Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy [Paperback]

Bernard Williams (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 067426858X | ISBN-13: 978-0674268586 | Publication Date: March 15, 1986

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--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Who has not asked--if only when depressed--"How should I live, and how can I find out?" To read this book is to be taken through one of the most sophisticated discussions available of such questions by an engaging, skeptical, often wryly witty and extraordinarily subtle professional.
--Ronald de Sousa (New York Times Book Review )

Bernard Williams's book is better read not as an introduction to ethics, but as an attempt to take stock of the present state of the subject. As such, it is a splendid piece of work It illuminatingly maps the various tendencies and the difficulties which they encounter...Such stocktaking is much needed. Bernard Williams is probably the philosopher best placed to undertake it, and he has done it admirably.
--Richard Norman (Times Higher Education Supplement )

Remarkably lively and enjoyable...It is a very rich book, containing excellent descriptions of a variety of moral theories, and innumerable original and often witty observations on topics encountered on the way.
--Philippa Foot (Times Literary Supplement )

About the Author

Bernard Williams was White's Professor of Moral Philosophy, Oxford, and Deutsch Professor of Philosophy, University of California at Berkeley.

Product Details

• Paperback: 244 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press (March 15, 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067426858X
• ISBN-13: 978-0674268586
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #88,195 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

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63 of 69 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars When to philosophize and when not to., March 30, 2000

By 

Ihsan Dogramaci (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (Paperback)

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.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Ethics without foundations, July 11, 2005

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S.M.B. (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (Paperback)

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-based views of ethics assume that people can shed their actual beliefs and desires and still deliberate about how to act. But if one distances himself from his own desires and beliefs, based on what does this more abstract self deliberate?

The book is leas interersting when Williams obsesses over the distortion that the exclusive emphasis on obligation in moral philosophy has wrought on moral thinking. I think this was a big deal at the time the book was written, but for a non-philosopher reading it now, these concerns, largely confined to the last chapter, were a bit boring.

Finally, I would recommend reading Williams's essay "Internal and External Reasons" in his collection "Moral Luck" to better understand his views on the relation between rationality and morality.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Here Comes Bernie to Spoil the Philosophers' Party!, November 29, 2011

By 

Kevin Currie-Knight "Education Grad Student" (Newark, Delaware) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (Paperback)

As I see it, the thesis of this book can be put succinctly thus: while ethical philosophy can help us explore different ways to think about ethical problems, it cannot justify why anyone should be moral. Why? Because any justification for morality - moral rules maximize overall well-being, they are part of a social contract all rational people would agree to, they spring from our natural moral sentiments - will only appeal to people who already want to be moral (to maximize overall well-being, do what rational people would accept, etc).

The first part of the book has Williams broadly outlining this thesis and giving examples of failed attempts (in his eyes, and I agree) to justify morality without presupposing it. Aristotle justified being virtuous because being virtuous would lead to the human happiness that comes from humans fulfilling their nature (teleology) as humans. But, Williams asks, why should anyone care about doing those specific things Aristotle suggests would help us act in accordance with our nature and purpose (particularly, if they don't see that as what they want to do)? Kant tries to justify morality on grounds of reason, suggesting that categorical imperatives are duties that we should do in order to be consistently rational. But, Williams notes, Kant really can't justify morality to anyone who does not want to be consistently rational, or is not going in already willing to let rationality bind their moral actions. The utilitarians attempt to justify morality by appealing to maximization of overall happiness/well-being. Williams has several problems with this, the biggest of which is the question of whether the impartiality utilitarianism requires is something that humans can do, and have any non-question-begging reason to do. Williams is not optimistic that any attempt to justify morality in a way that doesn't propose a commitment to morality can work.

To be honest, chapters 1-5 (as described above) and chapter 10 (which summarizes Williams's view) are the bang for the buck. There is a chapter on linguistic philosophy and the error Williams sees in supposing that analyzing what moral language means will actually offer any help to figuring out how to justify morality. There are further chapters on why analogizing ethics to science (and the hope that philosophic discourse will lead to a gradual consensus-building as is hoped in science) can lead us astray, as well as a chapter arguing that relativism doesn't seem to be a great answer either, largely because we do have a sense that philosophy CAN do something for us, just not justify the (Williams's phrase) the 'peculiar institution' of morality.

This book, while an absolute torture to read stylistically-speaking, is a gem of a book. Williams's reasoning is quite strong and his ability to articulate what I am sure many a confused undergraduate sitting through a philosophy class intuits is quite stunning. (It is too bad a book like this is too poorly written to be profitably read by said undergraduates, as the book does demand a fair amount of background knowledge in ethics and a ton of patience.)

With this, I personally would recommend the similar views of Alisdair MacIntryre (After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, Third Edition and, to a degree, Richard Taylor (Good and Evil (Great Minds Series)). Both take a view similar to Williams's that moral philosophy took a wrong turn when it began questing for unbending moral rules that bind us by sheer force of Reason or some other argument that need not assume moral commitments to get going. (Though MacIntyre and Taylor are virtue ethicists, a view that Williams argues well against in the present book.)

ANYONE who is interested in ethical philosophy really should read this, though. Agree or not, Williams gives us something to strong to grapple with.