A Study Of Bernard Williams’ Moral Philosophy Thoughts

Bernard Williams is one of the most important moral philosophers of the20th century, his research fields across the classical and modern, covers philosophy, ethics and intellectual history research, his original research in the ethics and moral philosophy which is known as the "dominated thinking of western ethics theory for nearly30years, in a sense, is the most important moral philosopher." Williams’moral philosophy mainly focused on the moral luck, internal and external reasons, moral luck, moral objectivity, personal identity,"anti-theory" and so many other topics.Williams’moral philosophy has often been titled the "anti-theory" or "anti-system" label, but he is undoubtedly richer in exploitation, originality and criticalness than other scholars. His proposed action reasons, the attention to moral values, the critics of moral obligation and "thin" ethical concepts, the ethical reflection of skepticism access and emphasis on the cultural construction of morality, every theme is connotation deeply and related to each other and form a treasure house of the moral philosophical thoughts. But Williams ignores to connect all his thoughts and systematize them. Williams’ethical conceptions which have complicated contents and broad field are obscure hard to understand, so this thesis focuses on the reading and interpretation of Williams’moral philosophy thoughts, and sums up the other scholars’ responses and evaluations to his thoughts, meanwhile, strive to grasp the general picture of his moral philosophy thoughts and the original creation, in order to explain why it gives contemporary moral philosophy such an important and rich starting point.Williams’overall moral philosophy thoughts are established on the basis of the criticism of utilitarianism. In the analysis of the consequentialist structure of utilitarianism, he points out the significant defects of its responsibility principles are indifference and negative. The pursuit of maximize benefits leads to utilitarianism giving value to state of affairs, ignoring the personal separateness. And the too much demanding makes individuals alienate from their moral feelings and behaviors, therefore destructs the agent’s moral integrity. William’s criticism reflects his concern about human nature, personal characters and the meaning of life; which makes up the shortage of modern moral philosophy theories. Bernard Williams demarcates Kantian ethics as a "peculiar moral system" and puts forward the criticism. From the unique perspective of the agents, he expands the critiques of the three characteristics of the Kantian ethics and its destructive effects:Williams criticizes the motive of duty as providing "one thought too many" and neglecting the agent’s personality, the moral requirement of impartiality has been made us established an indifference personal relationship, the unreasonable demands of the overridingness theme destroys the agent’s personal integrity. Threatens the integrity of the individual and create the moral sense of alienation, which will affect the ethical approach. The reasons for action are important parts of Williams’moral philosophy, he thinks that reasons for action are only internal, and there aren’t external reasons. The internality of reasons for action embodies in two points:one is the purpose of action is inherent in the agents’subjective motives and construct in its elements, the other is the basis of rational thinking and reflection exist in the agents’ subjective motives. The theory of moral luck typically embodies the uniqueness and originality of Williams’philosophy, he believes that morality can still survived in the presence of moral luck, and the proposed concept of "moral luck" can motivate the people to reflect the moral theories actively; focuses on the debates about the issues of moral conception, defense of moral action, and moral responsibility, moral evaluation and so on. At the same time, he proposed to distinguish the differences of the thick ethical concepts and the thin ethical concepts. Scientific research can produce the accumulation of objective knowledge, scientific knowledge can be acquired by centering on the absolute conception, and the ethical research will only reduce our knowledge and does not produce any new knowledge, because the existence of ethical knowledge depends on the thick ethical concepts.In addition, Williams insists that science can be objective and ethics can not be objective, he concludes that morality is nonobjective in nature through two arguments.Williams’moral philosophy opens the critic window to the modern ethical thoughts and moral theory, the questions which he proposed mainly focus on how to understand and adhere to the priority of traditional deliberation on the basis of moral concerns. His conception of reasons for action threatens the viewpoint of moral judgments can give reasons for action. His exploration to the personal commitments and plans shows that moral obligation is not surely surpass other concerns. And the questions to moral objectivity lead him into the depth of thought between the relationship of ethical reflection and ethical practice. Although the overall viewpoint of Williams presents a different degree of skeptic physiognomy, but he is not a direct skeptic, which actually reveals his opposition to the direct skepticism, that gives him reason to continue his in-depth study. The ethical picture which Williams describes is more positive than it seems:in the face of the complexity of ethical life and the reality of multiplicity conception,"How should I live?" is the most important thing.