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Ideas of Bernard Williams, by Text

[British, 1929 - 2003, Professor at Oxford, London, Cambridge, and in America]

1956 Personal Identity and Individuation
p.144 7946 The memory criterion has a problem when one thing branches into two things [Macdonald,C]
1962 The Idea of Equality
§2 p.234 3233 Equality implies that people are alike in potential as well as in needs
§2 p.236 3234 Equality seems to require that each person be acknowledged as having a significant point of view
§2 p.237 3235 It is a mark of extreme exploitation that the sufferers do not realise their plight
§3 p.248 3236 Equality of opportunity without equality of respect would create a very inhuman society
1965 Ethical consistency
p.36 22453 Moral conflicts have a different feeling and structure from belief conflicts [Foot]
p.175 p.39 22455 Many ethical theories neglect the power of regretting the ought not acted upon
1966 Consistency and realism (with 1972 note)
p.37 22454 We tolerate inconsistency in ethics but not in other beliefs (which reflect an independent order) [Foot]
1970 Are Persons Bodies?
p.74 p.74 3238 'Dead person' isn't a contradiction, so 'person' is somewhat vague
p.81 p.81 3239 You can only really love a person as a token, not as a type
1971 works
p.256 4366 We can't accept Aristotle's naturalism about persons, because it is normative and unscientific [Hursthouse]
1973 A Critique of Utilitarianism
1 p.82 22407 Utilitarianism cannot make any serious sense of integrity
2 p.88 22408 Consequentialism assumes that situations can be compared
2 p.89 22409 We don't have a duty to ensure that others do their duty
2 p.92 22410 Maybe the unthinkable is a moral category, and considering some options is dishonourable or absurd
2 p.93 22411 For a consequentialist massacring 7 million must be better than massacring 7 million and one
1974 The Truth in Relativism
p.33 22450 If moral systems can't judge other moral systems, then moral relativism is true [Foot]
1976 Moral Luck
p.20 p.20 23282 If all that matters in morality is motive and intention, that makes moral luck irrelevant
1976 Persons, Character and Morality
I p.4 23278 For utilitarians states of affairs are what have value, not matter who produced them
II p.5 23279 It is important that a person can change their character, and not just be successive 'selves'
II p.14 23280 Kantians have an poor account of individuals, and insist on impartiality, because they ignore character
1980 Internal and External Reasons
p.101 p.101 9284 Reasons are 'internal' if they give a person a motive to act, but 'external' otherwise
1982 Practical Necessity
p.127 p.127 23283 Necessity implies possibility, but in experience it matters which comes first
1985 Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy
Ch. 1 p.8 4110 Obligation and duty look backwards (because of a promise or job), although the acts are in the future
Ch. 1 p.11 4112 A crucial feature of moral thought is second-order desire - the desire to have certain desires
Ch. 1 p.16 4113 'Deon' in Greek means what one must do; there was no word meaning 'duty'
Ch. 1 p.17 4114 Philosophers try to produce ethical theories because they falsely assume that ethics can be simple
Ch. 3 p.31 4116 A weakness of contractual theories is the position of a person of superior ability and power
Ch. 4 p.56 4120 It is an error of consequentialism to think we just aim at certain states of affairs; we also want to act
Ch. 4 p.63 4121 Why should I think of myself as both the legislator and the citizen who follows the laws?
Ch. 4 p.69 4122 If the self becomes completely impartial, it no longer has enough identity to worry about its interests
Ch. 5 p.81 4124 Utilitarian benevolence involves no particular attachments, and is immune to the inverse square law
Ch. 6 p.94 4128 Intuitionism has been demolished by critics, and no longer looks interesting
Ch. 6 p.112 4131 Most women see an early miscarriage and a late stillbirth as being very different in character
Ch. 6 p.114 4132 The category of person is a weak basis for ethics, because it is not fixed but comes in degrees
Ch. 6 p.118 4133 Speciesism isn't like racism, because the former implies a viewpoint which belongs to no one
Ch. 7 p.125 4134 The weakness of prescriptivism is shown by "I simply don't like staying at good hotels"
Ch. 8 p.129 4135 Some ethical ideas, such as 'treachery' and 'promise', seem to express a union of facts and values
Ch. 9 p.159 4244 It is very confused to deduce a nonrelativist morality of universal toleration from relativism
Ch. 9 p.159 4243 Our ability to react to an alien culture shows that ethical thought extends beyond cultural boundaries
Ch. 9 p.169 4245 Ethical conviction must be to some extent passive, and can't just depend on the will and decisions
Ch. 9 p.170 4246 Taking responsibility won't cure ethical uncertainty by; we are uncertain what to decide
Ch. 9 p.173 4247 It is a mark of our having ethical values that we aim to reproduce them in our children
Ch.10 p.175 4249 "Ought implies can" is a famous formula in connection with moral obligation
Ch.10 p.175 4248 Not all moral deliberations lead to obligations; some merely reveal what 'may' be done
Ch.10 p.182 4250 The concept of a 'duty to myself' is fraudulent
Ch.10 p.186 4252 Promise keeping increases reliability, by making deliberation focus on something which would be overlooked
p.139 p.3 22355 In the realist view, the real external world explains how it (and perceptions of it) are possible
1985 How free does the will need to be?
5 p.15 20168 Blame usually has no effect if the recipient thinks it unjustified
5 p.16 20167 Blame partly rests on the fiction that blamed agents always know their obligations
1993 Shame and Necessity
p.1 4317 We judge weakness of will by an assessment after the event is concluded [Cottingham]
I - p.7 p.7 2169 Greek moral progress came when 'virtue' was freed from social status
II - p.41 p.41 2172 The modern idea of duty is unknown in archaic Greece
III - p.53 p.53 2174 Responsibility involves cause, intention, state of mind, and response after the event
III - p.68 p.68 2176 There is only a problem of free will if you think the notion of 'voluntary' can be metaphysically deepened
III - p.68 p.68 2175 There is a problem of evil only if you expect the world to be good
IV - p.100 p.100 2180 If reason cannot lead people to good, we must hope they have an internal voice
IV - p.92 p.92 2178 In bad actions, guilt points towards victims, and shame to the agent
IV - p.95 p.95 2179 If the moral self is seen as characterless, then other people have a very limited role in our moral lives
VI - p.158 p.158 2181 It is an absurd Kantian idea that at the limit rationality and freedom coincide