I intend to: a) clarify the origins and de facto meanings of the term relativism; b) reconstruct the reasons for the birth of the thesis named “cultural relativism”; d) reconstruct ethical implications of the above thesis; c) revisit the recent discussion between universalists and particularists in the light of the idea of cultural relativism.. -/- 1.Prescriptive Moral Relativism: “everybody is justified in acting in the way imposed by criteria accepted by the group he belongs to”. Universalism: there are at (...) least some judgments which are valid inter-culturally Absolutism: there are at least some particular prescriptions which are valid without exception everywhere and always -/- 2. The traditional proof of prescriptive moral relativism: the argument from variability: Judgments, rules, and shared values are de facto variable in time and space. The traditional counter-proof: examples of variability do not prove what skeptics contend. -/- 3. Pre-history of the doctrine -Ancient sophists: either immoralist or contractualist -Modern moral scepticism (xvii c.): variability as an historical and ethnographic fact supports a sceptical conclusion more moderate than sheer immoralism. - Voltaire, Kant, Reid counter-attack pointing at a universally shared moral sense - Romantics and idealists stage an even more moderate reformulation: instead of universally shared moral sense they point at the Spirit of a People which is: a)alternative to abstract and universal philosophical systems as far as it is lived ‘culture’; b) indivisible unity with an inner harmony and a source of normative standards; c) dynamic, in so far as it is a manifestation of the Spirit through the becoming of National cultures. -/- 4. The birth of Cultural Relativism and its ethical implications 4.1. The 18th c. doctrine was the noble savage (a non-historical doctrine: state of nature vs. social state) 4.2 Edward Tylor (1832-1817) and ethnocentric historicism Savage moral standards are real enough, but they are far and weaker than ours. 4.3 Boas and Malinowski and an holistic reaction to ethnocentric historicism -/- Franz Boas (1858-1942): a) Development of civilizations is not ruled by technical progress nor does it follow a one-way path; instead there are parallel developments (for ex. Agriculture does not follow stock-raising); b) racial characters have no relevance in development of civilization; c) we are not yet in a position to compare externally identical kinds of behaviour till we have not yet understood beliefs and intentions laying at their roots (for ex.: “From an ethnological point of view murder cannot be considered as a single phenomenon”; d) we should distinguish among different practices which are only superficially similar (fro ex. practices traditionally classified under the label “tabù”); e) there is as a fact just one normative ethic, constant in its contents but varying in its extension; f) the implication is not that we cannot judge behavior by members of other groups; it is only a recommendation of caution. -/- Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942): a) against Tylor’s and Frazer’s “magpie” methodology, field-work is required, a culture as a whole should be observed from inside; individual elements are incomprehensible; b) a culture is an organic whole; c) its elements are accounted for by their function (economy), avoiding non-observables (empio-criticism). -/- Ruth Benedict and Melville Herskovitz identify Boas’s approach with “cultural relativism”. Benedict: what is normal and abnormal is to be judged on a culture’s own standards, not on our own (“Anthropology and the Abnormal”). Herskovits: “Boas adumbrates what we have come to call cultural relativism” (The Mind, p. 10); “Judgements are based on experience, and experience is interpreted by each individual in terms of his own enculturation” (Man and his Works). -/- 4. How analytic philosophy understood and misunderstood the discussion 4.1. At the beginning of the 20th c., the new view in ethics was non-cognitivism (emotivist and subjectivist). Eric Westermark combines this view with an old-style ethnographic approach in support of relativity of moralities. Moralities are codes, or systems of emotive ‘disinterested’ reactions selected by evolution on their usefulness in terms of survival value for the society that is the carrier of such systems or codes. The moral relativity thesis: there are cases of disagreement that cannot be settled even after agreement about facts. 4.2 Anti-realists Brandt, Mackie, Gilbert, Harman adopt Westermark’s approach in a more sophisticated version: a) moralities are codes with an overall function and may be appraised only as wholes; b) variability is an argument for moral subjectivism; c) apparent legitimacy of deriving shift from ought is legitimized only within one institution d) morality should not be described but instead made, and existing moralities may be improved. Is it ‘real’ relativism? It is clearly subjectivism (a metaethical thesis). The normative thesis is that there better and worse codes, and survival values is the normative standard. -/- 4.3 Particularists MacIntyre, Sandel, Taylor, Wiggins, McDowell ‘Wittgensteinian’ prospectivist arguments bent to support weak-relativist claims MacIntyre: there is ‘incommensurability’ between different theoretical systems in both science and ethics. No argument is possible through different systems Different traditions may coexist for a long time without being able to bring their conflicts to a rational solution. -/- 4.4 Kantian universalists Baier, Gewirth, Rawls, Apel, Habermas Shared claim: justice concerns the right and is universal in so far as it may be based on minimal assumptions Other virtues are relative to context in so far as they are related to comprehensive views of the good - O’Neill criticism: a) it is an assumption shared by both alignments; b) after an alleged crisis brought about by alleged loss of metaphysical certainties, theories of justice have dropped demanding assumptions and kept universalism, virtue theories have kept demanding assumptions and dropped universalism; c) the opposition of virtue and justice has arisen in an unjustified way. O’Neill’s positive proposal: ‘constructive’ procedures may be adopted both (i) concerning all the range of virtues and (ii) across cultures once we abandon idealization and confine ourselves to abstraction from real-world cases. -/- 4.5 A metaethical relativist and anti-relativist normative ethicists: Bernard Williams Williams: vulgar relativism may be assumed to claim that: a) 'just' means 'just in a given society'; b) 'just in a given society' is to be understood in functionalist sense; c) it is wrong for one society’s members to condemn another society’s values. It is inconsistent since in (c) uses ‘just’ in a non-relative way that has been excluded in (a). William’s positive proposal: i) keep a number of substantive or thick ethical concepts that will be different in space and time; ii) admit that public choices are to be legitimized through recourse to more abstract procedures and relying on more thin ethical concepts. -/- 5. Critical remarks 5.1 The only real relativism available is ‘vulgar’ relativism (Westermark?) 5.2. Descriptive universalism (or absolutism) has a long pedigree, from Cicero on, reaching Boas himself but it is useless as an answer to normative questions 5.3. Twentieth-century philosophical discussion seems to discuss an ad hoc doctrine reconstructed by assembling obsolete philosophical ideas but ignoring the real theory of cultural relativism as formulated by anthropologists. -/- 6. A distinction between ethoi and ethical theories as a way out of confusions a)There are systems of conventions de facto existing. These may be studies from outside as phenomena or facts. b)There is moral argument and this, when studies from outside, is a fact, but this does not influence in any degree the possible validity of claims advanced. c) the difference between the above claims and Mackie’s criticism to Searle’s argument of the promising game is that promises, arguments etc. are also phenomena, but they are also communicative phenomena with a logical and pragmatic structure. -/- 7.Conclusions: a) cultural relativism, as a name for Boas’s methodology is a valuable discovery, and in this sense we are all relativists; b) ethical relativism, as an alleged implication of cultural relativism, has been argued in a philosophically quite unsophisticated way by Benedict and Herskovits; philosophers apparently discussed ethical relativism in the basis of a rather faint impression of what cultural relativism had been. c) a full-fledged ethical relativism has hardly been defended by anybody among philosophers; virtually no modern philosopher really argued a prescriptive version of the thesis; d) we may accept the grain of truth in ethical relativism by including relativist critique to ethical absolutism into a universalist normative doctrine that be careful in separating open-textured formulations of universal claims from culturally conditioned particular prescriptions. -/- . 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There are many advantages and disadvantages to central locations. These have shown themselves in the long course of European history. In times of peace, there are important economic and cultural advantages (to illustrate: the present area of the Czech Republic was the richest country in Europe between the two World Wars). There are cross-currents of trade and culture in central Europe of great advantage. For, cultural cross-currents represent a potential benefit in comprehension and cultural growth. But under threat of large-scale (...) conflict, these locations have proved extremely dangerous. Historically, Germany and Austria may be regarded as having had two chief models of their relationships to Europe. In the Holy Roman Empire, Germany was at the center of an aspiring “universalistic” European cosmopolitanism. (In some ways similar to the present situation of the European Union.) Austria maintained a great multi¬cultural empire, until it was destroyed in the First Word War. Generally, middle-European powers have promoted the integration of European diversity, when peace and stability have been plausible objectives. But when European diversity has declined toward ethnic or national conflict, Germany has drawn away from Europe and into itself, seeking inner unity and distinctness to protect it against possible combinations of enemies. This is true of central Europe generally, in degree, but interest often centers on Germany. Generally, central Europe is a cultural pressure cooker. (shrink)

