Review

Reviewed Work(s): World, Mind, and Ethics: Essays in Honor of Bernard Williams. by J. E.
J. Altham and Ross Harrison
Review by: G. W. Harris
Source: Ethics, Vol. 107, No. 2 (Jan., 1997), pp. 351-353
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2381955
Accessed: 09-06-2017 20:17 UTC

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 Book Reviews 351

neural net gets "trained" could only be those actually presented to one. So if
that were the whole story about moral concepts, how could one ever come to
ask whether the things called 'just" (or "good," "right," etc.) really were?

G. F. SCHUELER
University of New Mexico

Altham, J. E. J., and Harrison, Ross, eds. World, Mind, and Ethics: Essays in
Honor of Bernard Williams.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Pp. 229. $59.95 (cloth);
$17.95 (paper).

World, Mind, and Ethics is a book of essays in honor of Bernard Williams. Jon
Elster, Amartya Sen, Nicholas Jardine, Christopher Hookway, John McDowell,
Martha Nussbaum, Charles Taylor, J. E. J. Altham, and Martin Hollis contribute
essays on various aspects of Williams's thought to which Williams replies. Unfor-
tunately, the replies address only five of the nine essays. To Elster, Sen, Jardine,
and Hookway, Williams apologizes for not replying but promises something
explicit soon, especially on the relationship between science and ethics.
The first substantive exchange is between McDowell and Williams on the
topic of reasons for action and the internalism/externalism debate. McDowell
charges Williams with making an unwarranted assumption about the possibili-
ties of externalism. Williams's internalism commits him to the view that A has
a reason to + only if 4-ing will serve some motive within A's current motiva
tional set, S. The problem for externalism is to make sense of asserting of A
that A has a reason to + where A has no motive at all that is served by A's 4-i
McDowell, as I understand him, agrees that this understanding of externalism
makes it very difficult to endorse. Still, he argues, there is a foothold for a
kind of externalism Williams does not rule out. According to McDowell, any
plausible view must allow for the possibility of a gap between an agent's S
and an agent's having a reason to +. The gap might reflect a lack of awareness
by A of S and what serves it. McDowell reminds us here that attributions of
practical rationality employ normative concepts that imply some minimal ideal,
one that might be captured in some counterfactual condition: A has a reason
to + only if A would be motivated to + under certain conditions. Such condi-
tions might include A's knowing the relevant facts, reasoning with logical
consistency, being psychologically unencumbered, or other conditions. Sensi-
bly, Williams agrees. The problem, according to McDowell, is that Williams
assumes the gap must be such that it can be filled by A's deliberative capacities;
otherwise, one must revert to the discredited form of externalism. This is an
unwarranted assumption, according to McDowell, because we must consider
the possibility that the gap could be filled in other ways, perhaps through a
proper upbringing or something like conversion. One might have a good
reason to listen to twelve-tone music, even where one is completely unaware
of its delights and where one is unable to deliberate from one's current motiva-
tional set to the practical conclusion that one ought to give such music a try.
What might be required is either a proper upbringing or a kind of conversion
that makes one see the point.

