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Elizabeth Anscombe

G. E. M. Anscombe was a British philosopher, born in Limerick, who studied with Wittgenstein, translated his Philosophical Investigations, and later held his former…

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Also known as G. E. M. Anscombe, Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe

1919 – 2001 · Limerick; Oxford; Cambridge

Traditions: Analytic

Schools: Virtue ethics (modern)

G. E. M. Anscombe was a British philosopher, born in Limerick, who studied with Wittgenstein, translated his Philosophical Investigations, and later held his former chair at Cambridge. Her book Intention reshaped the philosophy of action, and her essay 'Modern Moral Philosophy' attacked talk of moral obligation detached from a divine lawgiver, helping revive virtue ethics. She also argued that deliberately killing the innocent is murder, and that causation can be observed.

Key ideas

  • Intentional actions are those, known without observation, to which a certain sense of the question 'Why?' applies, asking for the agent's reasons.
  • Moral 'ought' without a lawgiver is a survival from an abandoned framework; ethics needs moral psychology and the virtues.
  • Deliberately killing the innocent, as a means or an end, is always murder.
  • Causation need not involve necessity or universal laws, and can be perceived.

Major works

  • Mr Truman's Degree (pamphlet)
  • Intention (1957)
  • "Modern Moral Philosophy" (1958)
  • Causality and Determination (1971)

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