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Sather Classical Lectures
Shame and Necessity
We tend to suppose that the ancient Greeks had primitive ideas of the self, of responsibility, freedom, and shame, and that now humanity has advanced from these to a more refined moral consciousness. Bernard Williams's original and radical book questions this picture of Western history. While we are in many ways different from the Greeks, Williams claims that the differences are not to be traced to a shift in these basic conceptions of ethical life. We are more like the ancients than we are prepared to acknowledge, and only when this is understood can we properly grasp our most important differences from them, such as our rejection of slavery.
The author is a philosopher, but much of his book is directed to writers such as Homer and the tragedians, whom he discusses as poets and not just as materials for philosophy. At the center of his study is the question of how we can understand Greek tragedy at all, when its world is so far from ours.
Williams explains how it is that when the ancients speak, they do not merely tell us about themselves, but about ourselves. Shame and Necessity gives a new account of our relations to the Greeks, and helps us to see what ethical ideas we need in order to live in the modern world.
The author is a philosopher, but much of his book is directed to writers such as Homer and the tragedians, whom he discusses as poets and not just as materials for philosophy. At the center of his study is the question of how we can understand Greek tragedy at all, when its world is so far from ours.
Williams explains how it is that when the ancients speak, they do not merely tell us about themselves, but about ourselves. Shame and Necessity gives a new account of our relations to the Greeks, and helps us to see what ethical ideas we need in order to live in the modern world.
254 pages, Paperback
First published March 24, 1993
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1247 people want to read
About the author
Bernard Williams
99 books141 followersSir Bernard Arthur Owen Williams was an English moral philosopher. His publications include Problems of the Self (1973), Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (1985), Shame and Necessity (1993), and Truth and Truthfulness (2002). He was knighted in 1999.
As Knightbridge Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge and Deutsch Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, Williams became known for his efforts to reorient the study of moral philosophy to psychology, history, and in particular to the Greeks. Described by Colin McGinn as an "analytical philosopher with the soul of a general humanist," he was sceptical about attempts to create a foundation for moral philosophy. Martha Nussbaum wrote that he demanded of philosophy that it "come to terms with, and contain, the difficulty and complexity of human life."
Williams was a strong supporter of women in academia; according to Nussbaum, he was "as close to being a feminist as a powerful man of his generation could be." He was also famously sharp in conversation. Gilbert Ryle, one of Williams's mentors at Oxford, said that he "understands what you're going to say better than you understand it yourself, and sees all the possible objections to it, and all the possible answers to all the possible objections, before you've got to the end of your own sentence."
As Knightbridge Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge and Deutsch Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, Williams became known for his efforts to reorient the study of moral philosophy to psychology, history, and in particular to the Greeks. Described by Colin McGinn as an "analytical philosopher with the soul of a general humanist," he was sceptical about attempts to create a foundation for moral philosophy. Martha Nussbaum wrote that he demanded of philosophy that it "come to terms with, and contain, the difficulty and complexity of human life."
Williams was a strong supporter of women in academia; according to Nussbaum, he was "as close to being a feminist as a powerful man of his generation could be." He was also famously sharp in conversation. Gilbert Ryle, one of Williams's mentors at Oxford, said that he "understands what you're going to say better than you understand it yourself, and sees all the possible objections to it, and all the possible answers to all the possible objections, before you've got to the end of your own sentence."
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March 29, 2019
Williams challenges the commonplace assumption that the framework of ethical thinking of modernity represents a progression from that of the ancient Greeks. He works to uncover the commonsense notions about moral experience that we share with the Greeks so as to evince that ‘what we think about moral obligations etc.’ is not always what ‘we think we think’. Williams intends to point out the extent to which our intuitive responses and everyday practice belie the ruling notions of morality systems and in so doing dispel ‘our illusions’ about the superiority of the modern world’s grasp on moral thought and language. Generally, Williams is critical of post-Platonic theoretical frameworks that obscure contingent ethical experience and of demands of rationality that negate or minimize the role of moral feeling. He deploys an analysis of literary texts that acknowledges that significant intuitions about factual moral experience are best expressed in literary fiction: ‘Why not take examples from life? It’s a good question, and it has a short answer: what philosophers will lay before themselves and their readers as an alternative to literature will not be life, but bad literature.’ (p.13)
December 6, 2011
Did the Greeks of Homer's era have a complete sense of self and agency? Some critics have said no, claiming that these concepts were not developed till later (some say as late as modern times). Bernard Williams counters these arguments, and further claims that early Greek ethical ideas were in some ways in better condition than ours today.
Shame and Necessity is an exploration of the working theory of action informing the works of Homer and the playwrights of his day. In order to make his point, Williams roves over a range of related concepts. In so doing he teaches us something about Greek notions of body, mind, soul, responsibility, intention, will, shame, guilt, honor, power, necessity, and freedom.
The book is based on a series of lectures, and Williams' style is erudite, literary, and subtle. To fully appreciate his arguments, one needs a solid ground in Classics as well as philosophy of mind. Nevertheless, the general reader can, with a bit of determination, learn quite a bit about the Greek mind, regardless of how much else is understood.
In the first chapter Williams outlines his contention that the Homeric Greeks did have a working theory of action, as against "progressivists" such as Bruno Snell, who claim that a complete theory only developed later through gradual intellectual progress.