Ada Agada is one of the most vocal voices of the Conversational School of Philosophy (CSP). In Consolationism and Comparative African Philosophy: Beyond Universalism and Particularism, Agada aims to provide clarity on the philosophical tenets of Consolationism, his project on system building that is central to the future direction and development of African philosophy. The book is divided into three parts: The first part focuses on the universalism-particularism conundrum in African philosophy, the second part is concerned (...) with explicating the basic preoccupations of Consolation philosophy, and the third part focuses on cross-cultural and comparative philosophy which is one of the central themes of conversational philosophy. (shrink)

Moral particularists and generalists alike have struggled over how to incorporate the role of moral salience in ethical reasoning. In this paper, I point to neglected resources in Kant to account for the role of moral salience in maxim formation: Kant's theory of reflective judgment. Kant tasks reflective judgment with picking out salient empirical particulars for formation into maxims, associating it with purposiveness, or intentional activity (action on ends). The unexpected resources in Kantian reflective judgment suggest the possibility of a (...) particularist universalism, where recalcitrant particulars directly inform, and in some cases revise, moral principles. Such an account improves on particularist accounts of moral salience and moral perception: rather than deriving moral sensitivity solely from an agent's upbringing or cultural resources, the reflective dimension is situated alongside the universalist dimension of moral principles typically identified with Kantian ethics, allowing for a critical approach both to moral universals and to the reception of moral particulars. (shrink)

