Bernard Arthur Owen Williams

(British philosopher, 1929–2003). One of the most important moral philosophers of the twentieth century, Williams was a non-foundationalist and anti-reductionist thinker who believed that the complexity of moral experience made it impenetrable to systematic codification. He rejected utilitarianism out of hand, and criticized Kantian ethics and the categorical imperative for failing to make allowance for the specific identities and situations of individuals confronting moral choices. His books include Truth and Truthfulness: An Essay in Genealogy, Moral Luck, Problems of the Self, and Shame and Necessity.