Principles and Particularisms

Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 76 (1):191-209 (2002)
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Abstract

Should particularists about ethics claim that moral principles are never true? Or should they rather claim that any finite set of principles will not be sufficient to capture ethics? This paper explores and defends the possibility of embracing the second of these claims whilst rejecting the first, a position termed 'principled particularism'. The main argument that particularists present for their position-the argument that holds that any moral conclusion can be superseded by further considerations-is quite compatible with principled particularism; indeed, it is compatible with the idea that every true moral conclusion can be shown to follow deductively from a finite set of premises. Whilst it is true that these premises must contain implicit ceteris paribus clauses, this does not render the arguments trivial. On the contrary, they can do important work in justifying moral conclusions. Finally the approach is briefly applied to the related field of jurisprudence

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Author's Profile

Richard Holton
Cambridge University

Citations of this work

Moral principles as generics.Ravi Thakral - forthcoming - Journal of the American Philosophical Association:1-20.
A Defense of a Particularist Research Program.Uri D. Leibowitz - 2009 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 12 (2):181-199.
Another Particularism: Reasons, Status and Defaults.Alan Thomas - 2011 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 14 (2):151-167.
The Many Moral Particularisms.Sean McKeever & Michael Ridge - 2005 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 35 (1):83-106.

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