# Furthering Philippa Foot **URL:** \ **Category:** Ethics\ **Created:** [June 15, 2026, 10:56pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/furthering-philippa-foot/1367 "2026-06-15T22:56:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 174
**Author:** ![Banno](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/www.thephilosophyforum.com/banno/32/55_2.png) [@Banno](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Banno)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2026, 10:06pm UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/furthering-philippa-foot/1367/174 "2026-06-19T22:06:08Z")
> [@TheEudemian](#): > > This is actually weirder than I thought when typing that out, because if n-ordering of properties is such that the nth-order property is of the n-1 order properties then it just logically follows that you could reduce any given n-order property down to the first-order properties; and since first-order properties have to be natural (in the sense of being intrinsic), then it follows all n-order properties are reducible to natural properties. Ok, this is going to get a bit complicated. Again, the trouble is that “natural property” is ill-defined. So to be sure, there are second-order properties that we might call natural properties; temperature, the mean kinetic energy of a body, might be considered such a property. Say we have a gas, we supposedly measure the velocity and mass of every particle and average these, giving us a temperature. The temperature does not belong to any one particle, but to the body they comprise. But that is a different type of order to a second order predicate logic. Temperature reduces because of the relation of parts to a whole. It is no more than a statistical aggregate. Your argument would apply to such cases. But reconsider money. No collection of facts about the coin will give its monetary value. We need in addition a statement giving that value, “Such coin counts as a dollar for the purposes of monetary exchange”. This is again a second-order property, but one that is not reducible. Now being obligatory or permissible are different again, since they are not reducible and are also not always the result of stipulation. In addition there is the difference, being addressed in the thread on [https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/foot-morality-as-a-system-of-hypothetical-imperatives/](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/foot-morality-as-a-system-of-hypothetical-imperatives/1401/6), between hypothetical and categorical imperatives. The cleanest account is that of deontic logic. Op and Pp treat O (“it is obligatory that p” and “it is permissible that p”) as second order predicates, irreducible to the first order. --- _[View the full topic](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/furthering-philippa-foot/1367)._