Bernard Williams
Morality cannot be squeezed into a tidy theory – luck shapes what we are blamed for, and our own deepest commitments count.
Placement
Moral luck, integrity and the limits of moral theory.
Key ideas
- Moral luck
- Integrity
- Internal reasons
Students: Miranda Fricker
Influence
Influenced by 3
Aristotle
influenced by
Williams began ethics with Socrates’ question how one should live and examined Aristotle’s attempt to ground ethics in human well-being (Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, 1985). B. Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (1985); Shame and Necessity (1993); SEP “Bernard Williams”
Evidence: AI draft
Aristotle › 384–322 BCE
Friedrich Nietzsche
influenced by ✓
Williams used Nietzsche’s genealogy to explain values through their history, but in vindicating rather than debunking form, for the virtues of truth (Truth and Truthfulness, 2002). B. Williams, Truth and Truthfulness: An Essay in Genealogy (2002); “Nietzsche’s Minimalist Moral Psychology” (1993); SEP “Bernard Williams”
Friedrich Nietzsche › 1844–1900
Ludwig Wittgenstein
influenced by
Williams asked whether Wittgenstein’s later philosophy implies a transcendental idealism of the first-person plural (‘Wittgenstein and Idealism’, 1974) and discussed Wittgensteinian arguments on thick ethical concepts (1985). B. Williams, “Wittgenstein and Idealism” (1974), in Moral Luck (1981); Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (1985); SEP “Bernard Williams”
Evidence: AI draft
Ludwig Wittgenstein › 1889–1951
Influenced 3
Martha Nussbaum
influenced
Nussbaum took up Williams’s ‘moral luck’ and his doubts about systematic moral theory in her study of Greek tragedy and ethics (The Fragility of Goodness, 1986). M. C. Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness (1986); B. Williams, “Moral Luck”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, suppl. 50 (1976)
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Martha Nussbaum › b. 1947
Miranda Fricker taught
taught
Fricker’s Oxford DPhil (1996) was co-supervised by Bernard Williams and Sabina Lovibond; in Epistemic Injustice (2007) she takes up Williams’s genealogical method. M. Fricker, personal website (mirandafricker.com, “About”); M. Fricker, Epistemic Injustice (2007)
Evidence: AI draft
Miranda Fricker › b. 1966
Amia Srinivasan
influenced
Srinivasan asked when genealogies of belief undermine and when they vindicate, a contrast set out in Williams’s Truth and Truthfulness (2002), and introduced ‘genealogical luck’ (2019). A. Srinivasan, “Genealogy, Epistemology and Worldmaking”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 119 (2019); B. Williams, Truth and Truthfulness (2002)
Evidence: AI draft
Amia Srinivasan › b. 1984
Criticism
Criticized by 2
Derek Parfit
criticised by
Parfit rejected Williams’s view that all reasons are internal, grounded in motivations: reasons are given by facts that count in favour of acting (On What Matters, 2011). D. Parfit, “Reasons and Motivation”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, suppl. 71 (1997); On What Matters (2011), vol. 1; B. Williams, “Internal and External Reasons” (1980)
Evidence: AI draft
Derek Parfit › 1942–2017
Christine Korsgaard
criticised by
Korsgaard argued against Williams that motivational scepticism about practical reason depends on content scepticism: if pure practical reason exists, it can motivate (‘Skepticism about Practical Reason’, 1986). C. M. Korsgaard, “Skepticism about Practical Reason”, Journal of Philosophy 83 (1986), 5–25; B. Williams, “Internal and External Reasons” (1980); Williams’s response in Korsgaard, The Sources of Normativity (1996)
Evidence: AI draft
Christine Korsgaard › b. 1952
Criticizes 4
Immanuel Kant
criticised
Williams objected that Kantian impartiality alienates agents from their attachments: a husband rescuing his wife on impartial grounds has ‘one thought too many’ (‘Persons, Character and Morality’, 1976). B. Williams, “Persons, Character and Morality” (1976), in Moral Luck (1981); Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (1985), ch. 10
Evidence: AI draft
Immanuel Kant › 1724–1804
Jeremy Bentham
criticised
Williams argued that utilitarianism as founded by Bentham sums welfare impersonally and leaves no room for agents’ own projects and integrity (Utilitarianism: For and Against, 1973). B. Williams, “A Critique of Utilitarianism”, in J. J. C. Smart & B. Williams, Utilitarianism: For and Against (1973); Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (1985), ch. 5
Evidence: AI draft
Jeremy Bentham › 1748–1832
John Stuart Mill
criticised
Williams’s critique of utilitarianism, aimed chiefly at Smart, extends to Mill’s: it weighs lives impersonally and leaves no place for integrity (Utilitarianism: For and Against, 1973). B. Williams, “A Critique of Utilitarianism”, in J. J. C. Smart & B. Williams, Utilitarianism: For and Against (1973); Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (1985), chs. 5–6
Evidence: AI draft
John Stuart Mill › 1806–1873
J. J. C. Smart
criticised
Answering Smart, Williams argued that utilitarian ‘negative responsibility’ turns agents into channels for the best outcome and attacks their integrity (Utilitarianism: For and Against, 1973). B. Williams, “A Critique of Utilitarianism”, in J. J. C. Smart & B. Williams, Utilitarianism: For and Against (1973), §§ 3–5 (the cases of George and Jim)
Evidence: AI draft
J. J. C. Smart › 1920–2012
Works
Smart defends act utilitarianism, Williams attacks it – with the cases of George the chemist and of Jim, who is asked to shoot one of twenty captives so that the other nineteen go free.
- 1976Moral Luck
Gauguin and the lorry driver: morality also depends on luck.
Against “the morality system” – for thick ethical concepts.
Position
Williams was a sharp sceptic of systematic moral theory. Utilitarianism and Kantianism, he argued, look at action from an impersonal standpoint that ignores what gives human lives their shape: personal projects, attachments and integrity. In his famous case of Jim, who is told that if he shoots one villager the other nineteen will be spared, the point is not that the answer is obvious but that the utilitarian ignores what it means for Jim to do it. With the concept of “moral luck” he showed that our moral assessment depends on factors beyond our control. Williams defended “thick” ethical concepts such as cruelty or courage against thin, abstract notions of “ought.” His later work on truthfulness and Greek ethics broadened this into a historically aware philosophy.
Life & context
Williams was born in Essex in 1929, studied classics and philosophy at Oxford and flew Spitfires in Canada with the Royal Air Force during national service. He taught in London and Cambridge, where he was Knightbridge Professor and Provost of King’s College, then at Berkeley and finally Oxford. He chaired a government committee on obscenity and film censorship and was knighted in 1999.
Further main works
- Shame and Necessity (1993)
- Truth and Truthfulness (2002)
Appears in
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