more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
It is suggested that anyone who has considered all the facts which could bear on his moral position has ipso facto produced a 'well founded' moral judgement, ...How 'x is good' can be well founded when 'x is bad' is equally well founded is hard to see.
Gist of Idea
Moral judgements need more than the relevant facts, if the same facts lead to 'x is good' and 'x is bad'
Source
Philippa Foot (Moral Arguments [1958], p.96)
Book Ref
Foot,Philippa: 'Virtues and Vices' [Blackwell 1981], p.96
A Reaction
This seems to be a warning to particularists, if they hope that moral judgements just emerge from the facts. It doesn't rule out physicalist naturalism about morality, if the attitudes we bring to the facts have arisen out of further facts.
Related Idea
Idea 18671 The ground for an attitude is not a thing's 'goodness', but its concrete characteristics [Ewing]
| 20841 | Zeno said live in agreement with nature, which accords with virtue [Zeno of Citium, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 1774 | Since we are essentially rational animals, living according to reason is living according to nature [Zeno of Citium, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 20774 | Only nature is available to guide action and virtue [Chrysippus] |
| 6000 | The goal is rationality in the selection of things according to nature [Diogenes of Babylon, by Blank] |
| 3066 | Nothing is evil which is according to nature [Aurelius] |
| 2868 | Nature is totally indifferent, so you should try to be different from it, not live by it [Nietzsche] |
| 23433 | Humans need courage like a plant needs roots [Foot] |
| 23432 | Concepts such as function, welfare, flourishing and interests only apply to living things [Foot] |
| 22375 | Moral judgements need more than the relevant facts, if the same facts lead to 'x is good' and 'x is bad' [Foot] |
| 22492 | Virtues are as necessary to humans as stings are to bees [Foot] |
| 22493 | Sterility is a human defect, but the choice to be childless is not [Foot] |