Abstract

Philippa Foot (1920–2010) is widely regarded as one of the foremost Anglo-American moral philosophers of the twentieth century. Her published work, spanning 50 years, consisted entirely of essays until its culmination in her only monograph, Natural Goodness (2001). Although her work forms, by and large, a coherent whole, subsets of the essays relate to different areas of ethics, in each of which she made a substantial contribution. In applied ethics, most of the essays are on abortion (1967, 1970, 1985). In the first one she famously introduced the trolley problem, one of many examples employed in a subtle discussion of the moral relevance of foreseen consequences involving the death of the innocent. The discussion involves the distinction between killing and letting die – a key feature in all the abortion essays, and also in “Euthanasia” (Foot 1977).