The second chapter is where he begins to show this. One reason critics claim Homeric people could not decide for themselves was because they supposedly did not have selves to decide for. The notion of a unified "soul" is not yet present in Homer; there are only various parts of what modern people would call the soul. But Williams finds that characters in Homer do indeed make decisions and act on them, and this very fact shows that they have a unified sense of self, insofar as they are persons who act. It is only by imposing our modern notions of the soul onto Homer that his characters appear to lack something. Through this discussion, we learn about the Greek concepts of mind, body, soul, will, intention, and self-control. Another reason critics claim the Greeks could not decide for themselves was because Homer's characters are always being coaxed to this or that action by divine intervention. This, too, Williams debunks by showing that the gods only give characters reasons to act in a particular way, they do not actually force their hands. Characters still decide for themselves whether or not to heed the gods. Through this discussion we learn something of the complex interplay of human psychology and divine will.
Responsibility is the topic of the third chapter. This continues Williams' exploration of the acting agent by showing that Homeric characters are fully able to hold themselves accountable for their actions. This is true both for deliberate, intentional action, and also for what is not intended but nevertheless caused by action. In the course of the chapter we learn about notions of cause, blame, pollution (miasma), regret, and pity. The discussion also touches the realm of virtue, and virtue's ugly cousin, shame.
This brings us to the theme of the fourth chapter: shame and autonomy. Homer's world has been called a shame culture, as opposed to a guilt culture. And the concept of moral guilt has been upheld by progressivists as an improvement over shame. The latter is criticized for being heteronymous, or excessively concerned with others' opinions, while guilt affirms a person's autonomy. Williams attacks this first of all by showing that the Greeks had notions resembling both shame and guilt, and secondly by theorizing that a person's own internalized sense of shame is often more important than that of any external observer. In this way, he demonstrates that shame is in only certain situations dependent on the opinions of others. In other situations, a person's own shame may determine actions autonomously, as when Sophocles' Ajax determines to commit suicide after his dishonor, even though this runs contrary to the opinions of others around him. The Greeks themselves were conscious of this distinction by the later 5th-century, as demonstrated by Euripides' play Hippolytus, where the character Phaedra destroys herself through excessive concern with public opinion, while Hippolytus relies on his own sense of honor despite the ill opinions of others around him. So the Greek sense of shame was much more complex than the progressivists have allowed. As a result of this debate, we learn some interesting things about shame. First, in cases where the shame does bear relation to an external observer, there are powerful social consequences. To feel shame before others is to share values about what is shame-worthy, and so there is a bonding effect. To feel shame before others also requires that we respect them; we do not feel shame before those whose opinions we hold in contempt. And to feel shame before others does not require that the observer be critical, for a person can be ashamed of being praised in the wrong way or by the wrong person. Second, in cases where the source of shame is internal, this is more than a mere internal image of some specific external person, and also more than an empty, moral monologue. Williams calls it the "internalized other," and this is no one in particular but still potentially somebody. Williams says of Ajax "he has no way of living that anyone he respects would respect--which means that he cannot live with any self-respect" (p. 85). So the internalized other is neither merely self nor merely other, but involves a social dimension within an autonomous thought process. Third, the basic experience of shame differs from that of guilt. Guilt is rooted in hearing the voice of judgment, while shame is rooted in being seen. Guilt results from contemptible acts or omissions, but shame can result from acts as well as faults of character or body, and this can be put in more positive terms: "shame may be expressed in attempts to reconstruct or improve oneself" (p. 90). Guilt is always moral, but shame can be nonmoral, as a failure in prowess or cunning can also produce shame. Fourth, shame is bound up with self-identity. "Shame looks to what I am" is how Williams puts it (p. 93). This illuminates shame's relation to virtue, which is also bound up with self-identity, as expressed for example in Myers' The Other Side of Virtue. Fifth and finally, shame enlightens guilt. Williams writes:
The structures of shame contain the possibility of controlling and learning from guilt, because they give a conception of one's ethical identity, in relation to which guilt can make sense. Shame can understand guilt, but guilt cannot understand itself. (p. 93)
Equally, only shame can help rebuild the self after misdoings, because it alone holds notions of what one is and how one relates to others. Guilt alone provides a false picture of a featureless moral self, an agent devoid of character. Williams praises the Greeks for not isolating guilt from shame.
The Greek sense of shame was constraining, such that they felt they could not act in dishonorable ways, they necessarily must follow honor, even unto death. This sense of necessity is what Williams takes up in the fifth chapter. He finds three kinds of necessity constraining human behavior: personal necessity, of the kind just mentioned, divine necessity, or inevitable events brought out by the wills of gods, and a kind of necessity based on social power structures. This third type occupies the rest of the chapter, and relates to two ugly facts of Greek society: slavery and the subjugation of women. Williams shows that Greeks accepted these institutions not because they thought they were justifiable, but rather because they could not imagine how else society might function without crumbling. In this sense, slavery and the subjugation of women were "necessary." In this way, Williams disarms the charge that we have "progressed" since the time of Homer because we have abolished slavery and enlightened ourselves on the problem of patriarchy. He says, rather, this is not necessarily progress, because we are equally at a loss to see ways out of other social problems, such as the exploitation of capitalism. We are still in the same boat, only the problems have changed.
The final chapter is devoted to the notion of freedom. This clarifies the boundaries of human action brought into question by the foregoing discussions of personal, divine, and social necessity. Finally, Williams concludes by re-asserting his thesis that the Greek concept of action is not as different from ours as the progressivists claim, and that we may indeed make good use of the Greek legacy without also abandoning modernity.
Two short endnotes follow, exploring more detailed aspects of shame. The first attempts to model the mechanisms of shame as an internalized witness, resulting in the sense of a loss of power before that witness. The second explores an anomaly in Euripides' Hippolytus, where Phaedra appears to speaks of shame as a pleasure. As a result of this investigation, Williams finds that there may be two kinds of shame, one related to self-respect and the other to mere social embarrassment. This explicates further what has already been said in chapter four.
