Philippa Foot: Philosophy, Quotes & Legacy

Biography

Philippa Ruth Foot was born on October 3, 1920, in Grantham, England, the granddaughter of Grover Cleveland, the American president. She studied at Oxford, where she became a fellow of Somerville College and one of the most influential moral philosophers of the twentieth century — a pioneering woman in a male-dominated profession. She taught at Oxford for most of her career, with visiting appointments at UCLA, Princeton, and Stanford. Her most famous single contribution is the invention of the trolley problem, introduced in her 1967 paper "The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of the Double Effect" — a thought experiment that has since generated an entire literature. Her mature philosophy, developed over decades, is the naturalistic virtue ethics presented in Natural Goodness (2001): the account of the moral life grounded in human nature, in the way that the life of a plant or an animal is grounded in its species. She died on October 3, 2010, on her ninetieth birthday, in Oxford.

Historical Context

Foot worked in the analytic tradition, alongside her friends Elizabeth Anscombe and Bernard Williams, in the mid-century Oxford that was redefining moral philosophy. Her early work was a series of challenges to the dominant theories: the non-cognitivism of the emotivists (the view that moral judgments are expressions of emotion), the utilitarianism of the consequentialists, and the formalism of the deontologists. Her 1967 trolley problem was designed to test the doctrine of double effect — the distinction between doing and allowing, intending and foreseeing — and it became the most productive thought experiment in the history of ethics. Her later work, culminating in Natural Goodness (2001), built the alternative: the virtue ethics grounded in the natural teleology of the human being — the account of the moral life as the flourishing of the human species, in the manner that the life of the oak is the flourishing of the oak.

Core Ideas

The Trolley Problem

Foot introduced the trolley problem in "The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of the Double Effect" (1967). The problem: a runaway trolley is headed toward five people who will be killed unless the bystander diverts it to a siding where it will kill one. Is it permissible to divert? The problem is designed to separate the ethical theories: the consequentialist says yes — one death instead of five; the deontologist says no — the one person must not be used as a means. Foot's own purpose was more specific: to test the doctrine of double effect, the distinction between doing and allowing. Her version contrasted the driver, who turns the trolley (doing harm), with the bystander, who diverts it (allowing harm to the one while saving the five) — and the variations of the problem, added by Judith Jarvis Thomson and others (the fat man pushed from the bridge, the surgeon who transplants the organs of the healthy patient), have made the trolley problem the standard laboratory of the moral intuitions.

Natural Goodness

Foot's mature philosophy is the naturalistic virtue ethics of Natural Goodness (2001). The central claim is that moral goodness is a form of natural goodness: the goodness of the human being is to be understood as the goodness of the oak or the wolf is understood — by the standard of the flourishing of the species. The human being has a nature, and the virtues are the characteristics that enable the human being to flourish — to live the life that human beings are for. The account restores the teleology that the modern ethics had abandoned: the "ought" of the moral life is the "ought" of nature, the necessity that belongs to the flourishing of the species. The theory is the most ambitious attempt in the modern revival to ground the virtues in nature rather than in convention, feeling, or pure reason.

The Refusal of the Systems

Throughout her career, Foot refused the two great systematic theories of modern ethics. Against consequentialism, she insisted that the moral life cannot be reduced to the calculation of outcomes — the distinction between doing and allowing, the reality of the rights, the character of the agent all resist the arithmetic. Against the deontological formalism, she insisted that the moral life cannot be reduced to the conformity to the rule — the virtues, the perception, the character of the agent are the substance of the moral life. The middle way that she developed is the virtue ethics: the account of the moral life in terms of the character traits that enable the human flourishing.

Philosophy

Foot's philosophy is the most thorough attempt of the modern revival to answer the question that Anscombe had posed: if the divine-law conception of ethics is abandoned, what grounds the moral life? Her answer is nature: the human being has a nature, and the moral life is the life of the flourishing human being. The virtues — the wisdom, the justice, the courage, the temperance — are the characteristics that enable the flourishing, and the vices are the characteristics that impede it. The account is at once naturalistic and normative: the "ought" of the moral life is the "ought" of nature, the same kind of necessity by which the oak ought to grow roots and the wolf ought to hunt. The philosophy has been criticized for the vagueness of the notion of the human flourishing and the naturalistic fallacy (the leap from the is to the ought), but it remains the most ambitious naturalistic account of the virtues in the modern literature.

Major Works

Foot's most famous works are "The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of the Double Effect" (1967), the paper that introduced the trolley problem; the collected essays in Virtues and Vices (1978), including the classic papers on the virtues and the doctrine of double effect; and Natural Goodness (2001), the mature statement of the naturalistic virtue ethics. Her paper "Moral Beliefs" (1958) is among the most influential essays of the twentieth-century ethics.

Famous Quotes

Foot's most quoted lines are from her account of the virtues: "Virtues are in general beneficial characteristics, and indeed ones that a human being needs to have, for his own sake and that of his fellows." Her account of natural goodness: "The virtues are the characteristics that are needed by human beings because they are human beings — because they share the nature that human beings share." And her account of the moral "ought": "The 'ought' of the moral life is the 'ought' of nature, the necessity that belongs to the flourishing of the species."

Related Thinkers

Foot's philosophy belongs to the revival of virtue ethics with Elizabeth Anscombe, whose "Modern Moral Philosophy" posed the question her naturalism answers, Alasdair MacIntyre, whose After Virtue told the history of the tradition of the virtues, and Bernard Williams, her friend and fellow critic of the systems. Her trolley problem was developed by Judith Jarvis Thomson and Peter Singer, and it remains the standard laboratory of the moral intuitions.

Sources

• Foot, Philippa. Virtues and Vices and Other Essays in Moral Philosophy. Oxford: Blackwell, 1978.
• Foot, Philippa. Natural Goodness. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001.
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Philippa Foot" (plato.stanford.edu/entries/philippa-foot)