Why Moral Principles?

Mind 125 (500):1133-1159 (2016)
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Abstract

Jonathan Dancy challenges moral generalists to come up with a picture of moral thought and judgment which requires a provision of principles that cover the ground. The aim of this paper is to provide a response to Dancy's challenge. I argue that reasonable moral thought requires us to explain ourselves when we have reason to doubt our moral judgment about some particular case, that any such explanation commits us to a general moral principle over some domain of discussion and that this principle expands to cover more and more ground as we consider more and more cases.

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Joseph Mintoff
Australian National University (PhD)

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References found in this work

Ethics without principles.Jonathan Dancy - 2004 - New York: Oxford University Press.
The Concept of Mind.Gilbert Ryle - 1949 - Revue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 141:125-126.
Moral reasons.Jonathan Dancy - 1993 - Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell.
The Concept of Mind.Gilbert Ryle - 1950 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 1 (4):328-332.
The Complete Works: The Rev. Oxford Translation.Jonathan Barnes (ed.) - 1984 - Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

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