The central, over-riding message of Shame and Necessity, that the Greeks had a working theory of action and left a legacy worth considering today, may be of pressing significance only to the specialist. But the general reader finds more than idle curiosities in the many lessons learned along the way. The Greek notions of body, mind, soul, responsibility, shame, and freedom all teach us something about ourselves today. And pagan readers will be especially interested to get inside the minds of their ancient predecessors. Overall, this book is a worthwhile read for those willing to put on their thinking caps.
Shame and Necessity is an exploration of the working theory of action informing the works of Homer and the playwrights of his day. In order to make his point, Williams roves over a range of related concepts. In so doing he teaches us something about Greek notions of body, mind, soul, responsibility, intention, will, shame, guilt, honor, power, necessity, and freedom.
The book is based on a series of lectures, and Williams' style is erudite, literary, and subtle. To fully appreciate his arguments, one needs a solid ground in Classics as well as philosophy of mind. Nevertheless, the general reader can, with a bit of determination, learn quite a bit about the Greek mind, regardless of how much else is understood.
In the first chapter Williams outlines his contention that the Homeric Greeks did have a working theory of action, as against "progressivists" such as Bruno Snell, who claim that a complete theory only developed later through gradual intellectual progress.
The second chapter is where he begins to show this. One reason critics claim Homeric people could not decide for themselves was because they supposedly did not have selves to decide for. The notion of a unified "soul" is not yet present in Homer; there are only various parts of what modern people would call the soul. But Williams finds that characters in Homer do indeed make decisions and act on them, and this very fact shows that they have a unified sense of self, insofar as they are persons who act. It is only by imposing our modern notions of the soul onto Homer that his characters appear to lack something. Through this discussion, we learn about the Greek concepts of mind, body, soul, will, intention, and self-control. Another reason critics claim the Greeks could not decide for themselves was because Homer's characters are always being coaxed to this or that action by divine intervention. This, too, Williams debunks by showing that the gods only give characters reasons to act in a particular way, they do not actually force their hands. Characters still decide for themselves whether or not to heed the gods. Through this discussion we learn something of the complex interplay of human psychology and divine will.
Responsibility is the topic of the third chapter. This continues Williams' exploration of the acting agent by showing that Homeric characters are fully able to hold themselves accountable for their actions. This is true both for deliberate, intentional action, and also for what is not intended but nevertheless caused by action. In the course of the chapter we learn about notions of cause, blame, pollution (miasma), regret, and pity. The discussion also touches the realm of virtue, and virtue's ugly cousin, shame.
This brings us to the theme of the fourth chapter: shame and autonomy. Homer's world has been called a shame culture, as opposed to a guilt culture. And the concept of moral guilt has been upheld by progressivists as an improvement over shame. The latter is criticized for being heteronymous, or excessively concerned with others' opinions, while guilt affirms a person's autonomy. Williams attacks this first of all by showing that the Greeks had notions resembling both shame and guilt, and secondly by theorizing that a person's own internalized sense of shame is often more important than that of any external observer. In this way, he demonstrates that shame is in only certain situations dependent on the opinions of others. In other situations, a person's own shame may determine actions autonomously, as when Sophocles' Ajax determines to commit suicide after his dishonor, even though this runs contrary to the opinions of others around him. The Greeks themselves were conscious of this distinction by the later 5th-century, as demonstrated by Euripides' play Hippolytus, where the character Phaedra destroys herself through excessive concern with public opinion, while Hippolytus relies on his own sense of honor despite the ill opinions of others around him. So the Greek sense of shame was much more complex than the progressivists have allowed. As a result of this debate, we learn some interesting things about shame. First, in cases where the shame does bear relation to an external observer, there are powerful social consequences. To feel shame before others is to share values about what is shame-worthy, and so there is a bonding effect. To feel shame before others also requires that we respect them; we do not feel shame before those whose opinions we hold in contempt. And to feel shame before others does not require that the observer be critical, for a person can be ashamed of being praised in the wrong way or by the wrong person. Second, in cases where the source of shame is internal, this is more than a mere internal image of some specific external person, and also more than an empty, moral monologue. Williams calls it the "internalized other," and this is no one in particular but still potentially somebody. Williams says of Ajax "he has no way of living that anyone he respects would respect--which means that he cannot live with any self-respect" (p. 85). So the internalized other is neither merely self nor merely other, but involves a social dimension within an autonomous thought process. Third, the basic experience of shame differs from that of guilt. Guilt is rooted in hearing the voice of judgment, while shame is rooted in being seen. Guilt results from contemptible acts or omissions, but shame can result from acts as well as faults of character or body, and this can be put in more positive terms: "shame may be expressed in attempts to reconstruct or improve oneself" (p. 90). Guilt is always moral, but shame can be nonmoral, as a failure in prowess or cunning can also produce shame. Fourth, shame is bound up with self-identity. "Shame looks to what I am" is how Williams puts it (p. 93). This illuminates shame's relation to virtue, which is also bound up with self-identity, as expressed for example in Myers' The Other Side of Virtue. Fifth and finally, shame enlightens guilt. Williams writes:
The structures of shame contain the possibility of controlling and learning from guilt, because they give a conception of one's ethical identity, in relation to which guilt can make sense. Shame can understand guilt, but guilt cannot understand itself. (p. 93)
Equally, only shame can help rebuild the self after misdoings, because it alone holds notions of what one is and how one relates to others. Guilt alone provides a false picture of a featureless moral self, an agent devoid of character. Williams praises the Greeks for not isolating guilt from shame.
