HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Moral particularism is a theory in
meta-ethics In metaphilosophy and ethics, meta-ethics is the study of the nature, scope, and meaning of moral judgment. It is one of the three branches of ethics generally studied by philosophers, the others being normative ethics (questions of how one o ...
that runs counter to the idea that moral actions can be determined by applying universal moral principles. It states that there is no set of moral principles that can be applied to every situation, making it an idea appealing to the causal nature of morally challenging situations. Moral judgements are said to be determined by factors of relevance with the consideration of a particular context. A moral particularist, for example, would argue that homicide cannot be judged to be morally wrong until all the morally relevant facts are known. While this stands in stark contrast to other prominent moral theories, such as
deontology In moral philosophy, deontological ethics or deontology (from Greek: + ) is the normative ethical theory that the morality of an action should be based on whether that action itself is right or wrong under a series of rules and principles, r ...
,
consequentialism In ethical philosophy, consequentialism is a class of normative, teleological ethical theories that holds that the consequences of one's conduct are the ultimate basis for judgment about the rightness or wrongness of that conduct. Thus, from a ...
, and
virtue ethics Virtue ethics (also aretaic ethics, from Greek ἀρετή arete_(moral_virtue).html"_;"title="'arete_(moral_virtue)">aretḗ''_is_an_approach_to_ethics_that_treats_the_concept_of_virtue.html" ;"title="arete_(moral_virtue)">aretḗ''.html" ;" ...
, it finds its way into jurisprudence, with the idea of justifiable homicide, for instance. In this case, the morally relevant facts are based on context rather than principle. Critics would argue that even in this case, the principle still informs morally right action.


History

The term "particularism" was coined to designate this position by R. M. Hare, in 1963 (''Freedom and Reason'', Oxford: Clarendon, p. 18). Within philosophy, the term is mainly used to denote a favoritism to one's own interests; which goes to say that morality is not universal.


Views

Within traditional moral particularism, it is strongly believed that moral thought has no distinguished structure. Some more extreme adaptations of the theory include the total rejection of theorized moral principles, as they are thought to be unnecessary in the presumed ordinary case of a relatively morally sensitive person being the one to utilize these principles. Often, the use of said principles is believed to be the contrary of effective, since moral particularists have faith in the subject of the presumed ordinary case to carry out whatever set of morals they believe necessary to the particular situation. Jonathan Dancy has argued that cases, whether imagined or otherwise, contain elements from which we can infer certain moral ideas.


Criticism


Rationality

A key feature of rationality is that the rational agent maintains a consistent set of beliefs. In a moral sense, this means that the agent's internal ethical principles cannot contradict and must apply in every instance. Particularism rejects that a specific feature of a moral issue can necessarily invoke a certain ethical principle in all cases where the feature occurs, thus it rejects rationality. In response, the particularist may say that consistency is a condition that is meant to prevent the possession of a set of beliefs that cannot be simultaneously true. For example, it would be rationally inconsistent to believe that pain is harmful, that animals do not deserve harm, and that animals deserve pain. If this is the only meaningful way to consider consistency, then to evaluate it differently in the case of moral reasons would be incorrect. Objections regarding rationality also question the particularist's view on moral knowledge. When a selfish child encounters a situation where they are taught to value generosity, the moral generalist recognizes this as the child acquiring ethical knowledge in order to apply it in the future. Particularism denies this and argues that acts can be justified by a sort of sense perception. Rather than deducing permissibility from general moral principles, the agent learns to see the salient moral features of a situation in a particular way.


See also

* Particularism *
Meta-ethics In metaphilosophy and ethics, meta-ethics is the study of the nature, scope, and meaning of moral judgment. It is one of the three branches of ethics generally studied by philosophers, the others being normative ethics (questions of how one o ...
*
Ethics Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns m ...
*
Rationality Rationality is the quality of being guided by or based on reasons. In this regard, a person acts rationally if they have a good reason for what they do or a belief is rational if it is based on strong evidence. This quality can apply to an ab ...


Further reading

* Hooker B, Little MO (eds.) (2001). ''Moral particularism''. OUP. * Dancy, Jonathan (2004). ''Ethics without principles'',
Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
:
Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
.


References


External links

* Dancy, Jonathan (2005).
Moral particularism
, in ''
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy The ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' (''SEP'') combines an online encyclopedia of philosophy with peer-reviewed publication of original papers in philosophy, freely accessible to Internet users. It is maintained by Stanford University. ...
'' * Tsu, Peter Shiu-Hwa
"Moral Particularism"
in the ''
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy The ''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' (''IEP'') is a scholarly online encyclopedia, dealing with philosophy, philosophical topics, and philosophers. The IEP combines open access publication with peer reviewed publication of original pap ...
'' Ethical theories Meta-ethics {{ethics-stub