Cheers. Always good to have the context set forth, to keep our feet grounded; and this is the spirit of the Fabulous Four; ethics is to be applied.
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Yes, and there is certainly a tension between that and the account from Davidson, where actions are treated as cause; this was thrashed out with Anscombe in the day. Both think in terms of reasons for actions, but Anscombe can’t bring herself to do as Davidson does and simply treat them as causes… so there’s the tension to be addressed in a new thread.
Just like the Beatles? 
The combination of these four talents, each with their own approach, allowed The Beatles to become a unique band, where individual strengths empowered each other to create something greater than the sum of their parts. — What made The Beatles so special? – The Beatles
Choosing a favourite indicated your personality type 
Which of the four Beatles are you most like?
I was George, and my best friend was Tigger, I mean Ringo. Hmmm. What does that mean?
The Oxford Quartet. Did they have one spirit? How united were they?
Oxford Quartet: The Women Who Took On the Philosophical Establishment - The New York Times
In the past, I’ve been intrigued by Murdoch as a philosopher and novelist. But perhaps it is time for Anscombe. Is she more about actions, intentions and practical reasoning?
Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
I’ll follow this with interest. How do you intend to approach this? The focus on a single paper, like this one?
Yes, that’s what we need to look at.
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George had a humility that I find admirable.
But he was also quite a bastard, especially to the women with whom he associated.
In what sense is it not helpful to identify what we believe to be the ‘right thing to do’?
I am not really asking this in an obvious sense; just like you are framing the statement in an obvious sense. What purpose does it serve to announce such to ourselves or anyone else to say this or that is ‘right’?
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If we have such a rule, there remains, from Foot, the question of why do such a thing - the amoralist who agrees that he ought, but then doesn’t, since being amoral he doesn’t act as he ought.
This missing feature [ from the consideration of hypothetical imperatives as ethical ] is the recognition of a duty to adopt those ends which we have attributed to the moral man (p.314)… Further, he will recognize in the statement: “one ought to care about these things”, a correct application of the non-hypothetical moral “ought" by which society is apt to voice its demands (p. 315)..
There is no “magic” to this “ought”. Our ordinary criteria for a particular practice are the “voice” of society’s “demands” because they are how we are judged to have done it, at all. So they circumscribe our “duty”. If I want to do it, I MUST meet those demands. As Cavell puts it, our practices themselves are normative.
Also, Foot paints a rosy picture of what is “moral” (justice, charity, etc.) and Kant polishes up his “moral man”, but both of these commit a logical error (putting the cart before the horse?). My “caring” (p.315) is neither able to be judged, nor an accurate measure of moral duty. The Leningrad example is merely a “common sense” argument in response to the skeptical issue Kant is trying to abstract from (how to tell what will be a moral act).
But Kant (and Foot) ignores the contradiction of a situation where my moral duty is to do something “immoral”, counter to the demands of society, as Nietzsche and Thoreau point out. Foot seems to bring up this contradiction when she ends with talk of distrust of the authority of the moral law; that it is “illusion” or “deception”.
Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita wrestles with having to kill a family member to save his kingdom. At a moment such as this, there is no guide to what is right; the actor must take themselves as the authority, to go against or outside society’s demands, in making a claim as to their duty. This is not an argument about what is moral, or good, or right, but an assertion of the necessity of their action, backed by the willingness to be responsibility to answer for it against the judgment of society.
So much more to be said. Probably not appreciated here, but I’ll leave the wiki link for those who care. Some interesting insights into his humanitarian work, personal life and legacy:
In 2002, on the first anniversary of his death, the Concert for George was held at the Royal Albert Hall. Eric Clapton organised the event, which included performances by many of Harrison’s friends and musical collaborators, including McCartney and Starr.[423] Eric Idle, who described Harrison as “one of the few morally good people that rock and roll has produced”, was among the performers of Monty Python’s “Lumberjack Song”.[424] The profits from the concert went to Harrison’s charity, the Material World Charitable Foundation.[42]
I read Harrison’s reply when asked about his difficult relationship with Paul:
“Scan not a friend with a microscopic glass – You know his faults – Then let his foibles pass. Old Victorian Proverb. I’m sure there’s enough about me that pisses him off, but I think we have now grown old enough to realise that we’re both pretty damn cute!”