The Greek sense of shame was constraining, such that they felt they could not act in dishonorable ways, they necessarily must follow honor, even unto death. This sense of necessity is what Williams takes up in the fifth chapter. He finds three kinds of necessity constraining human behavior: personal necessity, of the kind just mentioned, divine necessity, or inevitable events brought out by the wills of gods, and a kind of necessity based on social power structures. This third type occupies the rest of the chapter, and relates to two ugly facts of Greek society: slavery and the subjugation of women. Williams shows that Greeks accepted these institutions not because they thought they were justifiable, but rather because they could not imagine how else society might function without crumbling. In this sense, slavery and the subjugation of women were "necessary." In this way, Williams disarms the charge that we have "progressed" since the time of Homer because we have abolished slavery and enlightened ourselves on the problem of patriarchy. He says, rather, this is not necessarily progress, because we are equally at a loss to see ways out of other social problems, such as the exploitation of capitalism. We are still in the same boat, only the problems have changed.
The final chapter is devoted to the notion of freedom. This clarifies the boundaries of human action brought into question by the foregoing discussions of personal, divine, and social necessity. Finally, Williams concludes by re-asserting his thesis that the Greek concept of action is not as different from ours as the progressivists claim, and that we may indeed make good use of the Greek legacy without also abandoning modernity.
Two short endnotes follow, exploring more detailed aspects of shame. The first attempts to model the mechanisms of shame as an internalized witness, resulting in the sense of a loss of power before that witness. The second explores an anomaly in Euripides' Hippolytus, where Phaedra appears to speaks of shame as a pleasure. As a result of this investigation, Williams finds that there may be two kinds of shame, one related to self-respect and the other to mere social embarrassment. This explicates further what has already been said in chapter four.
The central, over-riding message of Shame and Necessity, that the Greeks had a working theory of action and left a legacy worth considering today, may be of pressing significance only to the specialist. But the general reader finds more than idle curiosities in the many lessons learned along the way. The Greek notions of body, mind, soul, responsibility, shame, and freedom all teach us something about ourselves today. And pagan readers will be especially interested to get inside the minds of their ancient predecessors. Overall, this book is a worthwhile read for those willing to put on their thinking caps.
April 22, 2025
3.5.
The chapters on agency and shame were the most interesting to me. Definitely a useful source to make sense out of the ancients from a standpoint of modern moral philosophy.
The chapters on agency and shame were the most interesting to me. Definitely a useful source to make sense out of the ancients from a standpoint of modern moral philosophy.
September 18, 2008
Williams writes: "No one expects to write, or be, like Plato. Aristotle, though, even when one has dimly recognized the extent of his genius, can seem to provide a comforting assurance to philosophers about the possibility of their subject, in the form of an omnipresent judiciousness, which, in itself, is only too easy to imitate" (p.111).
Williams avoids the omnipresent judiciousness that washes out a lot of contemporary moral philosophy, and instead says very sensible and convincing things about how the ancient Greeks are not moral aliens, as some have argued, and why Homer and the tragedians might be seen as richer sources of moral instruction than Plato and Aristotle and indeed the whole Western philosophical tradition that assumes that "the universe or history or the structure of human reason can, when properly understood, yield a pattern that makes sense of human life and human aspirations" (p.163). Sophocles and Homer, to take two prominent examples, don't offer any reassurances that our lives will end well or even that their overall shape makes any sense. In the final chapter, Williams makes the case that the contemporary world, which rejects both teleology (in all its shapes: Aristotelian, Christian and Hegelian) and Enlightenment faith in reason, is closer to the ethical world view pictured in Greek tragedy and poetry "than any Western people have been in the meantime" (p.166).
Williams avoids the omnipresent judiciousness that washes out a lot of contemporary moral philosophy, and instead says very sensible and convincing things about how the ancient Greeks are not moral aliens, as some have argued, and why Homer and the tragedians might be seen as richer sources of moral instruction than Plato and Aristotle and indeed the whole Western philosophical tradition that assumes that "the universe or history or the structure of human reason can, when properly understood, yield a pattern that makes sense of human life and human aspirations" (p.163). Sophocles and Homer, to take two prominent examples, don't offer any reassurances that our lives will end well or even that their overall shape makes any sense. In the final chapter, Williams makes the case that the contemporary world, which rejects both teleology (in all its shapes: Aristotelian, Christian and Hegelian) and Enlightenment faith in reason, is closer to the ethical world view pictured in Greek tragedy and poetry "than any Western people have been in the meantime" (p.166).
May 24, 2019
Williams shows that by studying ancient Greek conceptions of agency, freedom, responsibility, and shame, we can come to see the shortcomings of our modern conceptions of these moral terms, and learn from (let our current ethics be improved by) certain aspects of ancient thought. It is a sort of archaeological project, taking from Nietzsche. Overall, Williams agrees with Nietzsche's conclusions that Christianity (and post-Christian philosophers like Kant and Hegel) have established a particular view about human psychology that serves as a basis for a Christianized ethics, which is deficient compared to the ethics espoused by the ancient Greeks.
But Williams's project is a lot more detailed than Nietzsche's; in tracing the lineage of our basic moral terms, he draws on many examples from ancient Greek tragedy, Plato and Aristotle, and Kant and Hegel. Williams also isn't hyperbolic like Nietzsche in fully valorizing the ancients and criticizing modernity. He is more nuanced in showing that the seeds of modern liberalism are embedded in ancient Greek thought, and he is realistic in acknowledging the virtues of modernity and the limitations of the ancients.
