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Title: Gandhi\, Williams\, and the Problem of Interest-relati
vity
Abstract:
As against the ut
ilitarian claim that moral agents should maximize utility and the deontolog
ical claim that the agents should follow duty-based view\, Bernard Williams
argues that we should disregard these moral theories because they alienate
moral agency from the agent’s own point of view. While Williams makes a we
ll-motivated claim to resist moral theories which alienate agents from thei
r own viewpoint\, his view opens a problem of interest-relativity.
In terest-relativity is a form of relativism according to which the standards of rightness and wrongness of moral judgements are relative to an agent’s i nterests and desires. I argue that introducing Mohandas Gandhi’s notion of detachment—lack of excessive attachments to one’s interests and commitment— allows us to retain the agent’s point of view without the attendant interes t-relativity. Given that Gandhi’s moral theory remains underdeveloped withi n the philosophical canon\, my argument both explicates and theorises Gandh i’s notion of detachment.
Bio:
Samiksha Goyal i
s a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Extending New Narratives Project at Simon
Fraser University\, Canada. She holds a PhD from Monash University\, Austra
lia and an MPhil from University of Delhi. Her research interests are in th
e history of philosophy and moral philosophy\, with a particular focus on I
ndian classical texts and modern Indian thinkers such as Mohandas Gandhi an
d Rājchandra Rai. Her work examines the moral significance of detachment an
d its role in virtue ethics. Her research has been published in journals su
ch as Journal of Dharma Studies\, Economic and Political Weekly\, and the A
PA Newsletter on Asian and Asian American Philosophers and Philosophies.