A collection of essays by the celebrated philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe. This collection includes papers on human nature and practical philosophy, together with the classic 'Modern Moral Philosophy'

A collection of essays by the celebrated philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe. This collection includes papers on human nature and practical philosophy, together with the classic 'Modern Moral Philosophy'

Elizabeth Anscombe's forthright philosophy speaks directly to many religious and ethical issues of current concern.This collection of her essays forms a companion volume to the critically acclaimed Human Life, Action and Ethics, published in 2005.

*A rigorous philosophical analysis of some of the most disputed questions in Catholic sexual ethics*

Any sound practical philosophy must be clear on practical concepts—concepts, in particular, of life, action, and practice. This clarity is Michael Thompson’s aim in his ambitious work. In Thompson’s view, failure to comprehend the structures of thought and judgment expressed in these concepts has disfigured modern moral philosophy, rendering it incapable of addressing the larger questions that should be its focus. In three investigations, Thompson considers life, action, and practice successively, attempting to exhibit these interrelated concepts as pure categories of thought, and to show how a proper exposition of them must be Aristotelian in character. He contends that the pure character of these categories, and the Aristotelian forms of reflection necessary to grasp them, are systematically obscured by modern theoretical philosophy, which thus blocks the way to the renewal of practical philosophy. His work recovers the possibility, within the tradition of analytic philosophy, of hazarding powerful generalities, and of focusing on the larger issues—like “life”—that have the power to revive philosophy. As an attempt to relocate crucial concepts from moral philosophy and the theory of action into what might be called the metaphysics of life, this original work promises to reconfigure a whole sector of philosophy. It is a work that any student of contemporary philosophy must grapple with.

At the centre of our ethical thought stands the human being. Roger Teichmann examines the ways in which facts about human nature determine the shape of ethical concepts such as rationality, virtue, and happiness. He argues that only by attending to the social and empirical character of language use can we address a number of problems in ethics.