I can imagine a smile playing about his lips and eyes, showing his self-deprecating humour along with his deeper spirituality.
The proverb reminds me of the speck or plank in your eye when judging others. Matthew 7 NIV
The measures we use to compare right or wrong action. Inscribed in stone?
The aphorism is an inscription on a wall at Harrison’s quirky house and gardens: The Answer’s at the End - Wikipedia
I don’t think he would mind being described as ‘quite a bastard’:
In 1974, Harrison said of his former bandmate: “John Lennon is a saint and he’s heavy-duty, and he’s great and I love him. But at the same time, he’s such a bastard – but that’s the great thing about him, you see?”[407]
Love, tolerance, sense and sensitivity. Music and words work to share and sway. The rhythm of life.
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Foot’s wartime experience makes her acutely aware and suspicious of any moral law that claims unquestionable authority.
What is at stake is a grounding of moral judgement in lived situations.
This isn’t a ‘rosy’ picture. There are no tidy or polished ‘ideals’, but justice and charity are difficult and hard-won human practices.
The remarks about ‘illusion’ and ‘deception’ matter. They are aimed at the idea of moral law as something unquestionable that can override lived experience, not at morality itself.
How does the Gita example help here?
It looks relevant to Foot’s ‘amoral man’ because both are acting outside moral expectations. But they are different.
Foot’s ‘amoral’ man is someone (a figure) who understands moral reasons but doesn’t care about them. This is to clarify what moral concepts are and their function. What it means to call something a reason or a duty.
The Gita example describes a situation where moral concepts and rules do not apply. They do not guide the action.
The action is from sheer necessity. Isn’t this more of an existential question — one of self-authorisation, not a moral one?
It’s a different issue, isn’t it?
I’m not sure I understand the question, or questions. If the only thing we say about the right thing to do, when proposing an action, is that “it’s the right thing to do,” that is clearly not helpful, but I don’t know if this is what you mean.
As far as stating, or announcing, to ourselves or others . . . could you amplify the question?
Yes. What you’re calling a rule doesn’t get us any closer to a categorical imperative with Kantian force.
I still think the amoralist doesn’t acknowledge that they ought to do X, since their very amorality precludes such a formulation, but that’s just fine-tuning.
I don’t think Kant does. I suggested above that the transition from morals (“X is good, Y is good” etc.) to ethics (“But what should I do in this situation?”) is precisely a matter of conflicting virtues or moral obligations. Kant thought that this was when we needed the cat imp to resolve the issue. Even if we don’t accept the force of the cat imp as an imperative, the insight into the structure of ethical decisions seems valuable.
I think in Foot’s context, it isn’t about making a grand announcement. It’s about making clear what principle you stand on at a given moment — especially when it goes against society’s norms. Or an aggressor.
That’s what the Leningrad example shows. Under extreme pressure, people recognised and endured immoral acts of war, injustice and cruelty. It demanded collective action and resistance.
Naming something as ‘right’ simply marks that recognition. It doesn’t magically settle anything. But moral judgement becomes clearer — and often shared — when people refuse to abandon their rights, showing a commitment to fight for what is right.
As Foot writes in her conclusion:
…to fight for liberty and justice and against inhumanity and oppression. It is often felt, even if obscurely, that there is an element of deception in the official line about morality. And while some have been persuaded by talk about the authority of the moral law, others have turned away with a sense of distrust.
Guess I better re-read my Kant (typical, but where?). Granting all that (acknowledging he does address it, and agreeing that any such act should be thoughtful), I would be suggesting that, instead of becoming more abstract and certain (cat. Imp.), or having it be a conflict of motivations (as in Foot’s world)—i.e., treated as a conflict that is resolved, with an answer of what is right (ahead of time)—it is the exact type of moral situation that requires my claiming the necessity of a new world or way of living in reply to that place of uncertainty, while knowing I am tied to answering for it (afterwards); in a sense, staking my life (our lives) on it.
Very good question. I’m trying to answer the limitation of framing the issue as either Kant or Foot do, as a matter of form or cause (caring, etc.). You have the moment described exactly right: when we are (morally) lost without an external “guide”, or decided answer to what is right. The “imperative” is my claiming the necessity, in standing for something, not just for my existence, but as if for all of ours—that of a new moral world. I am, as Emerson puts it, an “exemplar”, which is similar to the moral law (but without the abstraction of the a-motivated rational form), in being aware it will be subject to the judgment of all.