Williams argues that the pre-Socratic ancients held a view of human psychology, and relatedly a theory of action, that accounts for agency, deliberation, and responsibility in ways that are not inherently moralistic. Only with the advent of Platonic philosophy did we come to see our psychology as structured according to opposing, dualistic forces (e.g. soul/body; reason/emotion; philosophy/politics). This Platonic view allows for certain ethical values to be built into the 'superior' parts of these dyads. This view sets us up to have an extremely individualistic approach to morality; an inner part of ourselves is dictator of our conduct. It also allows for the conflation between rationality and ethics. This is particularly dangerous. We can mistakenly believe that by following this 'inner reason', we can be free of contingent, cultural biases, and have non-biased criticisms of our own and others' ethical conduct. But in fact, any 'inner reason' is always an internalized voice of the social norms of our community; treatments of shame in pre-Socratic ancient texts (e.g. Homer; Sophocles) can show us this.
Williams also argues that the pre-Socratic ancients had an understanding of our human finitude, and the unintelligibility of the natural and social forces that constrain us, which is remarkably similar to our contemporary understandings. Greek tragedies include ideas of supernatural and natural kinds of necessity, inexplicable forces that intervene in our human activities. Only did early modern thinkers like Kant and Hegel introduce ideas of the total intelligibility of our own human nature, or of human history. We've rejected these ideas since, but we still unconsciously buy into certain attitudes about necessity, and ethical principles, that follow from these ideas. Williams suggests that we could learn from the ancients how to deal with different kinds of necessity in our lives, and how to reconstruct our ethical principles accordingly.
This book is amazingly concise and clearly written. My one complaint is that Williams seems to be vague in formulating his final conclusions; or, he is too hesitant to do so, and leaves the reader wishing to know his theses. Much of the book is spent on analyzing sections from ancient Greek literature and showing how the ancients conceived of human psychology and ethics. Williams claims that we can learn from these ancient views, but he doesn't say exactly what we should learn from them.
I would recommend this book to readers interested in the philosophy of emotions; ancient Greek philosophy; Nietzsche's Geneology of Morals; or historical approaches in metaethics.
But Williams's project is a lot more detailed than Nietzsche's; in tracing the lineage of our basic moral terms, he draws on many examples from ancient Greek tragedy, Plato and Aristotle, and Kant and Hegel. Williams also isn't hyperbolic like Nietzsche in fully valorizing the ancients and criticizing modernity. He is more nuanced in showing that the seeds of modern liberalism are embedded in ancient Greek thought, and he is realistic in acknowledging the virtues of modernity and the limitations of the ancients.
Williams argues that the pre-Socratic ancients held a view of human psychology, and relatedly a theory of action, that accounts for agency, deliberation, and responsibility in ways that are not inherently moralistic. Only with the advent of Platonic philosophy did we come to see our psychology as structured according to opposing, dualistic forces (e.g. soul/body; reason/emotion; philosophy/politics). This Platonic view allows for certain ethical values to be built into the 'superior' parts of these dyads. This view sets us up to have an extremely individualistic approach to morality; an inner part of ourselves is dictator of our conduct. It also allows for the conflation between rationality and ethics. This is particularly dangerous. We can mistakenly believe that by following this 'inner reason', we can be free of contingent, cultural biases, and have non-biased criticisms of our own and others' ethical conduct. But in fact, any 'inner reason' is always an internalized voice of the social norms of our community; treatments of shame in pre-Socratic ancient texts (e.g. Homer; Sophocles) can show us this.
Williams also argues that the pre-Socratic ancients had an understanding of our human finitude, and the unintelligibility of the natural and social forces that constrain us, which is remarkably similar to our contemporary understandings. Greek tragedies include ideas of supernatural and natural kinds of necessity, inexplicable forces that intervene in our human activities. Only did early modern thinkers like Kant and Hegel introduce ideas of the total intelligibility of our own human nature, or of human history. We've rejected these ideas since, but we still unconsciously buy into certain attitudes about necessity, and ethical principles, that follow from these ideas. Williams suggests that we could learn from the ancients how to deal with different kinds of necessity in our lives, and how to reconstruct our ethical principles accordingly.
This book is amazingly concise and clearly written. My one complaint is that Williams seems to be vague in formulating his final conclusions; or, he is too hesitant to do so, and leaves the reader wishing to know his theses. Much of the book is spent on analyzing sections from ancient Greek literature and showing how the ancients conceived of human psychology and ethics. Williams claims that we can learn from these ancient views, but he doesn't say exactly what we should learn from them.
I would recommend this book to readers interested in the philosophy of emotions; ancient Greek philosophy; Nietzsche's Geneology of Morals; or historical approaches in metaethics.
April 7, 2020
Maybe this was too airy, abstract, and specialized for me, but I still enjoyed meeting again my old friends from college--Oedipus, Odysseus, Antigone, Homer, Aeschylus, Aristotle, and that set. The theme seems to be that the ancient Greeks were not so different from us as is sometimes supposed. I didn't know anyone supposed such nonsense. The book does include a striking account of the difference between shame and guilt: guilt comes from acts that arouse anger, resentment, or indignation in others; shame comes from acts that arouse contempt, derision, or avoidance.
November 25, 2018
Williams brilliantly skewers theories it seemingly would have never occurred to anyone to believe and which apparently no one >has< believed since the book was published in the early nineties. Why is this book then so captivating? I cannot tell you but it is....also it has somehow diminished my longtime geek love for Immanuel Kant and there is inexplicable pleasure in this as well.
February 28, 2022
Highly recommend to any with a shred of interest.
September 21, 2022
Such a pleasure to read. Interesting contrast between the early greek writers and Plato and Aristotle.
