This paper is a survey of the generalism-particularism debate and related issues concerning the relationship between normative reasons and moral principles.

This is a review of Torbjorn Tannsjo's book: "From Reasons to Norms".

What are moral principles? In particular, what are moral principles of the sort that (if they exist) ground moral obligations or—at the very least—particular moral truths? I argue that we can fruitfully conceive of such principles as real, irreducibly dispositional properties of individual persons (agents and patients) that are responsible for and thereby explain the moral properties of (e.g.) agents and actions. Such moral dispositions (or moral powers) are apt to be the metaphysical grounds of moral obligations and of particular (...) truths about what is morally permissible, impermissible, etc. Moreover, they can do other things that moral principles are supposed to do: explain the phenomena “falling within their scope,” support counterfactuals, and ground moral necessities, “necessary connections” between obligating reasons and obligations. And they are apt to be the truthmakers for moral laws, or “lawlike” moral generalizations. (shrink)

This paper is a survey of the generalism-particularism debate in ethics.

This paper is a survey of the generalism-particularism debate in ethics. It's an updated version of "Moral Particularism", in Christian B. Miller (ed.), The Continuum Companion to Ethics (Continuum, 2011), pp. 247-260.

I argue that moral principles involve the same sort of generalization as ordinary yet elusive generic generalizations in natural language such as ‘Tigers are striped’ or ‘Peppers are spicy’. A notable advantage of the generic view is that it simultaneously allows for pessimism and optimism about the role and status of moral principles in our lives. It provides a new perspective on the nature of moral principles on which principles are not apt for determining the moral status of particular actions (...) while they may be apt, and even fundamental, to our acquisition of moral knowledge. A natural consequence of the view is variation among moral principles, with some regularly warranting exceptions and some appearing arguably exceptionless. I will also argue that this generic conception of moral principles has significant advantages, as a normative model of moral reasoning, over the view of moral principles as defaults advanced in recent years. (shrink)

What are the consequences, for human moral practice, of an evolutionary understanding of that practice? By ‘moral practice’ we mean the way in which human beings think, talk and debate in moral terms. We suggest that the proper upshot of such considerations is moderate support for anti-realism in ethics.

In this essay I offer a new particularist reading of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. I argue that the interpretation I present not only helps us to resolve some puzzles about Aristotle’s goals and methods, but it also gives rise to a novel account of morality—an account that is both interesting and plausible in its own right. The goal of this paper is, in part, exegetical—that is, to figure out how to best understand the text of the Nicomachean Ethics. But this paper (...) also aims to contribute to the current exciting and controversial debate over particularism. By taking the first steps towards a comprehensive particularist reading of Aristotle’s Ethics I hope to demonstrate that some of the mistrust of particularism is misplaces and that what is, perhaps, the most influential moral theory in the history of philosophy is, arguably, a particularist moral theory. (shrink)

This paper examines the nature of the specific grasp involved in moral understanding. After discussing Hills's ability account of that central component of moral understanding in light of problematic cases, I argue that moral grasp is best conceived of as a type of knowledge that is grounded in a subject's moral appreciation. I then show how and why the relevant notion of moral appreciation is connected to moral virtues and to one's affective and motivational engagement with moral reasons. Finally, I (...) discuss the connection between moral appreciation and a subject's ability to offer moral explanations in relation to the debate between pessimists and optimists about moral understanding's testimonial transmission. (shrink)

Moral theories often issue general principles that explain our moral judgments in terms of underlying moral considerations. But it is unclear whether the general principles have an explanatory role beyond the underlying moral considerations. In order to avoid the redundancy of their principles, two-level theories issue principles that appear to generalize beyond the considerations that ground them. In doing so, the principles appear to overgeneralize. The problem is conspicuous in the case of contractualism, which proposes that moral principles are grounded (...) in generic reasons that operate in only a subset of the cases covered by the relevant principle. Arguments that motivate the use of generic reasons on the basis of guidance, institutional necessity, or fairness are unsatisfactory. But the generality of moral principles can be justified in terms of the idea of a generic interest, which is an interest that all occupants of a standpoint have in virtue of what occupants of the standpoint as such typically take an interest in. The notion of a generic interest therefore acknowledges a distinction between having and taking an interest, and its use in moral theory is a way of giving expression to the significance of autonomy. This is reminiscent of the idea of a normative power; but the idea of a generic interest is less expensive and makes better sense of the way in which autonomy features in our moral lives. (shrink)

Many hope that our values, purged of messy human contingency, could aspire to correspond with mind-independent, rationally obligatory, and eternal ethical facts. But if the arguments of this thesis are on the right track, we should reject the search for non-natural and mind-independent moral truths.

In this paper I assess the viability of a particularist explanation of moral knowledge. First, I consider two arguments by Sean McKeever and Michael Ridge that purport to show that a generalist, principle-based explanation of practical wisdom—understood as the ability to acquire moral knowledge in a wide range of situations—is superior to a particularist, non-principle-based account. I contend that both arguments are unsuccessful. Then, I propose a particularist-friendly explanation of knowledge of particular moral facts. I argue that when we are (...) careful to keep separate the various explanatory tasks at hand we can see that a particularist-friendly explanation of the fact that Jane knows that A is morally right might not be so difficult to come by. Moreover, I suggest that a particularist approach to explaining knowledge of particular moral facts may go some way towards discharging the challenge of moral scepticism. (shrink)

Frank Jackson, Michael Smith, and Philip Pettit contend in their 2000 paper that an argument from supervenience deals a fatal blow to shapeless moral particularism, the view that the moral is shapeless with respect to the natural. A decade has passed since the Canberrans advanced their highly influential supervenience argument. Yet, there has not been any compelling counter-argument against it, as far as I can see. My aim in this paper is to fill in this void and defend SMP against (...) the Canberrans’ supervenience argument. Such being the case, I will firstly re-construct the Canberrans’ supervenience argument in detail and push it as far as it can go. In fact, I will defend it against a number of existing objections respectively from Garfield, Dancy, and McDowell. Next, I will argue, however, that the supervenience argument, despite its initial plausibility, has one major pitfall: it hinges on an overly permissive conception of ‘shape’ such that it does not generate the right kind of moral principles the shapeless moral particularists are concerned to refute. I thus conclude that the seemingly scathing supervenience argument turns out to be toothless against SMP. Although this would not prove SMP to be right, for it might attract criticisms from other fronts, yet, until they come up, SMP, contrary to prevalent conceptions, remains alive and kicking. (shrink)

There is a familiar argument for the falsity of determinism, an argument that proceeds from the claim that agents are morally responsible. A number of authors have challenged the soundness of this argument. I pose a different challenge, one that grants its soundness. The challenge is that, given certain plausible assumptions, one cannot know the conclusion of this argument on the basis of knowing its premises. That is, one cannot know that determinism is false on the basis of this argument (...) even if agents are in fact morally responsible and moral responsibility is in fact incompatible with determinism. A slightly different version of the challenge tells also against the claim that one can be justified in believing that determinism is false on the basis of the argument, so that the challenge cannot be evaded by a retreat to an epistemic position weaker than knowledge. I compare my challenge to the challenge posed by the external world sceptic, and argue that there are asymmetries between these challenges that make it reasonable to accept the former and reject the latter. I close by considering the prospects for developing an epistemology of moral responsibility that is adequate to answer the challenge. (shrink)