Against Utilitarianism

Last week we read John Stuart Mill’s defense of utilitarianism. This week we will read most of a prominent criticism of utilitarianism from the 1970s due to the philosopher Bernard Williams.

Bernard Williams

Bernard Williams, who I believe will be played by Michael Caine if they ever make a movie about philosophy, taught at the University of Cambridge for many years and then at UC-Berkeley. The piece that we are reading by him was written in the early 1970’s to be published as part of a “for and against” book alongside a previously published argument in favor of utilitarianism by the Australian philosophy J.J.C. Smart. You will notice that Smart gets mentioned briefly in next week’s reading.

One of the example that Williams discusses extensively in the reading and has unfortunately become very famous and widely discusses has some very obnoxious colonialist undertones - you will recognize it when you see it. Do your best to ignore these features of the example!

“For our reading this week, you may ignore and skip all of Smart’s contribution to the book, and go straight to Williams’ contribution. Williams’ contribution has seven chapters, but you only have to read the first five.”