The Meaning of Integrity: A New Interpretation of Bernard Williams’ Integrity Objection

Abstract

This thesis proposes a new interpretation of the famous "integrity objection", an objection to utilitarianism formulated in 1973 by the philosopher Bernard Williams. Other interpretations have claimed that the objection tries to show that utilitarianism unfairly alienates agents from their deepest desires, by demanding that they always pursue maximizing utility, and so neglect the projects and relationships which fill their lives with meaning. I argue that the objection is instead that utilitarianism—and other impartial moral theories—alienates agents from their own ethical judgements regarding those projects and relationships. The key difference is that I argue Williams is concerned only with the rational authority of “commitments”, which are motives related to those personal ethical judgements, and not other private desires. Chapter One unpacks Williams’ objection as arguing that moral theories ignore the rational salience of commitments, by demanding that an agent be apathetic to the reasons for action those commitments entail. Chapter Two critiques Samuel Scheffler’s interpretation, who takes the objection to be that impartial morality is unduly demanding, because it restricts agents from fulfilling any of their desires or maintaining their personal relationships. I argue that this view cannot make sense of the way Williams illustrates the objection through his example cases, where agents are not subject to that restriction, and yet their integrity is nevertheless compromised. Chapter Three critiques Sophie Grace Chappell’s interpretation, who argues that Williams claims that there can be no reason to follow the demands of impartial morality systems. I find that this is not Williams’ claim, instead the objection argues that if there are reasons to follow the demands of impartial morality, those reasons do not therefore have the authority to make us ignore the reasons entailed by our commitments.