One problem often associated with identity politics is “positional fundamentalism,” the equating of social positions with epistemic possibilities and political dispositions. The criticism is that identity politics is usually more about who says something than what is said. This goes hand in hand with perspective relativity, which no longer allows for a common, universal position and therefore also prevents emancipative politics. To respond to this critique of positional fundamentalism and perspective relativism, I develop a new account of identity politics as (...) inherently intersubjective and fundamental to democracy. This approach is necessary to address the philosophical problem at the heart of debates about identity politics: the tension between particularist power politics, on the one hand, and politics as a universalist appeal to reason, on the other. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:This Universalism Which Is Not OneLinda M. G. Zerilli (bio)Ernesto Laclau. Emancipation(s). London: Verso, 1996.Judging from the recent spate of publications devoted to the question of the universal, it appears that, in the view of some critics, we are witnessing a reevaluation of its dismantling in twentieth-century thought. One of the many oddities about this “return of the universal” 1 is the idea that contemporary engagements with it (...) are more or less of a piece, and that they reflect a growing consensus that poststructuralist political theories are incapable of generating a viable alternative to the collective fragmentation that characterizes late modernity. 2 The putative return to the universal marks, on this view, both a homecoming to Enlightenment ideals—purified of their more poisonous elements, of course—and a reconciliation of sorts between those who refuted these ideals and those who sought to realize them. Now that “we” all know and agree that poststructuralism is critically valuable but politically bankrupt; now that we all know and agree that the “old universal” was indeed a “pseudo-universal,” so the homecoming narrative goes; we can get on with the project of constructing a “new universal.” 3 This authentic universal would really be inclusive of all people, regardless of race, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, nationality, and whatever else attaches to the “embarrassing etcetera” that, as Judith [End Page 3] Butler reminds us, inevitably accompanies such gestures of acknowledging human diversity.Before signing on to this felicitous agreement about “the necessity of universalism,” we may wish to know whether we have anything like a minimal agreement in language, that is, whether we who speak of this universal are even speaking about the same thing. Apart from the not insignificant problem of translating from a philosophical to a political idiom, the whole question of this agreement is virtually occluded by the rush to rescue politics from the virulent particularisms that admit no common ground or sense of collective belonging. Presented in terms of the familiar binary couple, the choice between universalism and particularism seems settled by merely pointing to global and domestic political realities. Universalism is the only alternative to social fragmentation, wild child of the collapse of communism, the rise of deadly nationalisms, and the multiculturalist romance with particularism. To invoke the name of the universal in any affirmative sense is already to sign on to the political diagnosis and its solution.One of the many virtues of Ernesto Laclau’s Emancipation(s) is that it offers both an alternative to the binarisms spawned by the “return” to the universal (for example, false universalism/true universalism) and a trenchant critique of the original binary couple itself (universalism/ particularism). Demonstrating the imbrication of the universal and the particular, Laclau shows why it is a matter not of choosing one over the other but of articulating, in a scrupulously political sense, the relation between the two. He thus explicitly rejects the notion that this relation is one of mutual exclusion, and shows that the tendency to see it as just that has led to the impasse of the contemporary debate, an impasse that is glossed over in some highly visible academic cases by proclaiming the necessary return to the universal. Although the language of universalism as spoken by Laclau searches for some common ground between particularists and universalists, it is more by way of articulating their mutual contamination, that is, how each is rendered impure by the irreducible presence of the other.The Problem of UniversalsLaclau situates his collection of essays in the context of the increasingly polarized debate over multiculturalism, a debate in which the classical universalism of the philosophical tradition has come under serious question. Reading his essays, one comes to see the deep dependence of the entire contemporary discussion on this tradition, even when its metaphysical assumptions are explicitly rejected (as, say, in the work of Seyla Benhabib) or insufficiently comprehended (as in most of the popularized political discourse). Laclau’s book can help us to see that the political question of universalism cannot be posed properly as long as it remains tethered to the classical philosophical “problem of universals.” At stake in sorting out the affinities and... (shrink)

Chosenness, Agapism, and the Search for Moderation between Nationhood and Universalism -/- Abstract The idea of collective Chosenness (nivḥarut) was interpreted by Jewish thinkers in two initial ways: Chosenness as a divine gift which is somehow encrypted in the body of each Jewish individual, and Chosenness as a normatively acquired (rather than inherited) property. Numerous attempts were made to defend these approaches, and to mediate between them. This paper examine the idea of Chosenness from a novel perspective, by interrogating (...) it with its mirror concept, namely the Christian Agape which mandates the love of and the care for every human being, regardless of their nationality, merit, ethnicity, or ‘race’. The agapic stance has its origin in the Hebrew Bible, and was robustly developed in the Christian tradition with its distinctive universal trajectory. The significance of Agape - which is almost absent from the research on Jewish Thought vis-à-vis Christianity - to the issue of national election, is the agapic emphasis on the election of humanity as a whole. Juxtaposing chosenness with agapism sheds new light on the old issue of chosenness, in several ways: First, by demonstrating that not only narrow chosenness has its moral pitfalls; radical forms of Agape too have their moral prices. Secondly, the contextualization of chosenness vis-a-vis Agape invites a search for middle ways that balance between the two polarities. Thirdly, given that there are moderations between chosenness and Agape in both Judaism and Christianity, establishing the conceptual axis ‘Chosenness-Agapism’ may enrich Jewish-Christian interfaith discourse, thus contributing to the ability of Jewish and Christian interlocutors to better understand how their Abrahamic fellow challenges their tradition in a way which is vital to the pursuit of their own tradition’s equilibrium. (shrink)

