THIS is a book about four fascinating women, all ferociously clever Oxford-trained philosophers, and each with a different, distinctive view of life.

Philippa Foot, from an aristocratic background, was an atheist. Elizabeth Anscombe was a Roman Catholic convert of the most uncompromising kind. She did her tutorials surrounded by her seven children, taking the view that dirt did not matter. Mary Midgley branched out from a narrow Oxford view of philosophy to focus on animal behaviour and its relationship to human life, not publishing her major books until her sixties. Iris Murdoch was first a Christian and then a Platonist, she, too, enlarging her scope to become one of the best known novelists of the time, meanwhile having intense physical relationships with both men and women.

The book also paints a vivid picture of Oxford just before, during, and after the Second World War, in which women were a tiny minority, and philosophy was dominated by men. So, what were these women up to? Philosophy at the time was dominated by the view that statements about right and wrong had no objective meaning. All they meant was that someone was saying “Hurrah” or “Boo”. A recently returned soldier, R. M. Hare, tried to go beyond this and say that we had to act on principle — for example, in a way that we would want everyone to act — but said we simply had to choose our own principles.

The four women of the book, however, were deeply churned up by what had happened in the concentration camps. They simply could not accept that what happened there was open to approval or disapproval depending on our view of life. It was fundamentally wrong, and only a psychopath would deny this. But how could this be shown to be philosophically convincing?

The early part of the life of all of them, and the whole life of Foot and Anscombe, was dominated by this question. What they challenged was the idea, going back to Hume, that you cannot get an “ought” from an “is”. They pointed out that some language about facts already comes to us imbued with values; it is built into it. Someone who shouts in your face is rude. But, if someone is described as rude because they talked gently to you, it makes no sense.

Similarly, the description of something as dangerous: a narrow path on a clifftop with no railing qualifies. A flat open field with no animals in it does not. In short, a description of something, certain facts about it, already carries value.

At the same time they questioned the fashionable picture of the universe as a series of billiard balls colliding. They wanted to return to a more Aristotelian organic view of life. This would mean seeing human beings developing towards an end, flourishing, with virtues as those qualities that enable us to achieve that end. For those who might be put off by this kind of discussion, the book is more about the lives and relationships of the women than philosophy, and that is explained as clearly as possible.

These four women were all friends, in various stages of closeness throughout their lives. What they shared was a deep sense of seriousness about their work. They found the Oxford philosophy of the time oh-so-clever, but, in the end, trivial. Foot and Anscombe, for example, after a hard morning’s tutorials, would spend the whole afternoon in the common room discussing philosophy with one another.

And this points to the benign spectre in the room. The biggest intellectual influence in my time as a student in Cambridge at the end of the 1950s was Donald MacKinnon, as he was for a range of people, not least Rowan Williams. The stories about his eccentricities are legion, and he did not publish much, but what he conveyed was a deep sense that thinking hard, really hard, about the world, especially the evil in it, really mattered.

MacKinnon, earlier in life, teaching philosophy at Keble, was also the decisive lasting influence on these women; and Foot and Murdoch were probably half in love with him for the rest of their lives.
 

The Rt Revd Lord Harries of Pentregarth is a former Bishop of Oxford, and an Hon. Professor of Theology at King’s College, London. His latest book is Hearing God in Poetry (SPCK, 2021).

The Women Are Up to Something: How Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, Mary Midgley and Iris Murdoch revolutionized ethics
Benjamin J. B. Lipscomb
OUP £20
(978-0-19-754107-4)
Church House Bookshop £18