The problem I am going to discuss here concerns practical rationality, rationality not in thought but in action. More particularly, I am going to discuss the rationality, or absence of rationality (even, as one might put it, the contra-rationality or irrationality) of moral action. And ‘moral action’ shall mean here something done by someone who (let us suppose rightly) believes that to act otherwise would be contrary to, say, justice or charity; or again not done because it is thought that it would be unjust or uncharitable to do it. The question is whether in so acting, or refusing to act, this person will be acting rationally, even in cases where he or she believes that not only desire but self-interest would argue in favour of the wrongdoing.

'Moral Dilemmas' is the second volume of collected essays by the eminent moral philosopher Philippa Foot. It fills the gap between her famous 1978 collection 'Virtues and Vices' and her acclaimed monograph 'Natural Goodness', published in 2001. 'Moral Dilemmas' presents the best of Professor Foot's work from the late 1970s to the 1990s. In these essays she develops further her influential critique of the 'noncognitivist' approaches that have dominated moral philosophy over the last fifty years.

Foot stands out among contemporary ethical theorists because of her conviction that virtues and vices are more central ethical notions than rights, duties...or consequences--the primary focus of most other contemporary theorists. This volume brings together a dozen essays published between 1957 and 1977, and includes two new ones as well. In the first, Foot argues explicitly for an ethic of virtue, and in the next five discusses abortion, euthanasia, free will/determinism, and the ethics of Hume and Nietzsche. The final eight essays chart her growing disenchantment with emotivism and prescriptism and their account of moral arguments.

It is argued in favor of (1) the unity of "ought"--there is no rational vs. moral "ought," (2) practical rationality as based on good reasons, (3) a structural understanding of rationality.

Philippa foot has argued that negative duty in general takes precedence over positive duty, where negative duty is duty not to harm and positive duty is duty to bring aid, and suggests that such a distinction is at least as helpful in all cases of duty conflict as the doctrine of double effect and is even more helpful in some cases. She has applied the distinction to a series of differing abortion cases. I examine her application of her distinction and argue that the problem of how close imminent death must be, even "inevitable" imminent death, before our negative duty is absolved is unsolved in her application. This hitch is as troublesome as the difficulty dde supporters have in establishing a criterion with which to distinguish consequences of strict intentions from merely foreseeable consequences.

This Article Examines The Alleged Distinction Between Moral Judgements And Hypothetical Imperatives. It Is Suggested That What We Really Find Is A Different Distinction, Viz Between Uses Of 'Ought' Which Are And Those Which Are Not Dependent On The Subject's Interests Or Desires. The Moral Use Of 'Ought' Is In This Sense 'Non-Hypothetical', But This Makes It Like The 'Ought' Of Etiquette, Club Rules Etc. Attempts To Explain The Special 'Categorical' Status Of Moral Judgements Are Examined And Rejected. Moral Judgements Have No Automatic Reason-Giving Force, And No Necessity. In So Far As They Give Reasons For Action Only For One With Particular Desires Or Interests They May Be Counted As Hypothetical Imperatives.