Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy

by Bernard Williams

Book Overview

Bernard Williams is an eloquent member of that small but important group of distinguished thinkers who are trying to erase the borders between the experts and all of us who grapple with moral issues in our own lives. In this book he delivers a sustained indictment of systematic moral theory from Kant onward and offers a persuasive alternative.

Kant's ideas involved a view of the self we can no longer accept. Modern theories such as utilitarianism...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 067426858X
• ISBN13: 9780674268586
• Release Date: March 1986
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 244 Pages
• Weight: 0.81 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.1" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Ethics without foundations

Williams's main projects in "Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy" are (1) to argue against the idea that there is a rational foundation for ethics;(2) to argue that there is no adequate ethical theory, nor is there likely ever to be such a theory; and (3)to broaden the focus of moral philosophy from a focus on the role of obligation in life to a wider array of considerations that are relevant in deciding how one should live. The book has excellent discussions of and arguments against Aristotle's attempt to find a foundatoin for ethics in human nature (that is, in the idea that there is something about the function of a human life that makes an ethical life proper) and Kant's attempt to find a foundation for ethics in a bare committment to rationality. Williams is convincing in arguing that in order for the claims of an ethical life to get a grip on an individual that individual must have some committment to ethics already. It is possible for someone to be rational and unethical. That does not imply, Williams points out, there are not reasons to be ethical. Many people have good reasons to be ethical; it's just that we we would be wrong to criticize those unethical people as necessarily being irrational. Williams's discussions of truth in ethics and of relativism are less convincing but equally valuable. Williams argues that evaluative statements that use "thick terms"--terms like "loyal," "murder," "cruel" that are evaluative like the terms "good" and "right" but can be applied with descriptive accuracy in a way that those more general terms cannot be applied--can be true. But reflection on thick terms unseats them and they are replaced by nothing knew. For example, in the modern Western world, the thick term "chaste" has become obsolete. While it was once a term that could be used to make true and false moral statements, reflection upon sexuality has (for argument's sake) undermined our use of the term. Because of the role reflection plays, people are unlikely to ever converge on ethical truths that correspond to reality the way that scientific/factual beliefs do. Related to this is Williams's moderate ethical relativism: there are some terms used in distant (in space or time) societies that we recognize as evaluative, but that we cannot judge by the lights of our own set of evaluative concepts. I don't find Williams's views here convincing becuase I don't believe in his underlying Cartesian theory of truth. And I don't buy his relativism because I think it's impossible not to evalute the way that other people or other cultures--even those of the distant past--evaluate. One can't be neutral on how other people think and act. The book also has strong, lively and sophisticated critiques of consequentalism and contractarianisn. Williams believes that neither is an adequate ethical theory because each theory is based on unrealistic views of what it means to be a real person in the world with real desires. For example, contract-

When to philosophize and when not to.

First a summary of the book, then my opinion. The book seemsto divide naturally into five parts. The first part (chapters 1 and2) lays out the issue--How should one live?--and the question of whether philosophy can help with that issue. The second part (chapters 3 and 4) shows philosophy trying to give a justification of ethical life that presupposes no commitment to any ethics. The third part (chapter 5) shows philosophy trying to justify ethics--or rather now, trying to justify an "ethical theory," something like a test you can always apply to check whether something's ethical or not--this time grounding the justification only on a bare commitment to ethics-in-general (no content to ethics need be assumed). The fourth part (chapter 6) shows philosophy trying to justify an ethical theory from substantive ethical presuppositions. Needless to say, all three of these attempted justifications are rejected. Finally, the fifth part (chapters 7-10) show how ethics is not objective (but objectivity does belong to science), how ethics is relative to a culture, and how the "morality system" (which says something along the lines of: life is a matter of meeting obligations, and each particular obligation in any specific circumstance somehow derives from the one big most abstract obligation whatever that is) today no longer has whatever usefulness it once had. So far as the issue--How should one live?--is concerned, the book's answer seems to be: however you have reason to. Not much of an answer, but there's also this: philosophy alone can't tell you how you have reason to live. And my opinion, for what it's worth: I very highly recommend it. Read it slowly. Everyone will find plenty in it they don't agree with, of course, but it will stimulate your mind and give you food for thought as as only the best books will. A fair amount of philosophical background is probably necessary, so as to appreciate the discussions of the various philosophical attempts to justify ethics. But this is not frivolous philosophy, it is a serious book, which I have very much enjoyed.