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23279
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It is important that a person can change their character, and not just be successive 'selves' [Williams,B]
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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'.
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From:
Bernard Williams (Persons, Character and Morality [1976], II)
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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.
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5605
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Moral blame is based on reason, since a reason is a cause which should have been followed [Kant]
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Full Idea:
Moral blame is grounded in the law of reason, which regards reason as a cause that, regardless of all the empirical conditions, could have and ought to have determined the conduct of the person to be other than it is.
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From:
Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B583/A555)
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A reaction:
This appears to be a description of akrasia, in which case it is hard to see how a reason is a cause if it doesn't actually produce the result it judges to be right. Kant is an intellectualist about morality, but not about practical reason, it seems.
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23278
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For utilitarians states of affairs are what have value, not matter who produced them [Williams,B]
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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.
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From:
Bernard Williams (Persons, Character and Morality [1976], I)
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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?
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