Jürgen Habermas has emerged as a sharp, and occasionally harsh, critic of the Bush administration’s policies since the Iraq war. Habermas has developed this critique in several of his short pieces and interviews, some of which are available in fine collections in both English and other languages. However, the occasional and journalistic character of Habermas’ political interventions often hide the theoretical basis of his critique. In this paper, I argue that Habermas’ critique of the Bush administration’s foreign policy emanates from, (...) and is founded upon, his conception of modernity, and specifically his views about the relationship between “particularity” and “generality.” The purpose of this essay is to demonstrate how Habermas’ critique can actually be read as a critique of particularism, which Habermas sees operating behind American (and British) foreign policy, and which, in his view, compromises the key achievements of modernity (especially in its Kantian version.). (shrink)

This essay questions three widespread assumptions in monument debates it terms “moralism,” “universalism,” and “interpretive dominance.” Roughly: moralism assumes that memorials should be only to good people or good causes; universalism holds that memorials should represent or be “for” the whole polity or its (real or supposed) corporate values; interpretive dominance maintains that, when faced with monuments with reasonable qualifying and disqualifying interpretations, policy should respond to the disqualifying one(s). These assumptions do not settle the debates between removalists (...) and preservationists, but they do make the removalist position easier to defend. Various counterexamples to these assumptions, real and imagined, motivate competing positions I term “sentimentalism,” “particularism,” and “interpretive independence.”. (shrink)

The paper inculcates the path of modern education by implementing cum ensuing the form and content of moral education from the stances of prescriptivist R. M Hare and existentialist Sartre. In the first part of the paper, Hare’s tune for language-centric moral concepts and its prescriptive plus universalistic application for society enhance an outlook for moral education where learners should be taught to apply morality from a prescriptive sense, not by memorizing it in a descriptive manner. Besides, Sartre’s existentialist appeal (...) delineates moral education as a free choice of a learner where any institutional hegemony becomes trivial. The second part of the paper focuses on the content of moral education. What sort of moral laws make the content of moral education justifiable? Here Russell’s approach takes a pertinent role. We should secure modern education from the social and state’s anarchism. A way out that I depict in the last section of the paper stresses on moral education that evades itself from the repression of the pedagogue or rigid principles. Modern education should quest for why and liberal neutrality not by following the rigid rules obediently. Moral education teaches children about their own rights and the rights of the other in a beneficial manner. (shrink)

What do we talk about when we talk about ethical diversity as a challenge to the normative justifiability of liberal democracy? Many theorists claim that liberal democracy ought to be reformed or rejected for not being sufficiently ‘inclusive’ towards diversity; others argue that, on the contrary, liberalism is desirable because it accommodates (some level of) diversity. Moreover, it has been argued that concern for diversity should lead us to favour (say) neutralistic over perfectionist, universalistic over particularistic, participative over representative versions (...) of liberal democracy. This paper provides a conceptual framework to situate those debates, and argues that there are two fundamental ways in which diversity constitutes a challenge to the justificatory status of liberal democracy: consistency (whereby diversity causes clashes between the prescriptions generated by normative political theories), and adequacy (whereby diversity generates a rift between our experience of what is considered valuable and what the theory treats as such). (shrink)

ABSTRACT: With this article, I advance a historicist and relativist feminist philosophy of disability. I argue that Foucault’s insights offer the most astute tools with which to engage in this intellectual enterprise. Genealogy, the technique of investigation that Friedrich Nietzsche famously introduced and that Foucault took up and adapted in his own work, demonstrates that Foucault’s historicist approach has greater explanatory power and transgressive potential for analyses of disability than his critics in disability studies have thus far recognized. I show (...) how a feminist philosophy of disability that employs Foucault’s technique of genealogy avoids ahistorical, teleological, and transcultural assumptions that beleaguer much work in disability studies. The article also situates feminist philosophical work on disability squarely in age-old debates in (Eurocentric) Western philosophy about universalism vs. relativism, materialism vs. idealism, realism vs. nominalism, and freewill vs. determinism, as well as contributes to ongoing discussions in (Western) feminist philosophy and theory about (among other things) essentialism vs. constructivism, identity, race, sexuality, agency, and experience. (shrink)

At first glance, the imperative to treat all human beings according to equal norms and principles appears indisputable, with any deviation seen as an ethical transgression. The rational perspective dictates a uniform consideration of all individuals unless differential treatment is warranted by valid reasons, avoiding harm. Deviations from equal treatment are typically viewed as exceptions, and ethical frameworks acknowledging groundless differences between individuals seem unjustified. This poses a significant challenge to defending nationalism, which presupposes prioritizing compatriots over others. This dilemma (...) engenders two opposing camps: universalism and particularism. Universalism argues that only general facts about others should determine one's duties towards them, while particularism contends that interpersonal relations play a crucial role in defining rights and duties. From the universalist standpoint, particularism is suspect, as it appears non-impartial and favors specific groups. In response, a particularist might argue that the virtue of impartiality is context-dependent, requiring unbiased behavior in specific situations. Thus, the particularist does not view universalism as indispensable to impartiality (Miller, 1997, 53-4). This abstract explores the ethical complexities surrounding these perspectives, particularly when faced with the nuances of nationalism. (shrink)

