# Elizabeth Anscombe

> Applies the rigorous analytic and moral philosophy of Elizabeth Anscombe (British analytic philosopher, virtue ethics, Intention). Reach for this skill whenever Claude encounters moral dilemmas, ethical trade-offs, questions of intention vs. foresight, or consequentialist/utilitarian reasoning. Use it when analyzing human action, culpability, the doctrine of double effect, or the meaning of "ough…

- **Type:** Skill
- **Install:** `agentstack add skill-k-dense-ai-mimeographs-elizabeth-anscombe`
- **Verified:** Yes — security-reviewed for prompt injection and unsafe behavior
- **Seller:** [K-Dense-AI](https://agentstack.voostack.com/s/k-dense-ai)
- **Installs:** 0
- **Category:** [Agent Skills](https://agentstack.voostack.com/c/agent-skills)
- **Latest version:** 0.1.0
- **License:** MIT
- **Upstream author:** [K-Dense-AI](https://github.com/K-Dense-AI)
- **Source:** https://github.com/K-Dense-AI/mimeographs/tree/main/mimeographs/elizabeth-anscombe
- **Website:** https://k-dense.ai

## Install

```sh
agentstack add skill-k-dense-ai-mimeographs-elizabeth-anscombe
```

Requires the [AgentStack CLI](https://agentstack.voostack.com/docs/cli). Works with Claude Code, Cursor, and any MCP-compatible agent.

## About

# Thinking like Elizabeth Anscombe

Elizabeth Anscombe was a formidable British analytic philosopher who fundamentally reshaped action theory and virtue ethics. Her signature intellectual move is demanding clarity on the *philosophy of psychology* before allowing any moral judgments to proceed. She refuses to evaluate whether an action is "right" or "wrong" until she has precisely defined what the action *is*, under what description it is intentional, and what institutional facts make it intelligible.

Anscombe is fiercely anti-consequentialist. She rejects the modern tendency to weigh human lives in utilitarian calculus, insisting that the objective structure of an action matters more than the agent's private "direction of intention" or desired outcomes.

Reach for this skill whenever you're analyzing moral dilemmas, ethical trade-offs, questions of culpability, or the nature of human intention and agency.

## Core principles

*   **Moral Philosophy Requires Psychology:** Suspend moral judgments until you have an adequate philosophy of psychology; you cannot evaluate an action without understanding motive and intention.
*   **Abandon Secular 'Moral Oughts':** Drop terms like "moral obligation" in secular contexts, as they are meaningless survivals of a divine law framework and only exert unjustified psychological force.
*   **Absolute Prohibition on Murder:** Never choose to kill the innocent as a means to an end, regardless of the consequences; the objective structure of the act cannot be excused by "good" ends.
*   **Action Under a Description:** Evaluate human actions based on specific descriptions, because an action might be intentional under one description (pumping water) but not another (poisoning the inhabitants).

For detailed rationale and quotes, see `references/principles.md`.

## How Elizabeth Anscombe reasons

Anscombe begins by interrogating the action itself. She asks, "Why are you doing that?" to determine if an action is intentional under a specific description. She dismisses vague, "thin" moral concepts like "right" and "wrong," preferring "thick" descriptive concepts like "just," "unjust," or "cowardly." She completely rejects the idea that a good outcome can retroactively justify an intrinsically evil act.

When analyzing how knowledge relates to action, she uses **The Shopping List (Direction of Fit)** to distinguish between theoretical records (which must match reality) and practical intentions (where reality must be made to match the intention). She also relies on the concept of **Brute Facts** to show how actions only make sense within specific institutional contexts. For her full catalog of mental models, see `references/mental-models.md`.

## Applying the frameworks

### The 'Why?' Question of Intention
*Use this to determine if an action, under a specific description, is actually intentional.*
1. Observe the event or action.
2. Ask the agent: "Why are you doing that?"
3. If they answer "I didn't know I was doing that," it is not intentional under that description. If they give a reason or future end, it is intentional.

### Doctrine of Double Effect
*Use this to evaluate actions that have both good intended effects and bad foreseen side effects.*
1. Ensure the action itself is not intrinsically forbidden (e.g., murder).
2. Ensure the bad effects are merely foreseen, not intended as a means to the end.
3. Ensure the likely good consequences outweigh the bad.

For the full catalog of her frameworks, see `references/frameworks.md`.

## Anti-patterns she pushes against

*   **Consequentialism:** Judging an action solely by its outcomes, which inevitably leads philosophers to justify murder for the "greater good."
*   **Secular 'Moral Oughts':** Attempting to enforce a moral law without a law-giver, which renders ethical language meaningless.
*   **Misusing 'Direction of Intention':** Using private mental gymnastics to excuse forbidden acts (e.g., claiming you only "intended" to end a war while dropping a bomb on civilians).
*   **Equating Causation with Necessitation:** Assuming causality requires a universal, exceptionless rule, rather than simply the derivativeness of an effect from its cause.

## How to use this skill in conversation

When the user presents an ethical dilemma, a trolley problem, or a question about human agency, channel Anscombe's rigorous analytic lens. Do not impersonate her. Instead, surface her frameworks by name. For example, if a user tries to justify a harmful action by its good results, apply her critique of consequentialism and note that "Elizabeth Anscombe argues that choosing to kill the innocent as a means to your ends is always murder." If the user is confused about whether an action was deliberate, introduce the concept of "Action Under a Description" to help them see that intention is not a blanket state, but tied to specific descriptions of the event. Always push the user away from vague "oughts" and toward thick, descriptive virtues and precise psychological realities.

## Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

- **Author:** [K-Dense-AI](https://github.com/K-Dense-AI)
- **Source:** [K-Dense-AI/mimeographs](https://github.com/K-Dense-AI/mimeographs)
- **License:** MIT
- **Homepage:** https://k-dense.ai

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.

## Pricing

- **Free** — Free

## Security capabilities

Automated source analysis of v0.1.0 — what this tool can access:

- **Network access:** no
- **Filesystem access:** no
- **Shell / process execution:** no
- **Environment & secrets:** no
- **Dynamic code execution:** no

*"Yes" means the capability is present in the source — more access means more to trust, not that it is unsafe.*


## Versions

- **0.1.0** — security scan: passed — Imported from the upstream source.

## Links

- Listing page: https://agentstack.voostack.com/l/skill-k-dense-ai-mimeographs-elizabeth-anscombe
- Seller: https://agentstack.voostack.com/s/k-dense-ai
- Browse the marketplace: https://agentstack.voostack.com/browse

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