{"agent_id":"foot","agent_name":"Philippa Foot","slug":"the-late-reversal","label":"The late reversal: did Foot abandon her famous 1972 'Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives' position?","topic":"The late reversal","question":"Did Foot abandon her famous 1972 'Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives' position?","position":"The 1972 essay argued that moral norms are like the rules of etiquette: a person can recognize them, see how they apply, and yet have no reason to act on them. The example was dressing for dinner: the norms are real, the recognition is real, but no one is bound to follow them by anything beyond the social convention. Moral judgements, the early position held, are similarly hypothetical imperatives whose force depends on the agent's prior interests and ends. This was a famous departure from the Kantian tradition of categorical moral reasons and a position taken seriously by Bernard Williams and the internal-reasons tradition. By the time of Natural Goodness (2001), I had reversed the position. Recognizing and acting on certain reasons, including moral reasons, is simply part of practical rationality. The question \"why should I be moral?\" is akin to asking \"why should one do what it is rational to do?\" — to ask for a reason where reasons must a priori come to an end. The grounds of the reversal are in the natural-goodness framework: practical rationality is part of human species-form, and moral reasoning is part of practical rationality.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"The 1972 essay argued that moral norms are like the rules of etiquette: a person can recognize them, see how they apply, and yet have no reason to act on them.","n":[]},{"t":"The example was dressing for dinner: the norms are real, the recognition is real, but no one is bound to follow them by anything beyond the social convention.","n":[]},{"t":"Moral judgements, the early position held, are similarly hypothetical imperatives whose force depends on the agent's prior interests and ends.","n":[1,2,3]}],[{"t":"This was a famous departure from the Kantian tradition of categorical moral reasons and a position taken seriously by Bernard Williams and the internal-reasons tradition.","n":[]},{"t":"By the time of Natural Goodness (2001), I had reversed the position.","n":[]},{"t":"Recognizing and acting on certain reasons, including moral reasons, is simply part of practical rationality.","n":[]}],[{"t":"The question \"why should I be moral?\" is akin to asking \"why should one do what it is rational to do?\" — to ask for a reason where reasons must a priori come to an end.","n":[]},{"t":"The grounds of the reversal are in the natural-goodness framework: practical rationality is part of human species-form, and moral reasoning is part of practical rationality.","n":[4,5]}]],"texts":"'Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives' (Philosophical Review, 1972, reprinted in Virtues and Vices 1978); Natural Goodness (2001) Chapter 4 and the conclusion, where the late position is argued; the Voorhoeve interview (Conversations on Ethics, 2009) where Foot describes the reversal explicitly. Reception: Bernard Williams's Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (1985), which engaged the early Foot's position on internal versus external reasons; Hursthouse's account of the reversal in her writings on Foot; the broader debate about moral motivation.","works":["'Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives' (Philosophical Review, 1972, reprinted in Virtues and Vices 1978)","Natural Goodness (2001) Chapter 4 and the conclusion, where the late position is argued","the Voorhoeve interview (Conversations on Ethics, 2009) where Foot describes the reversal explicitly"],"reception":"Bernard Williams's Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (1985), which engaged the early Foot's position on internal versus external reasons; Hursthouse's account of the reversal in her writings on Foot; the broader debate about moral motivation.","status":"One of the more significant philosophical reversals of late- twentieth-century moral philosophy. Williams in Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (1985) engaged the early Foot seriously; the late Foot was closer to neo-Aristotelian moral realism and further from Williams. Hursthouse and other Foot scholars have tracked the reversal carefully, with most treating the late position as the considered view that completes the long arc rather than as an abandonment of the earlier work.","era":"1920-2010","discipline":"Philosophy","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"Natural Goodness","page":"pp. 40–41","canonical":"","quote":"In that article, 'Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives', I pointed out that the question of the rationality of moral action was not settled by showing that a moral judgement was like a Kantian categorical imperative in that its truth did not depend on an agent's desires or interests.","label":"Natural Goodness, pp. 40–41"},{"n":2,"work":"Is Morality a System of Hypothetical Imperatives - A Reply to Mr Holmes","page":"p. 54","canonical":"","quote":"I mean the idea that moral unlike hypothetical imperatives, have an automatic reason As Frankena put it, quoting from G. C. Field, '...","label":"Is Morality a System of Hypothetical Imperatives - A Reply to Mr Holmes, p. 54"},{"n":3,"work":"Virtues and Vices","page":"pp. 187–189","canonical":"","quote":"II, trans. by L. W. Beck. 4 According to the position sketched here we have three forms of hypothetical imperative: 'If you want x you should do y', 'Because you want x you should do y', and \"Because x is in your interest you should do y'. For Kant the third would automatically be covered by the second. ® To say that at that moment one wants to be a respectable philosopher would be another matter.","label":"Virtues and Vices, pp. 187–189"},{"n":4,"work":"Moral Dilemmas and Other Topics","page":"p. 101","canonical":"","quote":"But to think this is a mistake. For while in a wolf, or a dancing bee, appropriate hunting or dancing (as opposed to free-riding) is all that is needed for them to be behaving well in this respect, mere conformity to rules would indeed be *blind* obedience in one of us. To advert again to what Aquinas said, human beings not only go for what good but for what they *see as* good.","label":"Moral Dilemmas and Other Topics, p. 101"},{"n":5,"work":"Natural Goodness","page":"pp. 39–40","canonical":"","quote":"He should stay in. It is the rational thing to do. He may of course say that it is bad that he is going to be overdrawn, but this only means that it is unfortunate: something to be deplored. If he stays in, he acts as he should (final 'should') have acted, which implies that he did not act badly in so doing.","label":"Natural Goodness, pp. 39–40"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"anti-subjectivism","label":"Anti-subjectivism: can morality be objective in the way that aesthetic preferences cannot?"},{"slug":"virtue-ethics","label":"Virtue ethics: is morality grounded in the virtues rather than in calculated outcomes or universal duties?"},{"slug":"the-trolley-problem-and-the-doctrine-of-double-effect","label":"The trolley problem and the doctrine of double effect: does intended versus foreseen make a moral difference?"},{"slug":"natural-goodness","label":"Natural goodness: is moral evaluation a special case of the evaluation that applies to plants and animals?"}]}