Hampshire addresses the problem of pluralism, i.e. conflicts, characteristic of modern societies, which arise from the presence of conflicting moral interests and duties. The solution is a procedural notion of justice, seen as the precondition for respect for the different positive conceptions of the good. A salient feature of the book is the combination of a form of a 'weak' Aristotelianism, similar to that of Bernard Williams and far away from that of MacIntyre, with the theme of the relationship between (...) universalism and particularism. Another is the idea that deliberation is the primary procedure in ethics. This theme was the centre of American ethical and political thought since the confrontation between Rawls and his communitarian critics. (shrink)

This article aims to present that moral particularism is a viable alternative to the dominant ethics of modernity to the present (i.e., Kantian and utilitarian ethics); theories that have been criticized during the last decades, especially, by the requirement of moral impartiality. The agent in these ethics deliberates impartially due to the universalism of moral principles. I will suggest that moral particularism, insofar as it excludes impartiality as a relevant factor in the agents' deliberations, presents reasons to (...) be a plausible ethics. (shrink)

Phenomenological Pluralism (PP), grounded in the existential phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, offers a novel approach to religious pluralism by emphasizing the unique and irreducible experiences individuals and communities have with the divine. Central to PP is the concept of "My (personal) God," which acknowledges that each person's encounter with the divine is uniquely personal and contextually grounded without a genuinely polytheistic implication. Unlike Universalist Pluralism (UP), which seeks common theological ground, and Particularist Pluralism (PaP), which focuses on cultural context, PP (...) asserts that each religion operates within its own distinct reality. This approach fosters deeper interfaith dialogue by appreciating the diversity of spiritual narratives and promoting empathy and inclusivity. PP's practical implications extend to conflict resolution, social integration, and educational advancement, making it a robust framework for understanding and managing religious diversity. By validating the unique spiritual experiences of all participants, PP creates an inclusive environment conducive to genuine interfaith dialogue and societal cohesion. (shrink)

Abstract: The information ethics (IE) of Floridi and Sanders is evaluated here in the light of an alternative in virtue ethics that is antifoundationalist, particularist, and relativist in contrast to Floridi's foundationalist, impartialist, and universalist commitments. Drawing from disparate traditional sources like Aristotle, Nietzsche, and Emerson, as well as contemporary advocates of virtue ethics like Nussbaum, Foot, and Williams, the essay shows that the central contentions of IE, including especially the principle of ontological equality, must either express commitments grounded in (...) the particular perspectives we already inhabit, or be without rational or ethical force for us. (shrink)

Functionalism would be mistaken if there existed a system of deviant relations (an “anti-mind”) that had the same functional roles as the standard mental relations. In this paper such a system is constructed, using “Quinean transformations” of the sort associated with Quine’s thesis of the indeterminacy of translation. For example, a mapping m from particularistic propositions (e.g., that there exists a rabbit) to universalistic propositions (that rabbithood is manifested). Using m, a deviant relation thinking* is defined: x thinks* p iff (...) x thinks m(p). Such deviant relations satisfy the commonly discussed functionalist psychological principles. Finally, a more complicated system of deviant relations is constructed, one satisfying sophisticated principles dealing with the self-conscious rational mind. (shrink)

The dissertation defends that the often-assumed link between constructivism and universalism builds on non-constructivist, perfectionist grounds. To this end, I argue that an exemplary form of universalist constructivism – i.e., O’Neill’s Kantian constructivism – can defend its universalist commitments against an influential particularist form of constructivism – i.e., political liberalism as advanced by Rawls, Macedo, and Larmore – only if it invokes a perfectionist view of the good. (En route, I show why political liberalism is a form of (...) class='Hi'>particularism and reconstruct the role of its conception of public justification, its implied contextualism about justified belief, its conceptions of toleration, neutrality, good reasons, and legitimacy, and, not least, its justification-constitutive conception of reasonableness.) Contrary to what is often assumed, then, at the level of a vindication of the very project of a universalist constructivism, universalist constructivists should construe perfectionists not as their opponents, but as partial, though uneasy, allies. (shrink)

The paper studies the significance of Martin Heidegger's philosophy of history for two key thinkers of contemporary radical conservatism and the Identitarian movement, Alain de Benoist and Aleksandr Dugin. Heidegger's often-overlooked affinities with the German “conservative revolution” of the Weimar period have in recent years been emphasized by an emerging radical-conservative “right-Heideggerian” orientation. I first discuss the later Heidegger's “being-historical” narrative of the culmination and end of the metaphysical foundations of Western modernity in the contemporary Nietzschean era of nihilism and (...) of an emerging postmodern “other beginning” of Western thinking, focused on historical and cultural relativism and particularism. In Heidegger's work of the 1930s and 1940s, we find attempts to apply this historical narrative to interpreting contemporary geopolitical and ideological phenomena in ways that connect Heidegger to certain central ideas and concerns of the conservative revolutionaries, especially Carl Schmitt's geopolitical particularism. De Benoist, the key name of the French Nouvelle Droite and a founding figure of contemporary Identitarianism, is particularly inspired by Heidegger's reading of Nietzsche as the culmination of the “metaphysics of subjectivity” dominating Western modernity. For de Benoist, this modern metaphysics is the root of the “ideology of the Same” underlying the liberal universalism and individualism that he opposes in the name of a cultural ethnopluralism. De Benoist's Russian disciple Dugin bases the pluralistic geopolitics of his radical-conservative “fourth political theory” on the legacy of the conservative revolution, the key intellectual model of which Dugin discovers in Heidegger's notion of the “other beginning”. (shrink)

