An extravagance is something that your spirit thinks is a necessity.
Bernard WilliamsRead
Contemporary moral philosophy has found an original way of being boring, which is by not discussing moral issues at all.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote critiques contemporary moral philosophy for avoiding discussion on moral issues.
Bernard Williams highlights a significant problem in modern moral philosophy: the tendency to ignore the very ethical questions that should be at its core. By calling out this perceived flaw, he emphasizes the importance of engaging with moral issues rather than evading them, suggesting that a lack of discussion leads to a dull and ineffective philosophy that fails to address real-world ethical dilemmas.
Themes
Moral PhilosophyEthicsDiscussionContemporaryBoring
In practice
Example use cases
In a philosophy class discussing the relevance of ethics today.
More from Bernard Williams
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The majority of philosophers are totally humorless. That's part of their trouble.
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People have been predicting the death of philosophy since the 17th century. When I was a student, people were saying, 'We're in the last days of philosophy.' Then we were told in the '60s it would be replaced by sociology, then by literary criticism.
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Virtually the only subject in which one could ever get a scholarship to Oxford or Cambridge was classics. So I went to Oxford to study classics and, unlike Cambridge, it had a philosophy component, and I became completely transported by it.
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If we try and fail, we have temporary disappointments. But if we do not try at all, we have permanent regrets.
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