G. E. M. Anscombe
Duty-based morality lost its sense without a lawgiver: let us return to the virtues.
Life
British philosopher born in Ireland, a student and literary executor of Wittgenstein whose Philosophical Investigations she translated. A professor at Cambridge, she renewed the philosophy of action and criticised modern moral philosophy of 'duty', which helped open the way to virtue ethics. She coined the word 'consequentialism'.
Main works
Analyses what it is to act intentionally.
Argues that the idea of moral obligation lacks sense without a divine lawgiver and calls for a return to the virtues.
An early major commentary on the Tractatus.
In his own words
« I think it plausible to suggest that this move on the part of Sidgwick explains the difference between old-fashioned Utilitarianism and the consequentialism, as I name it, which marks him and every English academic moral philosopher since him. »
Positions
click a row to see the evidenceA committed Catholic; her ethics relies on the idea of divine law.
Anscombe, Faith in a Hard Ground (2008); "Modern Moral Philosophy" (1958)
Argues that causation does not entail determination, and is an indeterminist about free action (though indeterminism alone does not secure freedom).
Anscombe, "Causality and Determination" (1971)
Argues that duty-language is empty without a divine lawgiver and that ethics should be rebuilt on a philosophy of psychology and terms like just/unjust; the paper inspired modern virtue ethics, though she did not herself advocate it.
Anscombe, "Modern Moral Philosophy" (1958)