An overview of the way I picture the amorphous world we live in, built around my comments and responses to nine festschrift essays by A. Borghini (on the Fedro metaphor and the art of butchery), F. Calemi (on the predication principle and metalinguistic nominalism), C. Calosi (on the argument from mereological universalism to extensonality), E. Casetta (on the role of “monsters” in the realism/antirealism debate), V. Giardino (on inductive reasoning, spatial representation, and problem solving), P. Graziani (on mereological notation), (...) P. Pedrini (on the distinction between natural and artificial boundaries), D. Santoro (on causation by omission), and G. Torrengo (on absolute vs. relational space and the problem of incongruent counterparts). (shrink)

This essay examines how the standpoint of the gaijin (foreigner) shapes and challenges the act of philosophizing, through the experience of overwhelming cultural difference. I examine three challenges the foreigner faces—the need to understand a foreign culture, the need to contribute to a foreign culture, and the need for caution and self-awareness vis-à-vis the excesses and dangers of this attempt. -/- First, through a reading of Thomas Kasulis’ Intimacy or Integrity: Philosophy and Cultural Difference (2002), I take the reader through (...) the experience of trying to understand a foreign culture by examining the kind of relationships that are prioritized in a particular culture. Kasulis discusses intimacy-oriented cultures as those that stress internal relationships between interdependent individuals, and integrity-oriented cultures as those that stress external relationships between autonomous individuals. He then shows how this affects the way this influences the worldview and norms of a particular culture. -/- Next, through a reading of various writings of Watsuji Tetsurô on culture and ethics, I explore the attempt to go beyond cultural difference—seeking a universal standpoint from which one can contribute to or criticize another culture despite cultural difference. I discuss the relationship Watsuji presents between universal ethics and national morality in his “Theory of National Morals” (1932), and connect it with his project in Ethics (1937, 1942/46, 1949) that tries to resolve the contradiction between individuality (integrity) and totality (intimacy) through a “dual-negative structure.” -/- Finally, through an examination of Sakai Naoki’s Translation and Subjectivity: On “Japan” and Cultural Nationalism (1997), I explore the dangers latent in Kasulis’ and Watsuji’s approach. I delve into the danger of schematizing “us vs. them” or “gaijin vs. nihonjin,” which can be present in the attempt to understand cultures. Then I examine Sakai’s warning as to the danger of trying to have a universal standpoint and its tendency to deny the embeddedness of one’s position. -/- Through a dialogue with these three thinkers, I thus attempt to explore in a relatable but nuanced way, what it might mean for the foreigner to confront cultural difference in a manner that both respects cultural difference but transcends it. (shrink)

"Dissertation Advisor: Richard Cobb-Stevens Second Reader: David Rasmussen -/- My overall concern is with the Kantian legacy in political thought. More specifically, I want to know if normative talk is still viable in the wake of Wittgenstein and the linguistic turn; and if so, in what form. Most commentators today believe we have to choose between these two thinkers, either sacrificing a real concern with normativity (“relativism”) or a convincing engagement with our ordinary language (“universalism”). I follow Hilary Putnam (...) in thinking we do not have to choose between these rather drastic construals. It might still be possible to defend the force and relevance of normative exchange while still being alive to the drift of ordinary communication. This middle stance is best exemplified, I believe, by what I have called normative evaluation. -/- Basically, I am building on and extending insights and styles of argumentation that Putnam has pioneered over the years. The universalist’s rigid dichotomies (norms vs. values, rules vs. attitudes, thick vs. thin ethical concepts, justice vs. the good life, etc.) all fail the test of ordinary language. As Putnam has also shown, however, we do rely on paired concepts like these and they might still be argued to be strong—rational—enough to justify making *relative distinctions*. A relative distinction between values and norms is decisive, I think, because it would put us in the position to talk meaningfully about and reasonable settle what is more proper to one particular individual, group, or society from what is less so, thereby also making possible a normative exchange *between* them. I am therefore taking Putnam as pointing out a way to preserve key Kantian insights about the irreducibility and ubiquity of the normative while discarding his transcendental wrapping, all the while avoiding the kind of slide to wholesale cultural relativism that so easily follows in the wake of standard critiques of Kant. -/- Chapter 1: General survey. Chapter 2: Historical background (Kant, Kierkegaard, Wittgenstein). Chapter 3: Basic language philosophical arguments. Chapter 4: Rejection of the quasi-transcendental model (Apel & Habermas). Chapter 5: Confrontation with Political Liberalism (the later Rawls). (shrink)

A revolt against the Enlightenment’s legacy has marked the academic culture of a generation. Leftists today often criticize the Radical Enlightenment thesis, arguing that those who advance it privilege the force of ideas in history over material forces. They accuse its proponents of elevating philosophy written by elite European men over the sacrifices made by ordinary people in the course of mass struggle.