---
"... Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel are all on the same side, all believing in one way or another that the universe or history or the structure of human reason can, when properly understood, yield a pattern that makes sense of human life and human aspirations. Sophocles and Thucydides, by contrast, are alike in leaving us with no such sense. Each of them represents human beings as dealing sensibly, foolishly, sometimes catastrophically, sometimes nobly, with a world that is only partially intelligible to human agency and in itself is not necessarily well adjusted to ethical aspirations." (164)
---
"Greek tragedy precisely refused to present human beings who are ideally in harmony with their word, and has no room for a world that, if it were understood well enough, could instruct us how to be in harmony with it. There is gap between what the tragic character is, concretely and continently, and the ways in which the world acts upon him." (165)
---
"We have to acknowledge the hideous costs of many human achievements that we value, including this reflective sense itself, and recognize that there is no redemptive Hegelian history or universal Leibnizian cost-benefit analysis to show that it will come out well enough in the end." (166)
---
"... Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel are all on the same side, all believing in one way or another that the universe or history or the structure of human reason can, when properly understood, yield a pattern that makes sense of human life and human aspirations. Sophocles and Thucydides, by contrast, are alike in leaving us with no such sense. Each of them represents human beings as dealing sensibly, foolishly, sometimes catastrophically, sometimes nobly, with a world that is only partially intelligible to human agency and in itself is not necessarily well adjusted to ethical aspirations." (164)
---
"Greek tragedy precisely refused to present human beings who are ideally in harmony with their word, and has no room for a world that, if it were understood well enough, could instruct us how to be in harmony with it. There is gap between what the tragic character is, concretely and continently, and the ways in which the world acts upon him." (165)
---
"We have to acknowledge the hideous costs of many human achievements that we value, including this reflective sense itself, and recognize that there is no redemptive Hegelian history or universal Leibnizian cost-benefit analysis to show that it will come out well enough in the end." (166)
February 2, 2021
overstates his case in some places, but a productive enough book for thinking through the differences between the ethical world of the greeks and us moderns. academic moral philosophy is still kinda the pits though.... at the very least furnishes some good examples and thought figures.
October 17, 2017
illuminative essays but I side with Rorty in their philosophical disputes.
February 21, 2009
Compelling, eloquent and provocative.
August 22, 2016
I wish I could rate this book with 3,5 stars. Sometimes it is good and captures all your attention, and sometimes it is not very interesting.
September 9, 2018
wowwwwww
July 17, 2023
This excellent book was recommended to me, while I was looking for resources that would introduce the classic problem of free will.
Strictly speaking, it is not an introduction at all; characteristic of modern philosophy, it is a deconstruction of the concept of moral autonomy. This deconstruction takes the form of a Nietzschean reconstruction of the history of this concept.
The similarity to Nietzsche doesn’t end there - for the author, the ground upon which our modern structures of moral autonomy rest, is the area ploughed by the ancient Greeks. The author makes the same historical demarcation that Nietzsche insisted on – namely, that the true genius of the ancient Greeks lay in their tragedians; and that this genius was appropriated by the burgeoning philosophers, beginning with Plato, inaugurating a history of conceptual development, refinement, and revocation that has eventually dovetailed into something resembling our modern concepts.
What is the purpose of this historical reconstruction – or, to remain with Nietzsche, this genealogical investigation into our cherished heritage of moral autonomy? The author avers that philosophers tend to lack a sense of history – that they use concepts without an appreciation of the modulating soil from which these concepts gain their sustenance. This is, of course, a point that has been well taken since the beginning of the last century. The difference is the brilliant exegesis that author conducts within these pages - he successfully argues that, simply because the lived concepts that percolated within the words of the ancient dramatists had not been consciously elucidated in philosophical discourse, this did not mean that these concepts were absent of their force. It is in the link between these unspoken concepts and their elucidation at the beginning of the philosophical tradition, that the author's interpretive energies are focused.
The modern concept of moral autonomy is shown to be the latest stage in a long process of development that has its roots in the lived, 'primitive' concepts that were dramatized in ancient tragedy. An incipient philosophy of action is evidenced - questions of moral responsibility, the specter of fate, and the evolution of moral autonomy from a much earlier shame-based honor society are all brought to light to showcase the distinction between 'what we think, and what we think we think.' The point is that, we actually think much like the ancient Greeks themselves thought about such matters; where the difference lies is the changing nature of self-interpretation i.e. what we think we think; and this, the author avers, is the result of the historical development of philosophy.
The blurb mentions that Williams is regarded as 'an analytic philosopher with the soul of a humanist', which is accurate praise. The author's vast erudition and clarity of thought is evidenced throughout by the tightly-packed sentences that abound in this book. I am now much more curious to read his other works - if they are half as enlightening as this book, I shall be well-served.
Strictly speaking, it is not an introduction at all; characteristic of modern philosophy, it is a deconstruction of the concept of moral autonomy. This deconstruction takes the form of a Nietzschean reconstruction of the history of this concept.
The similarity to Nietzsche doesn’t end there - for the author, the ground upon which our modern structures of moral autonomy rest, is the area ploughed by the ancient Greeks. The author makes the same historical demarcation that Nietzsche insisted on – namely, that the true genius of the ancient Greeks lay in their tragedians; and that this genius was appropriated by the burgeoning philosophers, beginning with Plato, inaugurating a history of conceptual development, refinement, and revocation that has eventually dovetailed into something resembling our modern concepts.
