Transcript Bernard Williams

1. Administrative / Review
2. Clicker Quiz
3. Williams
1.If MMP fails, then a virtueoriented approach is the way
moral philosophy ought to be
developed.
2.MMP fails.
 Psychology
 Ought & Duty
 Consequentialism
3.Therefore, a virtue-oriented
approach is the way moral
philosophy ought to be
developed.
Williams Quote
“. . . it is not hard to see that in
George’s case, viewed from this
perspective, the utilitarian solution
would be wrong. Jim’s case is
different, and harder . . . One question
here would be how far one’s powerful
objection to killing people just is, in
fact, an application of a powerful
objection to their being killed.
Another dimension of that is the issue
of how much it matters that the
people at risk are actual, and there, as
opposed to hypothetical, or future, or
merely elsewhere.”
Questions
1.
2.
3.
Williams is relying on a distinction
between the utilitarian way of looking at
situations and another very different
point of view from which we might
analyze their moral features. What is this
alternative perspective and how is it
importantly different from the utilitarian
perspective?
Why does Williams think that it is clear
from this other, non-utilitarian
perspective that George should not take
the job?
Why does Williams think that deciding
what Jim should do from this other
perspective is much more difficult than
determining what George ought to do
from this moral framework?
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A. no one is ever responsible
for their actions.
B. I am as responsible for
what I allow or fail to
prevent as for what I
myself bring about.
C. our only responsibilities
are to refrain from
harming others.
D. responsibility for one’s
actions is to be avoided
whenever possible.
E. none of the above.
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A. too broad to exclude
anything.
B. too narrow for
utilitarians to accept.
C. incoherent.
D. a central claim of
nonconsequentialist
approaches to ethics.
E. none of the above.
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A. clearly yields the wrong
verdicts.
B. gives the right verdicts
for the right reasons.
C. provides no verdict at
all.
D. might yield the right
verdicts, but for the
wrong reasons
E. none of the above.
 Utilitarianism
 Kantian Ethics
Main Point
Williams objects that the impartiality
of such ethical theories is too
separate from particular others, and
moral agency.
Wider Examples
 “One thought too many”
 “One thought too few”
 The complaint is that modern
moral theories, such as
utilitarianism, have a blind spot to
an important set of ethical
concerns.
Consequentialism &
Nonconsequentialism


Consequentialists hold that “the right action
is that which out of the actions available to
the agent brings about or represents the
highest degree of whatever it is the system in
question regards as intrinsically valuable—in
the central case, utilitarianism, this is of
course happiness.”
Nonconsequentialists hold that sometimes
the right action produces a state of affairs
that is worse than would be produced by an
alternative action.
Negative Responsibility
For consequentialists, what matters is
not how my action brings about some
consequences, but simply which
consequences it brings about.
NEGATIVE RESPONSIBILITY
“If I am ever responsible for anything,
then I must be just as much
responsible for things that I allow or
fail to prevent, as I am for things that
I myself, in the more everyday
restricted sense, bring about.”
Consequentialism
• Value is a certain state of
affairs being a consequence
of what I do …
• Relation to something being
a "consequence" of my
“actions” is quite broad …
• Leads to doctrine of negative
responsibility …
George is a poor chemist
looking for a job. He
opposes chemical and
biological warfare. He is
offered a job in a lab that
researches chemical and
biological warfare. If he
does not take the job,
someone else with
tremendous zeal for
chemical warfare will take
the job. What should he
do?
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A.Strongly Agree
B.Agree
C.Somewhat Agree
D.Neutral
E. Somewhat Disagree
F. Disagree
G.Strongly Disagree
Jim comes across 20
innocent prisoners about
to be executed. Their
captor says that if Jim will
shoot one of the
prisoners, he will let the
rest of them go free. Jim
dislikes this idea, but the
prisoners are begging him
to accept. What should he
do?
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A.Strongly Agree
B.Agree
C.Somewhat Agree
D.Neutral
E. Somewhat Disagree
F. Disagree
G.Strongly Disagree
Utilitarianism
“Take the job; kill the Indian”
Williams objects
What matters is not just a
question of the rightness of the
answers, but of what sorts of
considerations are taken as
relevant for the agent.
Common element of cases: If the agent does not
do some disagreeable thing, others will, and
the results will be worse
Utilitarianism
“Take the job; kill the Indian”
Williams objects
Utilitarianism fails to appreciate
“the idea, as we might first and
very simply put it, that each of us
is specially responsible for what
he does, rather than for what
other people do. This is an idea
closely connected with the value
of integrity.”
Common element of cases: If the agent does not
do some disagreeable thing, others will, and
the results will be worse
Utilitarianism and Integrity