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352 Ethics January 1997
The heart of Williams's response is that ascriptions of rationality do as-
sume some minimal ideal but the assumed ideal must be understood in such
a way that the particular agent remains within the account of whether he or
she has a reason for action. This imposes a limiting condition for whether an
interpretation of such an ideal honors the requirements of internalism. The
burden of the externalist is to give an account of a proper upbringing or a
conversion experience that bridges the alleged gap without either leaving
the concrete agent out of the account or appealing to the agent's current
motivational set. In terms of twelve-tone music, what is the account of a proper
upbringing or a conversion experience that allows us to see that an agent has
a reason to listen to twelve-tone music that is devoid of internalist assumptions?
Until McDowell addresses these issues, nothing he says seems to raise any real
doubts about internalism.
Nonetheless, there is something puzzling about Williams's skepticism
about any account of "ideal" conditions of rationality. Cryptically, Williams
says that Kantian internalism is a limiting case of internalism. But his response
to McDowell seems to support a more skeptical view. What is there about a
Kantian account of a rational ideal that seems less likely to leave out the
concrete agent than McDowell's idealized Aristotelian agent? In fact, I suspect
it is likely that twelve-tone music answers to a wider range of motivational sets
under an apropriate ideal than does the Categorical Imperative. Still, it would
have been instructive to have had an essay by a leading Kantian on this point
and to have had Williams's reply. We would have learned much more about
the implications of internalism.
Martha Nussbaum challenges Williams's interpretation of Aristotle's natu-
ralism in Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univer-
sity Press, 1985) and his pessimism regarding its prospects. Nussbaum's piece
is typically insightful and well written and is better argued than some of her
other writings. It is, I think, the best essay in the book, with the possible
exception of Charles Taylor's. She takes Williams to understand Aristotle's
naturalism to be committed to a certain way of bridging the fact/value gap.
On this view, Aristotle thought that there is a way of scientifically studying
human nature that will allow us to derive what is good for humans and that
this study is value neutral. Thus Aristotle's naturalism moves from fact to
value vis-a'-vis an external point of view. Through a careful analysis of both
Platonic and Aristotelian texts (the Philebus, the Nicomachean Ethics, and the
Politics), Nussbaum illustrates quite convincingly that Aristotle's naturalism
need not fit this description. By tracing Greek thought through considerations
of both species and personal identity, she shows that Aristotle's arguments to
the effect that a way of life is "natural" for us do not turn on some external
point of view but rather on a value-laden internal point of view. She says,
"To find out what our nature is seems to be one and the same thing as to find
out what we deeply believe to be most important and indispensable. If the
opponent really did not care at all about other people and happily opted for
a solitary life after considering Aristotle's arguments, Aristotle could only say
to him that he is not like us and will not be included by us in our community."
But even on this reading, Williams is still inclined to pessimism regarding
the project. Three worries seem prominent. First, Williams (rightly, I think)
questions the degree to which issues of personal and species identity are evalua-

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 Book Reviews 353

tive in Nussbaum's sense. In the background, I believe, are views on bodily

criteria for personal identity argued for elsewhere by both Williams and Peter
Unger. Also, Aristotle's use of species identity must retain some classificatory
status to do any evaluative work at all. Second, any attempt to provide an
Aristotelian foundation for ethics must include a theory of error; otherwise,
it will be adrift. How are we to know when we are defending an "unnatural"
way of life? This would seem to require some judgments independent of the
evaluative judgments of the internal perspective. After all, that perspective
might be flawed at its core. One might hope that a plausible naturalism could
correct for this. Finally, if I understand him, Williams seems skeptical that a
theory of error faithful to the facts of human psychology would produce a
conception of common humanity sufficient for a foundation for ethics. Will-
iams, then, seems less sanguine than Nussbaum that we share a common
nature even on her reading of Aristotle's project.
Charles Taylor's piece expresses a spirit that is kindred in most ways
to Williams in regard to contemporary moral philosophy and "the peculiar
institution" conception of morality it reflects. He mounts a scathing attack on
obligation-centered conceptions of morality found not only in utilitarianism
and Kantianism, but also in the recent views of Habermas. He attacks their
peculiar brand of naturalism, their attempt at a purely procedural understand-
ing of practical reason, and even their moral motives. Regarding the latter, he
provides an illuminating account of four motives for their projects: a defense
of ordinary life and desire against demands of "higher" goods, the modern
conception of freedom, the demands of benevolence and altruism (on a certain
reading), and a retreat from parochialism. In all four cases, Taylor argues,
these motives are misplaced. This analysis alone is worth the price of the
book. But the fundamental philosophical problem for these views on Taylor's
account is that they cannot account for themselves in their own terms. Crucial
to this claim is a distinction Taylor makes between strong and weak evaluation,
but I will leave it to the reader to find that in Taylor himself.
Despite all this, Taylor remains optimistic about some universal moral
concerns, internationaljustice, and Christianity itself. Needless to say, Williams
is not, especially about the latter.
The other essays address a range of issues, including equality, choice
theory, integrity, and philosophical style. Williams even says some interesting
things about life at Oxford in his earlier days.

G. W. HARRIS
College of William and Mary

Darwall, Stephen, ed. Equal Freedom: Selected Tanner Lectures on Human Value
Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1987. Pp. 400. $49.50 (cloth);
$18.95 (paper).

This book contains lectures by Quentin Skinner, T. M. Scanlon, John Rawls,

Ronald Dworkin, Amartya Sen, and G. A. Cohen. The earliest were delivered
in 1979, the most recent in 1991. These essays have earned a place in the
literature, and they will be familiar to most readers.

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