Name: Natural Goodness
ISBN: 9780199265473

Philippa Foot

In this work, the author's discussion ranges over topics such as practical rationality, erring conscience, and the relation between virtue and happiness, ending with a critique of Nietzsche's immoralism.

Natural Goodness

Tim Vos

If nothing else, perhaps one of the more original views on modern moral philosophy in general and virtue ethics in particular. Widening the scope of the moral, of morality as such, to living things like animals and plants provides a a new way to reach a form of, more or less, provable objective morality. That which is moral is that which follows the goodness of the species of living being as is. A dog is a good dog if it acts and shows those characteristics common to dogs. A three-legged blind dog unable to hunt shows defects and such is an example of a defect dog. Through a series of clear arguments, both found in secondary literature and formed by Foot herself, and possible counter-arguments Foot attempts and mostly succeeds in showing how the goodness of irrational living things like plants or animals is applicable to the rational humans. Recommended for everyone interested in the question of morality and ethics and perhaps philosophy as such.