Table of Contents

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.

Promotional Information

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.

Reviews

'A treat: civilised, sharp discussions of serious issues, spiked with asides which are deep, funny and sometimes both' Onora O'Neill, Times Higher Education Supplement '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