On Bernard Williams' Critique Of Utilitarianism

As an important moral theory,contemporary utilitarianism provides an action basis for people's moral life,but also gradually shows its own limitations.Many scholars have criticized utilitarianism from different aspects.Williams criticized utilitarianism from the perspective of the first person of ethical life,and had a great impact on the academic circle,which was recognized and supported by many scholars,as well as the response and criticism from utilitarians.In this paper,Williams' criticism of utilitarianism is expounded from two aspects as a whole,the first is the consequentialist structure of utilitarianism,and the second is the impartial commitment of utilitarianism.Through the analysis of the structure of consequentialism,Williams believes that utilitarianism's maximization of the state of consequences as a moral requirement will inevitably lead to the result of negative responsibility,thus separating individuals from their own emotions,actions and intentions,and thus losing their own moral integrity.Individual integrity is the persistence and implementation of an individual's own set of desires and preferences,that is,the development of their own life plans.At the same time,individual integrity not only shows the development of an individual's life,but also explains an individual's special life position and reasons.Therefore,according to Williams,utilitarianism promises an impartial moral perspective,an abstract understanding of moral individuals,and makes a moral perspective and motivation separate from special ethical individuals and relationships.In this sense of separation,unbiased moral views establish their absolute supremacy and abstract and distort the individual's ethicallife.This kind of distortion and abstraction makes the importance and meaning expression of individual life separate from the individual in life and only belong to morality.However,this also fundamentally separates my insistence on my life from the expression of meaning,and I just become the abstract practitioner of utilitarian consequence value.Williams' criticism of utilitarianism based on individual integrity is basically a defense of the rationality of a first-person ethical life.In the face of many utilitarians' defense of moral rationality,this paper,based on Williams' ethical standpoint,makes a defensive explanation of Williams' ethical thought.And on this basis,a meaningful ethical life made a further analysis and thinking.What is more important than a correct action is that in the face of this complex and changing times and the life we live in,we should practice a meaningful life with sincerity and courage.