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Human Life, Action and Ethics: Essays by G. E. M. Anscombe

St. Andrews Studies in Philosophy and Public Affairs, Volume 4

Mary Geach and Luke Gormally, Editors

This collection of essays by the celebrated philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe is the first since the publication of three volumes of her papers in 1981. This new collection includes a) articles published subsequent to those volumes and not hitherto gathered, b) previously unpublished papers on human nature and practical philosophy, together with c) the classic essay "Modern Moral Philosophy", and a few otherwise difficult to obtain early pieces such as her Listener article "Does Oxford Moral Philosophy Corrupt the Youth?". The appearance of this volume is a major publishing event.

"The editors and the publishers have done philosophy a great service." -- Alasdair MacIntyre

"The essays reprinted here show the extraordinary originality and great interest of Anscombe’s work in action theory and moral philosophy." -- Philippa Foot

"The late Professor Elizabeth Anscombe was without doubt one of the most distinguished professional philosophers of her generation. She was also a devout Catholic. Anscombe had a powerful intellect, was a disciple and translator of Wittgenstein and, until 1986, occupied the Chair that he once held at Cambridge University. .... We have in this book some products of a powerful mind, prone to occasional inaccuracy, that are especially interesting to Catholics because they are rooted in profound faith." -- Michael Dummett

Table of Contents

  • Preface by Luke Gormally
  • Introduction by Mary Geach

  • Human Life
    • Analytical Philosophy and the Spirituality of Man
    • Has Mankind One Soul: An Angel Distributed Through Many Bodies?
    • Human Essence
    • Were You a Zygote?
    • Embryos and Final Causes
    • Knowledge and Reverence for Human Life
    • The Dignity of the Human Being

  • Action and Practical Reason
    • Chisholm on Action
    • The Causation of Action
    • Practical Inference
    • Practical Truth

  • Ethics
    • Does Oxford Moral Philosophy Corrupt Youth?
    • Modern Moral Philosophy
    • Good and Bad Human Action
    • Action, Intention and 'Double Effect'
    • The Controversy over a New Morality
    • Must One Obey One's Conscience?
    • Glanville Williams' The Sanctity of Life and the Criminal Law: A Review
    • Who is Wronged? Philippa Foot on Double Effect
    • Prolegomenon to a Pursuit of the Definition of Murder: The Illegal and the Unlawful
    • Murder and the Morality of Euthanasia
    • Commentary on John Harris' 'Ethical Problems in the Management of Severely Handicapped Children'
    • Sins of Omission? The Non-Treatment of Controls in Clinical Trials

· ISBN 1-84540-013-5 · Published April 2005 by Imprint Academic · Cloth · 298 pages · $69.90 ·

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Human Life, Action and Ethics · $69.90

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