Virtues are corrective. They stand at a point where there is some temptation to be resisted or some deficiency of motivation to be made good.
Philippa Foot · Virtue ethics
virtueethicsself
Summary
Philosopher
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Philippa Foot
1920–2010 · Virtue ethics · Modern
Philippa Foot helped return analytic ethics to the virtues, and she introduced the trolley cases in a 1967 paper on abortion and the doctrine of double effect. The cases escaped and became a genre. In the essay 'Virtues and Vices' she argues that virtues are corrective. They stand where there is a temptation to be resisted or a deficiency of motivation to be made good.
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Courage corrects fear. That does not mean every courageous act feels difficult. She also argues that a trait used for a bad end, daring in a murder, does not operate as a virtue. Natural Goodness, much later, ties moral evaluation to the life-form of a species, a controversial Aristotelian move. She was of the group that included Anscombe, Murdoch, and Midgley, and she is not identical with any of them.
The corrective thesis in this library is marked Summary, because the essay does not isolate the two sentences as a maxim. Read the essay before you carve them. The trolley paper is a different fame, and it is not a game.
The corrective account stays a paraphrase of 'Virtues and Vices'. The 1972 paper and Natural Goodness are added as paraphrases of their theses, not as single carved sentences. A fifth motto was not invented.
Start here
The essay 'Virtues and Vices', then the 1967 paper if you have met trolleys only as a game.
The essay is the moral psychology. The paper shows what the example was for, which the game forgets.
Quotations
The moral ought gives a reason for acting only where the person already has the relevant aim. It is a hypothetical imperative, not a categorical one.
Philippa Foot · Virtue ethics
ethicsmind
Summary
To call a living thing good or defective is to measure it against the form of life of its species. Moral evaluation of human beings is a case of that kind of judgement, not a separate invention.
Philippa Foot · Virtue ethics
ethicsvirtue
Summary
Key ideas
Virtues as correctives
A virtue is intelligible by the human tendency it answers.
Not always hard
Corrective does not mean miserable on every occasion.
Bad ends
Daring in a murder is not courage operating as a virtue.
Double effect
The 1967 paper. The trolleys are an example inside an argument about abortion.
Major works
The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of the Double Effect (1967)
The trolley cases, in their original job.
Virtues and Vices (1978)
The essay of that title, and the collection.
Natural Goodness (2001)
A later Aristotelian account of moral evaluation.
Influences
Influenced
- Martha Nussbaum
- Rosalind Hursthouse
Common misreadings
- The trolley problem is not her invention as a puzzle for its own sake. It is an example in a paper about killing.
- Corrective does not mean a virtue must feel like a struggle every time.
- A 'virtue' in the service of a bad end is not, on her account, the virtue at work.
Famous lines Philippa Foot never said
None of the lines this library files for Philippa Foot is marked Questionable or Misattributed. That is only a fact about these cards. It is not a certificate that every popular sentence is theirs.
FAQ
What is the best book to start with?
The essay 'Virtues and Vices', then the 1967 paper if you have met trolleys only as a game. The essay is the moral psychology. The paper shows what the example was for, which the game forgets.
What is the most famous quote?
This library does not measure fame, and it does not rank lines by how often they are shared. The first line it files for Philippa Foot that is not marked Questionable or Misattributed is “Virtues are corrective. They stand at a point where there is some temptation to be resisted or some deficiency of motivation to be made good.” ('Virtues and Vices' (1978), a summary of her account, Summary).
What is the most misquoted line?
None of the lines this library files for Philippa Foot is marked Misattributed or Questionable. That is a fact about these cards, not a certificate that every popular sentence is theirs.
What is one key idea, in a sentence?
Virtues as correctives: A virtue is intelligible by the human tendency it answers.