Summary Of Bernard Williams's Moral Dilemma

Bernard Williams’s example of the moral dilemma involving Jim killing the one individual to save 19 is an interesting one that provokes much thought and it is a decision that utilitarian followers would find quite easy. Utilitarian’s subscribe to the view that everything that you do or do not do should be for the sake of maximizing total happiness, or utility. But individuals who subscribe to a different moral philosophy could potentially have a myriad of ethical concerns associated with making such a decision. In this paper, I will explain the moral dilemma that is presented in Bernard Williams’s piece, hypothesize what the utilitarian would do in that situation, why they would choose to do that. I will also demonstrate why Williams’s dilemma provides valid evidence to reject utilitarianism on the grounds that it weakens a person’s integrity, sense of responsibility, and their moral character. In Bernard Williams’s piece, he lays out a scenario in which a man named Jim stumbles across militants taking 20 people hostage. He offers to let Jim kill one of them and let the other 19 go free. The alternative being that all 20 captives will be killed. The families of all the …show more content…
That he has a set of morals that are at odds with utilitarianism such as a religious practice that would prohibit him from acting in such a way, that he has a prior sense of responsibility that would hold the militants responsible for the twenty deaths that would ensue if he did not act, and that he had a sense of integrity that was strong and unshakeable. All of these reasons in tandem with each other are grounds for Jim not to kill the one hostage to save the other nineteen. I he did, then these conditions could very well cause him to feel remorse and pain for what he had done, and could in theory cause more un happiness in the world, something that the utilitarian philosophy does not strive to