All of us have projects and
commitments with which
we deeply identify.
To ask someone to set these
aside and act so as to
maximize overall goodness
“is to alienate him in a real
sense from his actions and
the source of his action in
his own convictions. . . . It
is, in the most literal sense,
an attack on his integrity.”
What is Integrity?
• Classical Sense: “psychic
wholeness”; a state of
undividedness; a unified
sense of self.
• Related Sense: To have
“integrity” is to stand by one’s
deepest commitments.
Utilitarianism and Integrity


All of us have projects and
commitments with which
we deeply identify.
To ask someone to set these
aside and act so as to
maximize overall goodness
“is to alienate him in a real
sense from his actions and
the source of his action in
his own convictions. . . . It
is, in the most literal sense,
an attack on his integrity.”
1. Alienation from moral
feelings
2. Alienation from actions
(and projects, etc.)
A Utilitarian Counter-Argument
Squeamishness
“There is a powerful and
recognizable appeal that can be
made … that a refusal by Jim to
do what he has been invited to
do would be a kind of
selfindulgent squeamishness.”
The suggestion is that we should
resist anti-utilitarianism
sentiments.
Williams’ Reply: Alienation from
Moral Feelings
“The reason why the squeamishness
appeal can be very unsettling … is …
that we … cannot regard our moral
feelings merely as objects of utilitarian
value. Because our moral relation to
the world is partly given by such
feelings, and by a sense of what we
can or cannot ‘live with’, to come to
regard those feelings from a purely
utilitarian point of view, that is, as
happenings outside one’s moral self, is
to lose a sense of one’s moral identity;
to lose, in the most literal way, one’s
integrity.”
Problems for Utilitarian Agents
A utilitarian agent must regard
his own projects/commitments
as just “one among others.”
Projects of others can, to an
objectionable extent, determine
his decisions:
a)
Positively, if there are
harmless projects within his
causal field which he can
assist.
b) Negatively, if there are
harmful projects within his
causal field which he can
thwart
Utilitarianism does not recognize
the importance of a person's own
projects and commitments in
shaping his life and giving it
meaning.
It is absurd to ask a man to
abandon his deepest
commitments whenever the
utility network points to another
decision as "optimific.”
This alienates him from his
actions and his own convictions.
Rick’s Choice
“In the film Casablanca the expatriate
adventurer Rick (played by Humphrey
Bogart) gives up the love of his life
because of her importance to another
man. Although she loves this other
man less, she sustains him in his
crucial work as a leader of the antifascist resistance.
“In explaining his decision, Rick says
that in the world they face, it’s easy to
see that their private concerns do not
amount “to a hill of beans” and that
their love must yield to larger and
weightier concerns.”
(Shaw 1999, 277)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEWaqUVac3M&feature=related
Rick’s Choice
“No matter how central our projects
are to us, circumstances can compel
us to subordinate them to the greater
good. … Williams’ writings
sometimes seem to imply that Rick
made the wrong choice by putting
aside what was of greatest importance
to him in order to advance the greater
well-being of others. But this position,
which smacks of egoism, is too
extreme to be credible.”
(Shaw 1999, 277)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEWaqUVac3M&feature=related
“These sorts of considerations do not
in themselves give solutions to
practical dilemmas such as those
provided by our examples; but I hope
they help to provide other ways of
thinking about them
… In fact, it is not hard to see
that in George’s case, viewed from
this perspective, the utilitarian
solution would be wrong
… Jim’s case is different, and
harder. But if (as I suppose) the
utilitarian is probably right in this case,
that is not to be found out just by
asking the utilitarian’s questions.”
1.
Williams argues against
utilitarianism, yet his argument is
also supposed to count against
Kantian ethics. How does the
criticism apply? Is the criticism
importantly different in this case?
2.
Does the integrity objection
“smack of egoism” … or does
Williams have a good complaint?