This is the second volume of papers by Elizabeth Anscombe to be published since her death in 2001; the first volume, Human Life, Action and Ethics, appeared in 2005. From the twenty-five pieces gathered here we get a detailed picture of Anscombe's thoughts on such topics as faith, miracles, sin, immortality and secularism, and on such ‘concrete’ issues as contraception, abortion, nuclear weapons, simony and usury. Anscombe also shows herself to be a very informed and clear-headed, as well as original, theologian: there are some fascinating discussions of parts of the Bible, and of later Christian texts and teachings.
Many of the papers were originally written with Catholic audiences in mind, but their importance, for philosophy and for the wider culture, will be evident to Catholics and non-Catholics alike. This even goes for those which deal explicitly with questions of Catholic doctrine, or with concepts that belong in a religious setting; for of course such questions and concepts are frequently philosophical in nature.
A good example is the concept of prophecy. In ‘Prophecy and Miracles’, Anscombe considers what could count as the fulfilment of a prophecy:
‘…in order to say “This was predicted, and it happened” we have to judge that the thing that happened, not merely was describable in the words occurring in the prediction, but was what was predicted: otherwise “fulfilment” equals “applicability of these words”; and can't this just be an accident?' (29)
This connects with an asymmetry between past and future; and it leads on to a further point about the intelligibility of prophetical utterances:
‘…of the many, many utterances we might make now about the present or the past, which have a good sharp sense, by far the greater number would look hopelessly obscure if said earlier, of the future: even ones with proper names: e.g. “Suez was unnavigable for sunken ships”: we all know what that means; “Suez will be unnavigable for sunken ships” as a prophetical utterance written in 1850, would have been hopelessly unintelligible.’ (31)
Anscombe proceeds to draw out further implications, ones that impinge both on the philosophy of time and on epistemology. The latter is a field to which she is perhaps not often thought of as being much of a contributor, but her discussions of testimony, trust, faith and related issues show Anscombe at her thought-provoking best.
The topics of intention, voluntariness and responsibility, by contrast, are readily associated with Anscombe's name. Anyone interested in her thoughts on these topics ought to read the relevant articles in this volume – as ought anyone interested in the topics themselves. Take the questions of culpable ignorance and culpable ‘not-thinking’. In Essay 3, Anscombe approaches these issues via that of culpable omission, and writes that
‘…if [a] man could have and ought to have done such-and-such a voluntary action, the failure to do it will also be voluntary […] Only if some necessary condition of his doing it is lacking and the lack itself is not voluntary, will his failure be non-voluntary […] Now an essential condition of acting is that you have an idea of doing such-and-such, and an essential condition of acting with a further intention is that you have an idea of such-and-such as your objective.' (110)
If the idea didn't occur to you that what you were doing could break up a marriage, then people may say to you: ‘You ought to have thought of that!' But for this statement to have force, your not having thought of the marriage-endangering aspect of your actions must in some sense be voluntary; otherwise, the actions themselves couldn't count as voluntary, under the description marriage-endangering. It turns out that one's responsibility for a not-doing must be different in kind from one's responsibility for a not-thinking. The principle stated by the last sentence of the above quotation can't be applied to thinkings, for ‘[i]t cannot be necessary to have an idea of having an idea in order to have the latter idea'. What the responsibility for a not-thinking does then amount to is meat for further philosophical chewing.
The above passage comes from ‘On Being in Good Faith', which dates from around the same time as Intention. And there is much illumination to be had from the light that is cast on that work by this article, among others (as also from the light cast back on the articles by the book). Something similar goes for a well-known piece like ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’; I have in mind especially what Anscombe has to say about what is often called negative responsibility. One of her criticisms, in ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’, of what she there termed consequentialism, was its inflated notion of personal responsibility, such that one is as responsible for knowingly not preventing X as one is for knowingly causing X. In this connection, I can't resist quoting her quip about the ‘schoolboy who said that pins saved millions of lives every year by not getting swallowed' (109) – as quips go, rather a deep one: after all, if I can be cited as a contributory cause of any death that I fail to prevent, shouldn't my not killing somebody be called ‘saving his life’? The notion of cause implicit in the first, consequentialist claim is a simple counterfactual one (‘If it hadn't been the case that p, it wouldn't have been the case that q’); but that is the notion being used in the latter claim, and by our imaginary schoolboy. If it weren't for the fact that I didn't kill my brother yesterday, the lucky fellow wouldn't be alive today!
But what is interesting about her discussion of negative responsibility, e.g. in ‘On Being in Good Faith’ and in her set of McGivney Lectures (‘Sin’), is that Anscombe is very far from limiting personal responsibility, either to what one intends, or even to what one actually knows about. One of her objects of attack is an idea that she says was (is?) prevalent among Catholic thinkers, namely that ‘it is impossible to sin mortally without full knowledge and full consent’ (101). Oh yes it is possible, says Anscombe; and – through a consideration of the concepts of knowledge, consent, etc. – she arrives at a position closer than might have been predicted to that of a consequentialist as far as the extent of personal responsibility goes.