For the Intentionalist, utterance content is wholly determined by a speaker’s meaning-intentions; the sentence uttered serves merely to facilitate the audience’s recovering these intentions. We argue that Intentionalists ought to be Particularists, holding that the only “principles” of meaning recovery needed are those governing inferences to the best explanation; “principles” that are both defeasible and, in a sense to be elaborated, variable. We discuss some ways in which some theorists have erred in trying to tame the “wild west” of pragmatics (...) and context-sensitivity -- including recent work that makes essential appeal to the information structure of a discourse -- and in so doing, offer a general recipe for defending the Particularist picture of utterance content and its recovery that we favor. (shrink)

Weak particularism about reasons is the view that the normative valency of some descriptive considerations varies, while others have an invariant normative valency. A defence of this view needs to respond to arguments that a consideration cannot count in favour of any action unless it counts in favour of every action. But it cannot resort to a global holism about reasons, if it claims that there are some examples of invariant valency. This paper argues for weak particularism, and (...) presents a framework for understanding the relationships between practical reasons. A central part of this framework is the idea that there is an important kind of reason-a 'presumptive reason'-which need not be conclusive, but which is neither pro tanto nor prima facie. /// [Richard Holton] 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. (shrink)

In response to several articles on SERRC, I argue that the common pejorative use of the phrase “conspiracy theory” is the fundamental basis for the distinction between generalism and particularism. That is, generalism describes the “conventional wisdom” about conspiracy theories to which particularism is the corrective. Generalism is best understood as the idea that conspiracy theories ought to be dismissed (perhaps even ridiculed) because they are conspiracy theories--for that is the conventional wisdom (as Charles Pigden has maintained). This (...) is not merely to say, vaguely, that such theories have "epistemic defects." Given this definition, particularism, as the rejection of generalism, is true for any definition of "conspiracy theory" for which Watergate would have at one time counted as one--not just for a minimal definition. Rather than being dismissed based on features that apply to conspiracy theories generally (as generalism would have it), each conspiracy theory should be judged on a case-by-case basis according to its own particular merits and demerits. (shrink)

Selim Berker argues that particularists do not have a coherent notion of reasons for action because they cannot show that contributory reasons always contribute to overall reason or moral judgments in accordance with their valence. I argue that Berker fails to demonstrate that particularists cannot show this to be the case. He also wrongly assumes that they need to know this to be the case to legitimately speak of reasons for action. Furthermore, Jonathan Dancy’s account of practical reasoning explains how (...) particularists can legitimately speak of reasons for action while claiming that reasons sometimes make contributions contrary to their valence. (shrink)

I argue that John Dewey’s analysis of imagination enables an account of learning from imaginary cases consistent with Jonathan Dancy’s moral particularism. Moreover, this account provides a more robust account of learning from cases than Dancy’s own. Particularism is the position that there are no, or at most few, true moral principles, and that competent reasoning and judgment do not require them. On a particularist framework, one cannot infer from an imaginary case that because a feature has a (...) particular moral importance there, that it must have that import in an actual case. Instead, for Dancy, cases can yield “reminders,” and a person with a lot of experience (real or imagined) brings a “checklist” of features that can matter to a situation. Using the Nathan-David exchange from 2 Samuel and Martha Nussbaum’s “Steerforth’s Arm” from Love’s Knowledge, I show that this account does not explain all instances of learning from cases. Drawing on recent work on cases, I argue that cases can be educative by serving an exploratory function, probing what one takes to be known and provoking change in the background one uses in evaluating a situation. I then argue that Dewey’s work on imagination in his comments on sympathy and in A Common Faith and Art as Experience enables such a role for cases on a particularist framework. Mark Johnson’s recent work on metaphor further illuminates how Dewey’s account of art can be exploratory. I contend that this account affords an exploratory role for cases consistent with Dancy’s particularism. (shrink)

This paper addresses a recent suggestion that moral particularists can extend their view to countenance default reasons (at a first stab, reasons that are pro tanto unless undermined) by relying on certain background expectations of normality. I first argue that normality must be understood non-extensionally. Thus if default reasons rest on normality claims, those claims won't bestow upon default reasons any definite degree of extensional generality. Their generality depends rather on the contingent distributional aspects of the world, which no theory (...) of reasons should purport to settle. Appeals to default reasons cannot therefore uniquely support particularism. But this argument also implies that if moral generalism entailed that moral reasons by necessity have invariant valence (in the natural extensional sense), it would be a non-starter. Since generalism is not a non-starter, my argument forces us to rethink the parameters of the generalism-particularism debate. Here I propose to clarify the debate by focusing on its modal rather than extensional aspects. In closing, I outline the sort of generalism that I think is motivated by my discussion, and then articulate some worries this view raises about the theoretical usefulness of the label ‘default reason’. -/- [Note: The outline of moral generalism provided in this paper is superseded by those in "Moral Generalism: Enjoy in Moderation" and "A Theory of Hedged Moral Principles".]. (shrink)

I argue that Universalism (the thesis that mereological composition is unrestricted) entails Extensionalism (the thesis that sameness of composition is sufficient for identity) as long as the parthood relation is transitive and satisfies the Weak Supplementation principle (to the effect that whenever a thing has a proper part, it has another part disjoint from the first).