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I’ve only given you my interpretation, of course. When Kant speaks of morality as residing in the good will (Foundation of the Metaphysics of Morals), I believe he means to exclude all the traditional arbiters of action, which we comfort ourselves will be enough.
So imagine a situation in which the virtue of honesty conflicts with the virtue of caring for my family. I read Kant as saying that we will never proceed to ethical action by analyzing these virtues, acknowledging their goodness, showing what their consequences might be, etc. We require a rational rule, a maxim for action, and Kant believed (though I don’t) that such a rule would be a categorical imperative. What should I do, in this situation? Only what I can at the same time will that it should become a universal law. The “willing of a universal law” is not moral terminology at all, the way we commonly understand it – it refers to no virtues or desirable ends for us. But for Kant, only such a (good) willing can sort out the dilemmas of conflicting “heteronomous” moral inclinations.
Now here I may be really stretching Kant, but I want to read him as basically endorsing this. If we allow him a very particularized concept of “this situation” and a more modern concept of the “I” or “self,” I think he might agree that what the categorical imperative will reveal to us cannot be known ahead of time, and that by acting with a good will, we move ourselves into a place (the “realm of ends”) that is radically different from our ordinary outlook.
Or maybe not, but anyway I like the way you’ve put it.
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And this is what I respond with to @Amity. To put it together, the “good will” I am tweaking is: when there is the necessity of acting without a decided answer of what is right (or the “right” motivation), we must accept the responsibility of claiming that “it should become a universal law”. The only difference I see is that Kant wants to ensure that universality ahead of the act with a form he takes as acceptable to everyone (rational), where I am framing it that we are, as Cavell would put it, speaking for everyone, which I would put as: we act with the awareness we are answerable to the judgment of all. This is to replace the discussion of “causes” or “motives”, which I would say are either hypothetical, or personal, not universal, or, as Kant describes it, as always “self-interest, but, in any event.
You speak of a ‘new way of living’ and I take that to mean those moments when moral concepts fall away and action comes from necessity.
Kant hopes for a secure standpoint settling choices beforehand. Foot reminds us how reasons and virtues matter but we are not given clarity or certainty in advance.
Some decisions only reveal their meaning or implications as they unfold in life.
Kierkegaard thought that life must be lived forward but understood backward. The Daoist tales show that fortune and disaster continually reverse.
Both point to a similar truth. The act creates the world in which it will later be judged.
In that sense, the ‘new way of living’ is the courage to act or leap as Emerson’s exemplar. To stand for something without guarantee.
Very good – you’ve helped me see this even more deeply as a Kantian thought. Provided – and many Kantians would not allow this – we can sidestep the question of whether the cat imp has the force of “ought” that Kant thought it did. We’d also need to distinguish, on Kant’s behalf, two references of “ahead of the act” in regard to universalizability. Kant probably thought we could know, ahead of the act, that there will be a universalizable maxim – or at least I’m not aware of him discussing irresolvable ethical situations. But did he also think we could know that maxim ahead of the act? On my reading, no, he wasn’t saying that. Your Cavellian position would in addition rule out the first reference, I believe – there is no rationality that is “acceptable to everyone.” So that would be a big break from Kant.
Where I really see a fresh Kantian connection, though, is in the phrase “we are answerable to the judgment of all.” I don’t know why I never spotted this before, but such a (very contemporary) articulation of ethical responsibility is clearly coming from Kantian universalization – the same impulse, if not the same analysis.
My points exactly. Of course virtue and ethics are important in this kind of act/event—such as: due consideration, attending to the context, not imposing criteria, etc.—but with the recognition of our duty in acting for everyone, in being cognizant that I will be subject to the judgment of everyone.
My only issues with Foot is that she is picturing reasons as causes (in that they always come before an act, not after, similar to excuses, etc.), and that it is always a matter of motives, which can become an issue of which are good or bad (setting aside the problem of reading them at all). Sometimes assessing our motive is appropriate in judging an act (afterwards), but just not every time, as if a moral act is always about moralizing (judging someone as “moral”, good or bad).
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