Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe
1919-2001 · Analytic Ethics · Prominent
Anscombe was a Catholic philosopher who studied under Wittgenstein and put his Philosophical Investigations into English. When Oxford moved to give Truman an honorary degree, she stood up and called him a murderer for ordering the killing of civilians. She coined the word consequentialism to name the view she was refusing, and held that moral obligation loses its sense once the divine lawgiver is gone.
Signature
The position Anscombe is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Ethics
- strongly leans Means
- Ethics Basis
- Intention / Divine Command
Positions on the 15 axes the sources answer
- Natural Processes
- leans Purposeful (75 on a 0–100 scale from Mechanistic to Purposeful)
- Society
- mildly leans Collectivism (31 on a 0–100 scale from Collectivism to Individualism)
- The Divine
- mildly leans Describable (34 on a 0–100 scale from Describable to Indescribable)
- Universals
- leans Realism (25 on a 0–100 scale from Realism to Nominalism)
- Meaning
- leans Inherent (84 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Order
- mildly leans Vertical (34 on a 0–100 scale from Vertical to Horizontal)
- Ground of Being
- leans Transcendence (84 on a 0–100 scale from Immanence to Transcendence)
- Truth
- strongly leans Objective (97 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Nature
- mildly leans Harmony (66 on a 0–100 scale from Mastery to Harmony)
- Polity
- mildly leans Illiberalism (34 on a 0–100 scale from Illiberalism to Liberalism)
- Ethics
- strongly leans Means (97 on a 0–100 scale from Ends to Means)
- War
- mildly between Pacifism and Militarism (50 on a 0–100 scale from Pacifism to Militarism)
- Ignorance
- leans Bondage (12 on a 0–100 scale from Bondage to Bliss)
- Conviction
- mildly leans Certain (66 on a 0–100 scale from Uncertain to Certain)
- Allegiance
- mildly between Local and Global (41 on a 0–100 scale from Local to Global)
5 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Anscombe refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Trinitarian Monotheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Highest Good
- Virtue
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Moral Realism
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - Knowledge
- Phronesis
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Intention / Divine Command
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Libertarian Free Will
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Beginning of Things
- Creation ex Nihilo
What is the origin of reality? - Authority
- Divine Revelation / Sacred Tradition
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Language
- Language-Game
What is the fundamental nature of language? - Law
- Divine Law / Natural Law
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Death
- Judgement
What happens at death? - Human Nature
- Imago Dei
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- The Divine
What is your primary bond and loyalty?