"You can argue truly enough, for example, that general respect for the prohibition on murder makes life more commodious. If people really respect the prohibition against murder life is pleasanter for all of us - but this argument is exceedingly comic. Because utility presupposes the life of those who are to be convenienced, and everybody perceives quite clearly that the wrong done in murder is done first and foremost to the victim, whose life is not inconvenienced, it just isn't there any more. He isn't there to complain; so the utilitarian argument has to be on behalf of the rest of us. Therefore, though true, it is highly comic and is not the foundation: the objection to murder is supra-utilitarian."
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Philosophers from EnglandPhilosophers from IrelandUniversity of Oxford facultyUniversity of Oxford alumniCatholics from Ireland
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G. E. M. Anscombe
G. E. M. Anscombe (18 March 1919 – 5 January 2001), born Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe, and also known as Elizabeth Anscombe, was an Irish-born British analytic philosopher. A student of Ludwig Wittgenstein, she became an authority on his work, and edited and translated many books drawn from his writings, above all his Philosophical Investigations. She wrote on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of action, philosophical logic, philosophy of language, and ethics. Her monograph Intention (1
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