Foot Summary

In Foot’s paper, she takes a goddess of the choice viewpoint to her theory of moral action. Foot begins her paper by outlining how Kantians say that moral judgment cannot be a hypothetical imperative and only a categorical imperative. The reasoning behind this conclusion lies in the concept that “should and “ought” in moral contexts are different; a “should” can only be used in statements related to hypothetical imperative and “ought” only apply to statements related to categorical imperatives. However, Foot states that there are rules that use “should” as a hypothetical imperative, rule of etiquette. For example, a person who receives an invitation in the third party should reply back in the third party”. Kantians would not accept this because any “should” statement, including rules of etiquette, are only hypothetical imperatives, and to assume they are categorical is to use such an expression in some other sense (Foot, :56-61). …show more content…
As such, one would not necessarily be immoral or wrong to deny these rules. However, Foot explains that the same could be said for moral judgment; what gives anyone a categorical imperative to follow a moral judgment. The common reply to such questioning, is to say that anyone who does follow a moral judgment is being irrationals, but that Foot also explains that this an illegitimate statement. Foot reasons that if someone decides to not follow a code of conduct, although they agree that to not is to be acting immoral, is being inconsistent and contradicting their own beliefs. This contradictory is what it means to be irrational, that someone chooses ignore their own believes and values because they do not coincide with their desires (Foot, : 56 -