In his article “A Critique of Utilitarianism”, Bernard Williams attempts to dismantle utilitarianism completely but refuting the fundamental principles of which it stands on. According to Williams, Utilitarianism requires the abandonment of moral integrity and allows negative responsibility to have much more weight than it should. In order to fully understand all aspects of this dispute, a brief explanation of utilitarianism must be laid out. It is then that we are able to look at Williams’ argument in which he puts forth two examples to strengthen his case against it. Finally, I will present my own thoughts as possible utilitarian responses towards the assertions made. The utilitarian view mixes those of both hedonism and consequentialism.
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For the sake of time, we will only explore the second of these two cases, although the first scenario presents a similar argument towards Williams’ case. In his second example, a man named Jim is forced to make a moral decision that will ultimately have an effect on others and his own state of mind. Jim is a part of an expedition that is currently taking captive a group of native inhabitants that were protesting against Jim’s government. The captain, Pedro, has decided to make an example of these protestors, and has given Jim the opportunity to kill one of natives himself. By doing this, Pedro will allow for the remainder of the group to survive. If Jim chooses not to kill the native, Pedro will instead kill the entire group. With the group begging Jim to take action by killing one of them, Jim is forced to make a moral decision. In this example and in Williams’ first case, an agent is faced with a decision of either taking action or choosing not to. By choosing to perform this action, the consequence is that the agent induces some form of misfortune to another. However, if the agent chooses to not take action, the result is consequences of much greater evil. By approaching these cases with a utilitarian view, one must put aside all personal feelings towards the matter and simply choose the lesser of the two …show more content…
One of these holes would be Williams’ concept of moral integrity. It is not until later in the article that he goes deeper into this subject, but it can be inferred that he means that parting someone from their moral obligations takes away from what makes them human. I do agree with the fact that the majority of people in this world can be identified by the morals they obtain, and that by stripping these codes from an individual, you would ultimately be changing them as a person. However, this is not always a bad thing, and a utilitarian would argue that this would be the better thing to do in certain cases. Although there seem to be disputes about the evaluation of moral codes of different cultures throughout the world, there are indeed practices that can be labeled as objectively and morally wrong. For instance, if a racist human were forced to follow the utilitarian approach when encountering any moral situation, this would obviously be the best thing possible. Although this may have been the social
For the sake of time, we will only explore the second of these two cases, although the first scenario presents a similar argument towards Williams’ case. In his second example, a man named Jim is forced to make a moral decision that will ultimately have an effect on others and his own state of mind. Jim is a part of an expedition that is currently taking captive a group of native inhabitants that were protesting against Jim’s government. The captain, Pedro, has decided to make an example of these protestors, and has given Jim the opportunity to kill one of natives himself. By doing this, Pedro will allow for the remainder of the group to survive. If Jim chooses not to kill the native, Pedro will instead kill the entire group. With the group begging Jim to take action by killing one of them, Jim is forced to make a moral decision. In this example and in Williams’ first case, an agent is faced with a decision of either taking action or choosing not to. By choosing to perform this action, the consequence is that the agent induces some form of misfortune to another. However, if the agent chooses to not take action, the result is consequences of much greater evil. By approaching these cases with a utilitarian view, one must put aside all personal feelings towards the matter and simply choose the lesser of the two …show more content…
One of these holes would be Williams’ concept of moral integrity. It is not until later in the article that he goes deeper into this subject, but it can be inferred that he means that parting someone from their moral obligations takes away from what makes them human. I do agree with the fact that the majority of people in this world can be identified by the morals they obtain, and that by stripping these codes from an individual, you would ultimately be changing them as a person. However, this is not always a bad thing, and a utilitarian would argue that this would be the better thing to do in certain cases. Although there seem to be disputes about the evaluation of moral codes of different cultures throughout the world, there are indeed practices that can be labeled as objectively and morally wrong. For instance, if a racist human were forced to follow the utilitarian approach when encountering any moral situation, this would obviously be the best thing possible. Although this may have been the social