What is the purpose of this historical reconstruction – or, to remain with Nietzsche, this genealogical investigation into our cherished heritage of moral autonomy? The author avers that philosophers tend to lack a sense of history – that they use concepts without an appreciation of the modulating soil from which these concepts gain their sustenance. This is, of course, a point that has been well taken since the beginning of the last century. The difference is the brilliant exegesis that author conducts within these pages - he successfully argues that, simply because the lived concepts that percolated within the words of the ancient dramatists had not been consciously elucidated in philosophical discourse, this did not mean that these concepts were absent of their force. It is in the link between these unspoken concepts and their elucidation at the beginning of the philosophical tradition, that the author's interpretive energies are focused.
The modern concept of moral autonomy is shown to be the latest stage in a long process of development that has its roots in the lived, 'primitive' concepts that were dramatized in ancient tragedy. An incipient philosophy of action is evidenced - questions of moral responsibility, the specter of fate, and the evolution of moral autonomy from a much earlier shame-based honor society are all brought to light to showcase the distinction between 'what we think, and what we think we think.' The point is that, we actually think much like the ancient Greeks themselves thought about such matters; where the difference lies is the changing nature of self-interpretation i.e. what we think we think; and this, the author avers, is the result of the historical development of philosophy.
The blurb mentions that Williams is regarded as 'an analytic philosopher with the soul of a humanist', which is accurate praise. The author's vast erudition and clarity of thought is evidenced throughout by the tightly-packed sentences that abound in this book. I am now much more curious to read his other works - if they are half as enlightening as this book, I shall be well-served.
November 14, 2024
Βασική θέση του «Αιδώς και ανάγκη» είναι ότι σε ζητήματα ταυτότητας και ανθρώπινης ελευθερίας, ο μετανεωτερικός κόσμος (και ενίοτε και ο νεωτερικός, τον οποίο δεν ξεχνά συχνά πυκνα να ραπίσει με την κριτική του ο συγγραφέας) δεν διαφέρει πολύ από όσα βίωνε ο μέσος αρχαίος Έλληνας, δηλαδή… ο ήρωας του Σοφοκλή, του Αισχύλου, ο Περικλής στα έργα του Θουκυδίδη, οι ομηρικοί ήρωες (LOL), καθώς και η απουσία γραμμικότητας στις αλλαγές (και τη σχετική πρόοδο) που επήλθαν τα τελευταία 2.500 χιλιάδες χρόνια. Αν εκπλήσσεστε, σκεφθείτε ότι 200 χρόνια πριν (και 2300 μετά τη μάχη π.χ. του Μαραθώνα), σε πολλές περιοχές του κόσμου το να είναι κάποιος σκλάβος θεωρείτο απόλυτα φυσικό, θεμιτό, εύλογο και, φυσικά, νόμιμο. Βέβαια, σήμερα ο άνθρωπος παραμένει σκλάβος, άλλων πραγμάτων, λιγότερο εμφανών, όπως μπορεί π.χ. να σας βεβαιώσει κάποιος που έχει στεγαστικό δάνειο αλλά το μισό του εισόδημα υπό μορφή διατροφής (που δεν εκπίπτει φορολογικά) πηγαίνει στη γυναίκα (η οποία έχουσα τα παιδιά έχει και φοροελαφρύνσεις) η οποία ενώ πρώτα του φόρτωσε ένα κοντέινερ κέρατα με το γείτονα, στη συνέχεια όταν η κερασφορία έγινε αντιληπτή του πήρε τα παιδιά κι έφυγε. Πείτε μου πόσο ελεύθερος είναι πραγματικά αυτός ο άνθρωπος (κι αυτό είναι απλώς ένα χονδροειδές παράδειγμα «υποδούλωσης», υπάρχουν πολύ πιο εκλεπτυσμένα και δυσδιάκριτα, αλλά αυτό είναι ζήτημα άλλης συζήτησης).
Πάνω σε αυτή τη βάση (όχι των κεράτων!) ο συγγραφέας αναπτύσσει την ανάλυσή του, διαφοροποιώντας ντροπή (shame) και ενοχή (guilt): η πρώτη μεν προέρχεται από πράξεις που προκαλούν θυμό, αγανάκτηση ή αγανάκτηση στους άλλους. Ενώ η δεύτερη η ντροπή από πράξεις που προκαλούν περιφρόνηση, χλευασμό ή αποφυγή (μίασμα;).
Ωστόσο, για μένα (τον ταπεινό, πλημμελώς εγγράμματο αναγνώστη) το βιβλίο στάθηκε λίγο κάτω από τις προσδοκίες μου. Εξαιρετικά αφηρημένο κάποιες φορές, υπερβολικά ακαδημαϊκό κάποιες άλλες, προς το τέλος καταφέρνει να κουράσει αρκετά, χωρίς λόγο. Από την άλλη, απολαμβάνει κανείς την αμηχανία το�� Αριστοτέλη όταν προσπαθεί να δικαιολογήσει τη δουλεία ως, αν μη τι άλλο, «μη ανήθικη» (και μάλλον νιώθει μια κάποια ντροπή ο Σταγειρίτης).
Σίγουρα απαιτεί μια στοιχειώδη γνώση ελληνικής γραμματείας για να εκτιμηθεί, οπότε αν δεν έχετε διαβάσει λίγο Όμηρο, Αισχυλοσοφοκλήδες, Θουκυδευριπίδες κ.λπ., καλό είναι να το αναβάλετε.
Πάνω σε αυτή τη βάση (όχι των κεράτων!) ο συγγραφέας αναπτύσσει την ανάλυσή του, διαφοροποιώντας ντροπή (shame) και ενοχή (guilt): η πρώτη μεν προέρχεται από πράξεις που προκαλούν θυμό, αγανάκτηση ή αγανάκτηση στους άλλους. Ενώ η δεύτερη η ντροπή από πράξεις που προκαλούν περιφρόνηση, χλευασμό ή αποφυγή (μίασμα;).
