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Williams and Kant on Integrity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2010

Kenneth F. Rogerson
Kenneth F. Rogerson
Affiliation:
Rice University
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Extract

For some time now ethical debates have been fought on a field whose boundaries are the historical theories of Kant's deontology and Mill's utilitarianism. Recently, however, several have chosen to leave the battlefield entirely—to suggest, in various ways, that both of the major ethical theories share a common, flawed outlook. Thomas Nagel, for example, has argued that founding ethics on the sole ground of interpersonal obligations (a common feature of Kantianism and utilitarianism) unnecessarily “fragments” human value. Such an account has the effect of pitting one species of human value (duties to others) against other quite legitimate values (personal goals and special relationships). Or approaching the matter from quite another direction, Philippa Foot also holds that morality, as a system of interpersonal obligations, is too limiting. However, she proposes to counter the advancing forces of modern ethics by championing an Aristotelian doctrine of virtue.

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 22 , Issue 3 , September 1983 , pp. 461 - 478
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1983

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References

1 Nagel, Thomas, “The Fragmentation of Value”, in his Mortal Questions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 128–141.Google Scholar

2 Foot, Philippa, Virtues and Vices (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1978).Google Scholar

3 Williams, Bernard, “A Critique of Utilitarianism”, in Smart, J. J. C. and Williams, Bernard, eds., Utilitarianism: For and Against (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), 97–98.Google Scholar (Hereafter cited as CU.)

4 Ibid., 77–150.

5 Williams, Bernard, “Persons, Character, and Morality”, in Rorty, A. O., ed., The Identity of Persons (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1976), 197–216.Google Scholar (Hereafter cited as PCM.)

6 Ibid., 199–201.

7 CU, 93–100.

8 Ibid., 94.

9 PCM, 201–210.

10 Ibid., 210–215.

11 Ibid., 201.

12 CU, 116.

13 Williams, Bernard, “The Makropulos Case”, in his Problems of the Self (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), 86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar (Hereafter cited as MC.)

14 PCM, 209.

15 CU, 117.

16 Ibid., 116–117.

17 PCM, 210.

18 CU, 113–114.

19 Stocker, Michael, “The Schizophrenia of Modern Ethical Theories”, The Journal of Philosophy 63/14 (08 12, 1976), 453–466.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20 CU, 135.

21 Ibid., 116.

22 MC, 92.

23 CU, 116–117.

24 See also Stocker, , “Schizophrenia of Modern Ethical Theories”, 463Google Scholar.

25 Carr, Spencer, “The Integrity of a Utilitarian”, Ethics 86 (April 1976), 241–246.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

26 Ibid., 243.

27 Williams, Bernard, “Egoism and Altruism”, in his Problems of the Self (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), 250–265.CrossRefGoogle Scholar (Hereafter cited as EA.)

28 Ibid., 264.

29 This construal of Kant follows the interpretation of Lewis White Beck; cf. Beck, Lewis White, A Commentary on Kant's Critique of Practical Reason (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1960), 164–175.Google Scholar A. J. Paton, however, departs from a standard interpretation of Kant. Paton denies that, for Kant, all moral actions must be purged of inclination but only that a moral action could have been done from duty alone; cf. Paton, H. J., The Categorical Imperative (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1948), 48–50.Google Scholar For my present purposes even this weaker formulation of moral action poses an interesting problem—can we ever act from duty against all inclination?

30 Kant, Immanuel, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Paton, H. J. (New York: Harper & Row, 1964), 116–117.Google Scholar

31 Writers use the term “altruism” differently, but following Williams I use the term to refer to acts benefiting others for whatever special reasons an agent regards as impor- tant (e.g., “it is my family” may be a sufficient reason for preferred treatment).

32 Using the terms moral and non-moral to mark this distinction is, 1 think, appropriate. However, my argument against Williams would be as well served if we considered a distinction like “partial” versus “impartial” commitmentfsince my main concern is to show that we can be committed to impartial principles.

33 Cf. Foot, Philippa, “Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives”, in her Virtues and Vices (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1978)Google Scholar.

34 Cf. Hume, David, A Treatise on Human Understanding, ed. Selbey-Bigg, L. A. (London: Oxford University Press, 1888), 413–418Google Scholar. For a contemporary version of this argument see Brandt, Richard B., A Theory of the Good and the Right (London: Oxford University Press, 1979), 66–67.Google Scholar

35 Brandt, , Theory of the Good and the Right, 169–176.Google Scholar

36 I want to thank Laurence Thomas for his helpful criticisms of this section.