Psychologists have known for years that people judge risk based on a sophisticated balance of emotion and deduction. Often the former trumps the latter.

This is a quote that I read in an online article that I believe is fairly relevant to an epiphany I had at a national conference this past semester in Philadelphia hosted by the Society of Asian Scientists & Engineers (SASE). It was a tremendous experience as I formed invaluable connections, attended workshops by industry experts, met Nina Davuluri (Miss America 2014), and explored Philadelphia with close friends.

One speaker that particularly stood out to me, however, was Tom Shieh, a best-selling author and entrepreneur. Knowing that pursuing the entrepreneurial path is daunting to most of us college students, he polled the room for reasons as to why we may not want to become entrepreneurs. Common responses included: "I may be too shy," "I may not be creative enough," and "I may fail to make enough money."

I love this statement from Richard Feynman when reflecting upon his job offer from the Princeton Institute of Advanced Studies:

They expected me to be wonderful to offer me a job like this, and I wasn't wonderful, and therefore I realized a new principle: "I'm not responsible for what other people think I am able to do. I don't have to be good because they think I'm going to be good." And somehow or another I could relax about this. I thought to myself, "I haven't done anything important, and I'm never going to do anything important, but I used to enjoy physics and mathematical things. It was never very important, but I used to do things for the fun of it." So, I decided I'm going to do things only for the fun of it.

This is my argument on why Bernard Williams' criticisms toward utilitarianism are too strong for the utilitarian to overcome.

Utilitarianism is a theory in normative ethics that defines a morally right action to be one that maximizes happiness. In Utilitarianism and Integrity, Bernard Williams criticizes utilitarianism by introducing scenarios and speculating what utilitarianism might say about them, what we might say about utilitarianism, and what would be implied by certain ways of thinking about the scenarios. I will argue that the utilitarian cannot overcome Williams’ criticisms, because the utilitarian is unable to understand integrity and cannot coherently describe the relations between one’s values and one’s actions.