Williams Utilitarianism And Integrity

In Utilitarianism and Integrity, Williams argues that Utilitarianism is fundamentally flawed because it denies individual responsibility and robs people of their moral autonomy. According to Williams, because Utilitarianism supports the idea that a person’s actions should be motivated by the desire to gain the most worthy outcome for all parties, it does not take into account a person’s individual’s moral code or desires. Instead, people are expected to sacrifice their moral integrity for the sake of the “greater good.” Although Williams is right in that a person’s moral values and individual relationships can be essential to their humanity, he does not take into account that morality is a spectrum and that personal sacrifice for the greater
Negative responsibility is the idea that one is responsible for their inaction as well as their actions. Williams argues that negative responsibility is unfair because it does not acknowledge a person’s individuality as a moral agent--it assumes that we would assume responsibility for things that may be out of our control. He also argues that negative responsibility requires us to completely abandon our moral principles and take on the burden of other people’s actions. One example that Williams uses to illustrate this point is a scenario in which a man named Pedro forces Jim--an innocent bystander--to choose between killing one person to save nineteen lives or killing no one and allowing twenty people to die. In this case, killing someone would require Jim to completely abandon his moral values, however, a Utilitarian would encourage Jim to kill one person because that action would produce the best outcome for the most people. In this scenario, a Utilitarian would argue that both Jim and Pedro assume the same amount of responsibility for the death of those people because Jim has the ability to influence the outcome of the situation. Williams uses this scenario to argue that Utilitarianism detracts from our actions and unfairly places responsibility on the general body instead of the