Moralność wyalienowana. Bernarda Williamsa krytyka utylitaryzmu

Abstrakt

Alienated morality. Bernard Williams’ critique of utilitarianism: The paper aims at reconstructing Bernard Williams’ critique of utilitarianism, in order to show that it is primarily motivated by the British philosopher’s opposition to this theory’s understanding of the relationship between the agent and her actions. After discussing Williams’ arguments against what he sees as the oversimplified moral psychology of utilitarianism, and his doubts regarding the coherence between utilitarian objectives and utilitarian methods, the paper will focus on his “argument form integrity”. As we will see, it allows Williams to question utilitarianism’s ability to account for the relationship between the identity of the agent and her actions, and as a result, deny the effectiveness of the notion of utility as a source of moral motivation.