‘The calloused conscience, in a grown-up who never thinks seriously about God and sin, is extremely usual and is probably itself an indication of a state of mortal sin. The alternative would be a permanently childish mind that had never seen any light.’ (153–4)
The habit of not thinking about things that ought to be thought about, and which are in plain view, as it were, is a habit that Anscombe clearly sensed lay at the bottom of much general acquiescence in awful practices. Such not-thinking often leads to a lack of knowledge; so in general the latter cannot be guaranteed to exculpate.
The ‘calloused conscience’ is again arraigned in the most impassioned piece in this collection, ‘Simony in Africa’, where it appears as ‘the leathery consciences of these simoniacs’. Anscombe here takes a look at the practice, reported as going on in Africa in the 1960s and '70s, of Catholic priests requiring payment as a condition for performing baptisms. The ethical fruits of her work on intention are once again apparent:
‘If you voluntarily do a certain thing, such as receiving money, it is the whole context that fixes and determines the further description of the kind of act you are performing. It is no use for a politician accused of corruption to say that such and such monies were paid or gifts made just as a mark of friendship: the judge, if the circumstances are appropriate, will see that the transaction is a bribe.’ (243)
Another nail in the coffin of intentions as inner acts; and a down-to-earth condemnation of a common species of bad faith.
Many readers of Anscombe have, I think, felt short-changed when it comes to such a question as: ‘What should I do, if the only way to prevent a Nazi victory is by killing an innocent person?’ In ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’ she was famously brisk and brutal about the habit of asking such questions, and in that article was mainly concerned to point out that many of the stock examples are unrealistic about available choices, in a way that muffles (and even corrupts) thought, rather than clarifying it. In ‘Two Moral Theologians’, however – a study of the writings of Arthur Vermeersch and Bruno Schüller – Anscombe addresses the topic of ‘moral dilemmas’ more directly. She writes:
‘That if you can see no possibility except to give some information you must not give, or to lie, you will do better to lie than, say, to betray the unjustly persecuted fugitive – this is sufficiently obvious…’ (163)
But she takes the fact that a person can't see a way out of such dilemmas as indicating his imperfection; for it remains true that to lie is sinful. Of the question whether in such cases it is possible to ‘avoid any sin at all’, she says: ‘…the truth is: you might not be good enough to do that’. And to say that one should lie-rather-than-betray is not to say that one should (here) lie, simplement (164). The distinction between a reason to do X and a reason to do X rather than Y will be familiar to those acquainted with Anscombe's ‘Who is Wronged? Philippa Foot on Double Effect’ (reprinted in Human Life, Action and Ethics). In the latter article it is invoked to show how one may not be responsible for something; in ‘Two Moral Theologians’ it is invoked to opposite effect.
Perhaps a moral dilemma is a situation where whatever you do you end up spoiling your life, leaving a blot on it. It isn't so clear that being, or acting, in such a situation implies any imperfection of character: why must it be a question of a person's not being good enough to see how to avoid sin? Anscombe herself says of the lying/betraying case: ‘…you may not have time or cleverness to find out a better possibility’ (164). Could the ‘cleverness’ she refers to be something to be expected of any grown-up who had reflected enough on things? – a part of phronesis, and so a part of human goodness? That would surely need arguing.
The logic of ‘ought’ is relevant to these issues. It is something Anscombe examines in the third of her McGivney lectures. She writes:
‘…sometimes the same thing both ought to be and ought not to be. For the people ought not to do the bad actions. But you cannot say that they ought not to happen, because they are well and wisely permitted by God if without God's permission they could not happen.’ (145)
The actions she is talking about are such things as Adam's first disobedience and the crucifying of Christ. But her general point has application beyond the issue of what God permits: it seems possible to say (a) that the many brain injuries incurred during the First World War couldn't have happened without considerable human wickedness somewhere, and (b) the resulting advances in neurology couldn't have been otherwise made, except through human wickedness (using human subjects). Was it good that there were so many brain lesions available for study? Yes and also no. True, I have asked ‘Was it good?’, not ‘Ought it to have been?’ But this is because I am not sure of the sense of the latter form of question; in fact I think it's rather interesting that Anscombe should have found it unexceptionable.
There are so many good things in this book. The editors have done a fine job; and there is a very interesting Introduction by Mary Geach (Anscombe's daughter), and an informative Preface by Luke Gormally (her son-in-law). Some readers will be shocked by Anscombe's characteristic pungency, as by her un-modern views. To them I would say: ‘If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. But you'll miss a very nutritious meal if you do.’
