display all the ideas for this combination of texts
3 ideas
| 23279 | It is important that a person can change their character, and not just be successive 'selves' [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: I want to emphasise the basic importance of the ordinary idea of a self or person which undergoes changes of character, as opposed to dissolving a changing person into a series of 'selves'. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (Persons, Character and Morality [1976], II) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] He mentions Derek Parfit for the rival view. Williams has the Aristotelian view, that a person has an essential nature, which endures through change, and explains that change. But that needs some non-essential character traits. |
| 23280 | Kantians have an poor account of individuals, and insist on impartiality, because they ignore character [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: The Kantians' omission of character is a condition of their ultimate insistence on the demands of impartial morality, just as it is a reason to find inadequate their account of the individual. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (Persons, Character and Morality [1976], II) | |
| A reaction: This is also why the Kantian account of virtue is inadequate, in comparison with the Aristotelian view. |
| 23278 | For utilitarians states of affairs are what have value, not matter who produced them [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: The basic bearer of value for Utilitarianism is the state of affairs, and hence, when the relevant causal differences have been allowed for, it cannot make any further difference who produces a given state of affairs. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (Persons, Character and Morality [1976], I) | |
| A reaction: Which is morally better, that I water your bed of flowers, or that it rains? Which is morally better, that I water them from love, or because you threaten me with a whip? |