Abstract

The field of contemporary ethics has been dominated by two opposite but equally extreme positions regarding the function of rules in moral reasoning. According to the first of these positions, known as rule-based ethics, morality consists of obeying a set of rules. On the other hand, according to the opposite view, known as particularism, moral reasoning cannot be reduced to the application of rules to particular situations. The particularist argues that rules and rule-following cannot genuinely capture the nature of moral reasoning. Instead, such reasoning must always involve context-based considerations of morally relevant factors that can and do vary from particular case to particular case.