Williams and Kant on Integrity

Abstract

For some time now ethical debates have been fought on a field whose boundaries are the historical theories of Kant's deontology and Mill's utilitarianism. Recently, however, several have chosen to leave the battlefield entirely—to suggest, in various ways, that both of the major ethical theories share a common, flawed outlook. Thomas Nagel, for example, has argued that founding ethics on the sole ground of interpersonal obligations (a common feature of Kantianism and utilitarianism) unnecessarily “fragments” human value. Such an account has the effect of pitting one species of human value (duties to others) against other quite legitimate values (personal goals and special relationships). Or approaching the matter from quite another direction, Philippa Foot also holds that morality, as a system of interpersonal obligations, is too limiting. However, she proposes to counter the advancing forces of modern ethics by championing an Aristotelian doctrine of virtue.