Gorevan, Patrick (2009) Philippa Foot’s ‘Natural Goodness’. Maynooth Philosophical Papers, Issue 5 (2008). pp. 9-15.

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Abstract

Philippa Foot, with the help of her friend and colleague Elizabeth Anscombe, discovered that Summa Theologiae, II-II of Thomas Aquinas was a powerful resource in seeking objectivism in ethics. Foot’s aim was to produce an ethics of natural goodness, in which moral evil, for example, came to be seen as a ‘natural defect’ rather than the expression of a taste or preference. This brought her to develop a concrete ethics of virtue with a broad sweep, dealing with the individual and communal needs and goods of human beings, and particularly with their central moral quality of acting for a reason, with a practical rationality. This has helped her to return to an Aristotelian meaning of virtue, as simply one kind of excellence among others.

Item Type:	Article
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Arts,Celtic Studies and Philosophy > Philosophy
Item ID:	1553
Depositing User:	Dr Cyril McDonnell
Date Deposited:	29 Sep 2009 12:16
Journal or Publication Title:	Maynooth Philosophical Papers
Publisher:	Department of Philosophy
Refereed:	Yes
URI:
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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