Making Sense of Humanity
And Other Philosophical Papers 1982–1993

Like the two earlier volumes of Bernard Williams's papers published by CUP, Problems of the Self and Moral Luck, this book will be welcomed by all readers with a serious interest in philosophy.

Bernard Williams (Author)

9780521472791, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 6 July 1995

264 pages
23.7 x 16 x 2.2 cm, 0.522 kg

'In Making Sense of Humanity, Williams takes his scapel and sets about slicing morality's jugular: free will, blame, moral responsibility, the ability of everone to do the right thing, and the possibility of a theoretical justification for being good. His attack seems to me to be alarmingly convincing.' Spectator

This new volume of philosophical papers by Bernard Williams is divided into three sections: the first Action, Freedom, Responsibility, the second Philosophy, Evolution and the Human Sciences; in which appears the essay which gives the collection its title; and the third Ethics, which contains essays closely related to his 1983 book Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy. Like the two earlier volumes of Williams's papers published by Cambridge University Press, Problems of the Self and Moral Luck, this volume will be welcomed by all readers with a serious interest in philosophy. It is published alongside a volume of essays on Williams's work, World, Mind, and Ethics: Essays on the Ethical Philosophy of Bernard Williams, edited by J. E. J. Altham and Ross Harrison, which provides a reappraisal of his work by other distinguished thinkers in the field.

Preface
Part I. Action, Freedom, Responsibility: 1. How free does the will need to be? 2. Voluntary acts and responsible agents
3. Internal reasons and the obscurity of blame
4. Moral incapacity
5. Acts and omissions, doing and not doing
6. Nietzsche's minimalist moral psychology
Part II. Philosophy, Evolution and the Human Sciences: 7. Making sense of humanity
8. Evolutionary theory and epistemology
9. Evolution, ethics and the representation problem
10. Formal structures and social reality
11. Formal and substantial individualism
12. Saint-Just's illusion
Part III. Ethics: 13. The point of view of the universe
14. Ethics and the fabric of the world
15. What does intuitionism imply
16. Professional morality and its dispositions
17. Who needs ethical knowledge?
18. What slopes are slippery? 19. Resenting one's own existence
20. Must a concern for the environment be centred on human beings? 21. Moral luck: a postscript.

Subject Areas: Ethics & moral philosophy [HPQ]