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4 - The Critique of the Morality System

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2009

By
Robert B. Louden
Edited by
Alan Thomas
Robert B. Louden
Affiliation:
Professor of Philosophy, University of Southern Maine
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Summary

Underneath many of Bernard Williams' sceptical attitudes and arguments in ethics is his flat-out rejection of what he calls “the morality system.” On his view, “we would be better off without it.” But before we can assess this claim, we need to get a better sense of what exactly it is.

WHAT IS THE MORALITY SYSTEM?

To begin with, it is fundamentally important to keep in mind that for Williams the words ethics and morality are not at all synonymous. Rather, he treats the latter as an unfortunate modern offshoot of the former. As he notes in Chapter 1 of Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy:

I am going to suggest that morality should be understood as a particular development of the ethical, one that has a special significance in modern Western culture. It particularly emphasizes certain ethical notions rather than others, developing in particular a special notion of obligation, and it has some peculiar presuppositions. In view of these features it is also, I believe, something we should treat with a special scepticism.

We can see already that Williams' thesis about the morality system is in no small part historical. He believes that human beings' thinking about how they should live and act has changed drastically between ancient and modern times. At the same time, in so far as he is particularly concerned with the concepts, presuppositions, and justifications (or lack thereof) employed by people past and present in their thinking on these matters, his position is also plainly philosophical.

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Bernard Williams , pp. 104 - 134
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2007

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