Ωστόσο, για μένα (τον ταπεινό, πλημμελώς εγγράμματο αναγνώστη) το βιβλίο στάθηκε λίγο κάτω από τις προσδοκίες μου. Εξαιρετικά αφηρημένο κάποιες φορές, υπερβολικά ακαδημαϊκό κάποιες άλλες, προς το τέλος καταφέρνει να κουράσει αρκετά, χωρίς λόγο. Από την άλλη, απολαμβάνει κανείς την αμηχανία το�� Αριστοτέλη όταν προσπαθεί να δικαιολογήσει τη δουλεία ως, αν μη τι άλλο, «μη ανήθικη» (και μάλλον νιώθει μια κάποια ντροπή ο Σταγειρίτης).
Σίγουρα απαιτεί μια στοιχειώδη γνώση ελληνικής γραμματείας για να εκτιμηθεί, οπότε αν δεν έχετε διαβάσει λίγο Όμηρο, Αισχυλοσοφοκλήδες, Θουκυδευριπίδες κ.λπ., καλό είναι να το αναβάλετε.
June 8, 2022
um filósofo da modernidade diz que os os filósofos modernos não prestam (episódio 784920753279)
August 30, 2025
Tolle, lege.
October 13, 2025
I’ve read a lot of thinkers in this genre (Oxford adjacent, Greek revival). So I was familiar with many of the philosophers Williams’ refers to, but entirely out of my element in the realm of Greek tragedy on which the book heavily focuses. This was an incredibly startling read and I’ll be sitting with its conclusions and insights for modernity in the years to come
Edit, 10/13/25: is Williams saying something about Christianity between the lines here? He seems very attuned to the ways that the only unbroken (debatable descriptor) through line for an understanding of Ancient Greece sits quite intractably in the Christian imagination. On the one hand, this has given many Christian / Catholic philosophers - where they exist at all - a perverse and dubious sense of ownership over forms of knowledge that are one and the same everyone’s inheritance. For example, the concept of justice is promised in modern societies not for a select few but for all people; justice under the law, freedom from unequal treatment. What began in Greece as a few old white men postulating and pinning down principles about fairness has flourished into a robust, widespread commitment (even a demand!) for the same that old white men now cannot side step
Edit, 10/13/25: is Williams saying something about Christianity between the lines here? He seems very attuned to the ways that the only unbroken (debatable descriptor) through line for an understanding of Ancient Greece sits quite intractably in the Christian imagination. On the one hand, this has given many Christian / Catholic philosophers - where they exist at all - a perverse and dubious sense of ownership over forms of knowledge that are one and the same everyone’s inheritance. For example, the concept of justice is promised in modern societies not for a select few but for all people; justice under the law, freedom from unequal treatment. What began in Greece as a few old white men postulating and pinning down principles about fairness has flourished into a robust, widespread commitment (even a demand!) for the same that old white men now cannot side step
June 29, 2016
Bernard Williams's Shame and Necessity is a work of philosophy about what we could learn from the ancient Greeks. The book addresses moral concerns as well as issues of identity and human freedom. What is clear from the book is that the ancient Greek mind is not terribly different from our own but there have been changes and progress of course both in the sciences and our moral reasoning. Nevertheless, changes that have been made from the time of the Greeks to our time have not necessarily followed a linear path. It's of interest to me, for example, an issue that Williams addresses about how just as Aristotle was uncomfortable and equivocal in talking about slavery, we too find ourselves recognizing that because of social and economic conditions people experience similar forms of enslavement--and just as with Aristotle, we can't sit comfortably with these conditions, so we try to rationalize them or militate against them. This is just one of the many topics that comes up in Williams' book. It's a bit long-winded and rambling but a decent enough read.
Read
June 14, 2012Engrossing and confusing. To begin with there is only a short section about Oedipus and nothing relating to the Sphinx or the conversation pictured. Having said that--this is a provocative study of our understanding of what it means to confront shame and necessity both in antiquity and now. How we choose to act in situations which require us to make choices between evils. Did the gods give us no choice but to fail? What is the meaning of free will? Do we ever have the opportunity to act just for our own benefit or are there other considerations? These are just a few of the topics covered in this wide-ranging and deeply thought out set of investigations.
My only reservation is that it seems to ramble at times and take a circuitous route which required me to reread and try to link up sections when I had no idea where they were going at first. Perhaps that was just my problem. I am glad I stuck with it in any case. Please don't let this scare you off--just be prepared.
My only reservation is that it seems to ramble at times and take a circuitous route which required me to reread and try to link up sections when I had no idea where they were going at first. Perhaps that was just my problem. I am glad I stuck with it in any case. Please don't let this scare you off--just be prepared.
November 7, 2013
This is a stunning book. It, for me, brings to the fore the importance of character and how much that can do to shape us as humans, both egoistically and with regards to others. The sections on Ajax, who cannot live with himself anymore, are particularly powerful. This book made a great impression on me, I think it's important and I imagine I'll read it again and again and again. And I have no interest in Greek Drama and until last year couldn't see any value in Greek Philosophy whatsoever. But Williams does what he always does, and he shows how important some old ideas are, not just trapped in time, but for us.
December 1, 2012
This is a superb treatment of some key issues in classical thought. The issues of will, shame, and autonomy are treated in great depth from a philosophical perspective. Addressing such fundamental and important issues, Williams explains modern conceptions so that the reader can more clearly discern the differences between ancient and modern modes of perception. This is one of the best, most informative, and most thought-provoking books that I've ever read and I will never part with it.
May 10, 2016
difficult to fully appreciate without substantial knowledge of the Greek plays discussed
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