The Collected Philosophical papers

"She was by far the most formidable woman philosopher of the 20th century. She was a disciple of Wittgenstein and she translated his books from German into English and was very instrumental in us all getting to know his work. She was a very high-powered moral philosopher but she also became a Roman Catholic. There is one essay in this book in which she says that if you don’t believe in the commands of God then you have no business as a moralist to talk about duties or what people must or must not do. There can’t be any commands except the commands of God. I think that is total nonsense, but it is extraordinarily powerfully argued and one must respect the kind of relentless logic with which she argues that the concept of duty cannot exist without the authority of God who commands it. I think everybody ought to read it and see how impressed or not impressed they are. My own view of what one ought to do comes from what human beings need, but that is not her view. Yes, but I think it’s more of a danger for religions than for people who don’t accept any religious dogma. I think religious people are very much at risk of saying: We know by revelation that this is what is right. They are not subject to the consideration of whether people are harmed, damaged by the consequences. A telling example is the attitude of the Roman Catholic church to contraceptives. You only have to look at any country plagued by AIDS to see that Catholic dogma is appallingly damaging and there is no moral justification for this, only a dogmatic religious justification. That seems to me to demonstrate the appalling dangers of the arbitrariness of being able to hear the commands of God. An obvious example would be the theocracy of Iran that believes that adultery must be punished by stoning to death. There is nothing humanly intelligible in that decree. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . I think this can be a consequence of religion, but it shouldn’t be. In Christianity the commands of God were supposed to include everybody."