Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-sxzjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T11:30:55.849Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Bernard Williams as a Philosopher of Ethical Freedom

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 November 2020

Miranda Fricker
Miranda Fricker*
Affiliation:
The Graduate Center, The City University of New York, New York, USA
*
Email: mfricker@gc.cuny.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Interpreting Bernard Williams’s ethical philosophy is not easy. His style is deceptively conversational; apparently direct, yet argumentatively inexplicit and allusive. He is moreover committed to evading ready-made philosophical “-isms.” All this reinforces the already distinct impression that the structure of his philosophy is a web of interrelated commitments where none has unique priority. Against this impression, however, I will venture that the contours of his philosophy become clearest if one considers that there is a single, unchanging root conviction from which his ethical philosophy grows. Despite the perpetual motion of his philosophical thought—its erudition, originality, range, and unceasing forward momentum—still, I contend, there is something unchanging at the heart of it. I will show this by reference to three signature theses: internal reasons, the relativism of distance, and the porous borders of philosophy and history. I will argue that the root conviction of which these are the fruits is the conviction that the constraints of universal rationality seriously underdetermine how one should live. This, I believe, is the vision of the human ethical condition that constitutes the largely inexplicit yet utterly fundamental presupposition beneath Williams’s ethical philosophy taken as a whole. I label the object of this root conviction ethical freedom, and thus portray Williams as a philosopher of ethical freedom.

Keywords

Bernard Williamsinternal reasonsrelativism of distancetruthfulnessauthenticityethical freedom
Type
Distinguished Lecture
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 50 , Issue 8 , November 2020 , pp. 919 - 933
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Canadian Journal of Philosophy

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Darwall, Stephen. 2006. The Second-Person Standpoint: Morality, Respect, and Accountability. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Fricker, Miranda. 2010. “The Relativism of Blame and Williams’s Relativism of Distance.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 68 (supp. vol.): 151–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fricker, Miranda. 2013. “Styles of Moral Relativism—A Critical Family Tree.” In Oxford Handbook of the History of Ethics, edited by Crisp, Roger. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hume, David. 1975. A Treatise of Human Nature. 3rd ed. Edited by Selby-Bigge, L. A.. Oxford: Clarendon Press. First published 1739.Google Scholar
Jeffries, Stuart. 2002. “The Quest for Truth,” The Guardian, November 30, 2002. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/nov/30/academicexperts.highereducation.Google Scholar
Nietzsche, Friedrich. 1974. The Gay Science. Translated by Kaufmann, Walter. New York: Vintage Books. First published 1882.Google Scholar
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 1953. The Confessions. London: Penguin. First published 1781.Google Scholar
Williams, Bernard. 1972. Morality: An Introduction to Ethics. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Williams, Bernard. 1973. Utilitarianism: For and Against (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)Google Scholar
Williams, Bernard. 1974. “The Truth in Relativism.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 75: 215–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, Bernard. 1981. Moral Luck: Philosophical Papers 1973–1980. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, Bernard. 1985. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy. London: Fontana Press.Google Scholar
Williams, Bernard. 1993. Shame and Necessity. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, Bernard. 1995. Making Sense of Humanity and Other Philosophical Papers 1982–1993. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, Bernard. 2002. Truth and Truthfulness: An Essay in Genealogy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Williams, Bernard. 2005. In the Beginning Was the Deed: Realism and Moralism in Political Argument. Edited by Hawthorn, Geoffrey. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Williams, Bernard. 2006a. Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline. Edited by Moore, A. W.. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, Bernard. 2006b. The Sense of the Past: Essays in the History of Philosophy. Edited by Burnyeat, Myles. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar