Abstract

In the last section of “Modern Moral Philosophy,” Elizabeth Anscombe puts on display three possible problematic relations to what may be thought of as three different kinds of necessity. The first relation is to pretend not to recognize the necessity that binds description to description in a paradigm case. The second relation is to fail to respond to a more primitive kind of necessity, thereby showing what Anscombe infamously calls “a corrupt mind.” The third relation is sometimes consciously to act, because of a non-virtuous character, against a third kind of necessity, discovered by Aristotle, namely, the necessity of that on whichgood hangs. While the last section of “Modern Moral Philosophy” does not discuss in detail these relations or kinds of necessity, it foreshadows Anscombe’s latertreatment of them.