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Title: Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy by Bernard Williams ISBN: 0-674-26858-X Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: March, 1986 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (1 review)
Rating: 5
Summary: When to philosophize and when not to.
Comment: First a summary of the book, then my opinion. The book seemsto divide naturally into five parts. The first part (chapters 1 and2) lays out the issue--How should one live?--and the question of whether philosophy can help with that issue. The second part (chapters 3 and 4) shows philosophy trying to give a justification of ethical life that presupposes no commitment to any ethics. The third part (chapter 5) shows philosophy trying to justify ethics--or rather now, trying to justify an "ethical theory," something like a test you can always apply to check whether something's ethical or not--this time grounding the justification only on a bare commitment to ethics-in-general (no content to ethics need be assumed). The fourth part (chapter 6) shows philosophy trying to justify an ethical theory from substantive ethical presuppositions. Needless to say, all three of these attempted justifications are rejected. Finally, the fifth part (chapters 7-10) show how ethics is not objective (but objectivity does belong to science), how ethics is relative to a culture, and how the "morality system" (which says something along the lines of: life is a matter of meeting obligations, and each particular obligation in any specific circumstance somehow derives from the one big most abstract obligation whatever that is) today no longer has whatever usefulness it once had. So far as the issue--How should one live?--is concerned, the book's answer seems to be: however you have reason to. Not much of an answer, but there's also this: philosophy alone can't tell you how you have reason to live. And my opinion, for what it's worth: I very highly recommend it. Read it slowly. Everyone will find plenty in it they don't agree with, of course, but it will stimulate your mind and give you food for thought as as only the best books will. A fair amount of philosophical background is probably necessary, so as to appreciate the discussions of the various philosophical attempts to justify ethics. But this is not frivolous philosophy, it is a serious book, which I have very much enjoyed.
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Title: Truth and Truthfulness : An Essay in Genealogy by Bernard Williams ISBN: 0691102767 Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 05 August, 2002 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
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Title: Shame and Necessity (Sather Classical Lectures, Vol 57) by Bernard Williams ISBN: 0520088301 Publisher: University of California Press Pub. Date: October, 1994 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Moral Luck : Philosophical Papers 1973-1980 by Bernard Williams ISBN: 0521286913 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 03 December, 1981 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: Morality : An Introduction to Ethics by Bernard Williams ISBN: 0521457297 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 30 July, 1993 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
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Title: Utilitarianism : For and Against by J. J. C. Smart, Bernard Williams ISBN: 052109822X Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 01 January, 1973 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
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