Philippa Foot
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the most notable philosophers of the 20th century, who explored why it mattered to be moral and why humans needed virtues to flourish.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the most significant philosophers of the twentieth century, Philippa Foot (1920 - 2010). Her central question was, “Why be moral?” Drawing on Aristotle and Aquinas, Foot spent her life working through her instinct that there was something lacking in the prevailing philosophy of the 1950s and 1960s which held that values could only be subjective. Could there really be no objective response to the horrors of the concentration camps that she had seen on newsreels, no way of saying that such acts were morally wrong? Foot developed an ethics based on virtues, in which humans needed virtues to flourish as surely as plants needed light and water. While working through her ideas she explored applied ethics and the difference between doing something and letting it happen, an idea she illustrated with what became The Trolley Problem.
With
Anil Gomes
Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at Trinity College, University of Oxford
Sophie Grace Chappell
Professor of Philosophy at the Open University
And
Rachael Wiseman
Reader in Philosophy at the University of Liverpool
Producer: Simon Tillotson
In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production
Reading list:
Philippa Foot, Virtues and Vices (Oxford University Press, 1978)
Philippa Foot, Moral Dilemmas (Oxford University Press, 2002)
Philippa Foot, Natural Goodness (Oxford University Press, 2001)
John Hacker-Wright, Philippa Foot's Moral Thought (Bloomsbury, 2013)
Benjamin Lipscomb, The Women Are Up To Something (Oxford University Press, 2021)
Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman, Metaphysical Animals: How Four Women Brought Philosophy Back to Life (Chatto, 2022)
Dan Russell (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Virtue Ethics (Cambridge University Press), especially ‘Virtue Ethics in the Twentieth Century’ by Timothy (now Sophie Grace) Chappell
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Guests and related links
Contributors:
- Sophie Grace Chappell of the Open University
- Anil Gomes of the University of Oxford
- Rachael Wiseman of the University of Liverpool
Related links:
‘Philippa Ruth Foot, 1920–2010’ by Rosalind Hursthouse – The British Academy
‘Philippa Foot’ by John Hacker-Wright - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2021 Edition)
‘Philippa Foot’ by Evgenia Mylonaki - Oxford Bibliographies Online
Broadcasts
- Thu 16 May 2024 09:00BBC Radio 4
- Sun 19 May 2024 23:00BBC Radio 4
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From Altruism to Wittgenstein, philosophers, theories and key themes.
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In Our Time
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas, people and events that have shaped our world.