Moral Particularism

What role, if any, should principles play in our moral theorizing and in our moral practice? Generalists hold that moral principles are indispensable to morality. Particularists challenge this claim. As the leading particularist Jonathan Dancy describes it, particularism is the view that “moral thought and judgement in no way depends on a suitable provision of [moral principles].”  Dancy’s own work focused on developing a novel holistic theory of reasons according to which “what is a reason in one case may be no reason at all in another, or even a reason on the other side.” Dancy 2004 is a must read for anyone interested in this topic. Interest in particularism has grown over the past 20-30 years. There are now various formulations of the central particularist commitment and many interesting criticisms of the particularist research program (many of which are collected in this category). One of the central critical texts is McKeever & Ridge 2006. A very informative collection on the topic is Hooker & Little 2000, and more recently Potrc et al 2007.