37.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Ibid.

¹⁹ Thus Alan Donagan is wrong to say that: ‘it was a mistake for Professor Anscombe to contend that morality can intelligibly be treated as a system of law only by presupposing a divine lawgiver. Her inference was also mistaken that, if those who deny the existence of a divine lawgiver choose to discuss ethical topics, they should follow Aristotle's example, and do it by way of a theory of the virtues.’ (Alan, Donagan, The Theory of Morality (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1977), 3). Anscombe makes neither the contention nor the inference attributed to her.Google Scholar

²⁰ Anscombe, 30.Google Scholar

²¹ Ibid., 33.

²² Baier, 129.Google Scholar

²³ Ibid., 128.

²⁴ There are other acceptable uses too. See the conclusion below, for instance, for a brief discussion of the use of ‘wrong’ in connection with poor judgment.

²⁵ See Baier, 128.Google Scholar

²⁶ Baier, 128.Google Scholar

²⁷ Winch, 10.Google Scholar

²⁸ Ibid., 2.

²⁹ Ibid.

³⁰ See Winch, 3.Google Scholar

³¹ Winch, 11.Google Scholar

³² See Winch, 3.Google Scholar

³³ Cf., McDowell, 17: ‘It is not that the two people share a certain neutral conception of the facts, but differ in that one, but not the other, has an independent desire as well, which combines with that neutral conception of the facts to cast a favourable light on his acting in a certain way. The desire is ascribable to the prudent person simply in recognition of the fact that his conception of the likely effects of his action on his own future by itself casts a favourable light on his acting as he does.’Google Scholar

³⁴ Winch, 11.Google Scholar

³⁵ SeeWinch, 11.Google Scholar

³⁶ Paul, Johnston, Wittgenstein and Moral Philosophy (London and New York: Routledge, 1989).Google Scholar

³⁷ Johnston, 76.Google Scholar

³⁸ See Johnston, 117: ‘The ethical reaction confronts us with the claim that there are certain actions that ought to be done and others that ought not to be done, but if one tries to explain this claim further one either ends up re-invoking the very concepts one is seeking to explain or one offers a non-moral explanation of these concepts and one which is therefore necessarily inaccurate. Confronted with this reaction, all the philosopher can do is to underline its distinctive features and help eliminate the unnecessary mystery surrounding it by indicating other human reactions to which it is related, and by pointing to the experiences which lead individuals to take up the notions of right and wrong as the only ones capable of expressing their convictions about the world and Man's role in it.’Google Scholar

³⁹ See Ibid.:‘[T]he attempt to justify the reaction is also misguided, for any attempted justification has the same logical status as the reaction itself…’

⁴⁰ Ahmad, Eqbal Cf., review of Kanan Makiya, Cruelty and Silence: War, Tyranny, Uprising, and The Arab World, The Nation (August 9/16, 1993): ‘To accuse someone like that … of collusion with tyranny is bad morals and bad politics … [I]t is also self-defeating.’Google Scholar

⁴¹ Anscombe, 30.Google Scholar

⁴² See Winch, 2.Google Scholar

⁴³ Diamond, 162.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Ibid., 169.

⁴⁵ See Diamond, 164. Here Diamond refers to an earlier version of Winch's paper.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Ibid., 164.

⁴⁷ Thus Legg is motivated both by the Aristotelian consideration of avoiding injustice and by his belief that such injustice, in this case at least, would be contrary to divine law.

⁴⁸ It might be argued that in this case it would not have been unjust for Abraham to kill his son. Even if this is true, the example shows the distinction between what God commands and what is usually considered just. See also Genesis 18: 22–33, where Abraham asks God, ‘Wilt thou indeed destroy the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city [Sodom]; wilt thou then destroy the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from thee to do such a thing…! Far be that from thee! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?’ Abraham might find it hard to believe that God should slay the righteous with the wicked, but it certainly does not seem inconceivable to him.

⁴⁹ Diamond, 169.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ See Winch, 3.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Winch, 3.Google Scholar

⁵² See for instance her essay ‘War and Murder’, in Anscombe, 51–61, 52, where she says: ‘there being such a thing as the common good of mankind, and visible criminality against it, how can we doubt the excellence of such a proceeding as that violent suppression of the man-stealing business which the British government took it into its head to engage in under Palmerston?’

⁵³ I owe this point to Cora Diamond.

⁵⁴ Cora, Diamond and John, Marshall provided valuable critical comments on earlier versions of this paper. I would like to thank them and Peter Winch for his kind permission to quote from his paper.Google Scholar