"If there's one theme in all my work it's about authenticity and
self-expression," Williams said in 2002. "It's the idea that
some things are in some real sense really you, or express what
you and others aren't ... The whole thing has been about
spelling out the notion of inner necessity."[6] He moved moral
philosophy away from the Kantian question, "What is my duty?"
and back to the issue that mattered to the Greeks: "How should
we live?"[5]
How should we live. I think in a different environment, he would
have made a fantastic motivational speaker. I enjoy listening to
him. What he says about the Ideal Observer and asks "What would
it be like to take upon ourselves all the suffering of all the
world for even a few seconds? It would be the ultimate
nightmare"
I love the clarity he speaks with. Ah! Paraphrasing:
Views of humanity seem to have run the gamut from "We are of
supreme importance to the Universe, to we are wretched creatures
of the Universe. But there is a third view:
That the significance of human beings to the Cosmos is
Vanishingly Small".
This implies, while our significance to the Cosmos is
vanishingly small, *it's still significant* in some fashion - ie
- NOT 0.
and that's something to get excited about. Amazing as I've
carried that viewpoint with me for a long time, and never heard
it articulated so clearly.