Philippa Foot on 'the good life'Philippa Foot describes ‘the good life’ in her first book — published in her 80th year
What is ‘the good life’?
Natural Goodness is the long-awaited exposition of a highly original approach to moral philosophy, representing a fundamental break away from the assumptions of recent debates.
Philippa Foot challenges many prominent philosophical arguments and attitudes about goodness and human life. She argues that moral goodness should be understood as the natural flourishing of humans as living beings.
A world away from dry theory and moralizing, the book brings a lifetime of experience to the deepest questions about human life, offering a new beginning for moral philosophy.
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Philippa Foot has for many years been one of the most distinctive and influential thinkers in moral philosophy, contributing a large volume of essays and articles to the discipline. Now in her 80th year she has written her first book.
Griffin Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles, and an Honorary Fellow of Somerville College, Oxford, Philippa Foot is the granddaughter of Grover Cleveland, President of the USA. She was brought up in the UK and educated at Somerville College, and has held academic posts at Oxford, Cornell, Berkeley, MIT, Princeton, New York, and Stanford.
Professor Foot took a prominent role in postwar philosophy. At Oxford during the 1950s and 1960s when it was the philosophical centre of the world, she knew all the leading figures, including Elizabeth Anscombe, Peter Strawson, and R. M. Hare. She moved to the USA around the time when it became the dominant centre in the study of philosophy. She was one of the first women to hold senior positions in philosophy in the USA, where she associated with such leaders of recent philosophy as Donald Davidson and Bernard Williams. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
A founder of Oxfam, she has been instrumental in bringing philosophy to bear on practical issues. Philippa Foot was formerly married to historian M.R.D. Foot. She now lives in Oxford. Her publications include: Theories of Ethics (ed, 1967) and Virtues and Vices (1978).
‘a work of great integrity ... One of the most fascinating ideas in ancient philosophy — that there is a close relation between human happiness and virtue — has been largely neglected in modern philosophy. Philippa Foot revives that idea. Beautifully and economically written ... it will become a classic of modern moral philosophy.’
Roger Crisp
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