In previous work, I have sought to show that the basic argument for epistemic relativism derives from the problem of the criterion that stems from ancient Pyrrhonian scepticism. Because epistemic relativism depends upon a sceptical strategy, it is possible to respond to relativism on the basis of an anti-sceptical strategy. I argue that the particularist response to scepticism proposed by Roderick Chisholm may be combined with a naturalistic and reliabilist conception of epistemic warrant as the basis for a satisfactory response (...) to epistemic relativism. In this paper, I outline this particularist response to relativism, and provide further commentary on the relationship between naturalism and particularism. In addition, I set the approach in contrast with reflective equilibrium approaches in epistemology. I also briefly explore the connection between the particularist response to relativism and G. E. Moore’s defense of an external world. (shrink)

Sean McKeever and Michael Ridge object that moral particularism ‘flattens the moral landscape’, that is, that particularism treats reasons of different kinds as if they were reasons of the same kind. This objection is misguided in two respects. First, particularists need not say that every feature can be a moral reason. Second, even if particularists were committed to saying that every feature can be a moral reason, they would still not be committed to the view that every feature (...) can have direct moral relevance. The failure of this objection shows that the objection exploits side-constraints that need not be placed on moral particularism. (shrink)

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

This paper explores a particularist element in the theory of method of Imre Lakatos, who appealed to the value-judgements of élite scientists in the appraisal of competing theories of method. The role played by such value-judgements is strongly reminiscent of the epistemological particularism of Roderick Chisholm. Despite the existence of a clear parallel between the particularist approaches of both authors, it is argued that Lakatos’s approach is subject to a weakness that does not affect the approach of Chisholm.

I argue that the conjunction of perdurantism (the view that objects are temporally extended) and universalism (the thesis that any old class of things has a mereological fusion) gives rise to undesired complications when combined with certain plausible assumptions concerning the semantics of tensed statements.

A standard framework for business ethics views the inquiry as an application of major ethical theories to specific issues in business. As these theories are largely presented as being principled, the exercise therefore becomes one of applying general principles to business situations. Many adopting this standard approach have thus resisted the implementation of the most prominent development in ethical theory in recent history: that of particularism. In this article, I argue that particularist thinking has much to offer to business (...) ethics and that standard resistance to particularist business ethics is based largely on misunderstandings. I do so by illustrating how the harbinger of particularism, W. D. Ross, countenances the practical wisdom of particularist ethics while being 1) invulnerable to standard objections to particularist business ethics and 2) compatible with the generalism of the standard approach. The Rossian business ethic is therefore one that the standard approach should be eager to include. (shrink)

I take the debate between the particularists and the principlists to be centered on the issue of whether there are true moral principles. One argument the principlists often appeal to in support of their claim that there are true moral principles is the argument from supervenience. Roughly, the argument is made up of the following three statements: (P1) If the thesis of moral supervenience holds, then there are true moral principles. (P2) The thesis of moral supervenience holds. (C) There are (...) true moral principles, and hence particularism is false. In this paper, I argue that the above argument is not sound by attacking (P1). I hold that no general supervenient/resultance base has a robust enough configuration of contextual features as to ground the existence of true moral principles. If I am right about this, I think it would be indicative of a reason to be less confident about the truth of principlism and more confident about the truth of particularism. (shrink)

Does the human mind resemble the machines that can behave like it? Biologically inspired machine-learning systems approach “human-level” accuracy in an astounding variety of domains, and even predict human brain activity—raising the exciting possibility that such systems represent the world like we do. However, even seemingly intelligent machines fail in strange and “unhumanlike” ways, threatening their status as models of our minds. How can we know when human–machine behavioral differences reflect deep disparities in their underlying capacities, vs. when such failures (...) are only superficial or peripheral? This article draws on a foundational insight from cognitive science—the distinction between performance and competence—to encourage “species-fair” comparisons between humans and machines. The performance/competence distinction urges us to consider whether the failure of a system to behave as ideally hypothesized, or the failure of one creature to behave like another, arises not because the system lacks the relevant knowledge or internal capacities (“competence”), but instead because of superficial constraints on demonstrating that knowledge (“performance”). I argue that this distinction has been neglected by research comparing human and machine behavior, and that it should be essential to any such comparison. Focusing on the domain of image classification, I identify three factors contributing to the species-fairness of human–machine comparisons, extracted from recent work that equates such constraints. Species-fair comparisons level the playing field between natural and artificial intelligence, so that we can separate more superficial differences from those that may be deep and enduring. (shrink)

This article provides a conceptual map of the debate on ideal and non‐ideal theory. It argues that this debate encompasses a number of different questions, which have not been kept sufficiently separate in the literature. In particular, the article distinguishes between the following three interpretations of the ‘ideal vs. non‐ideal theory’ contrast: (i) full compliance vs. partial compliance theory; (ii) utopian vs. realistic theory; (iii) end‐state vs. transitional theory. The article advances critical reflections on each of these sub‐debates, and highlights (...) areas for future research in the field. (shrink)

Philosophers disagree whether composition as identity entails mereological universalism. Bricker :264–294, 2016) has recently considered an argument which concludes that composition as identity supports universalism. The key step in this argument is the thesis that any objects are identical to some object, which Bricker justifies with the principle of the universality of identity. I will spell out this principle in more detail and argue that it has an unexpected consequence. If the universality of identity holds, then composition as (...) identity not only leads us to universalism, but also leads to the view that there are no mereological atoms. (shrink)

This paper does three interrelated things. First, it argues that the universalism that forms the target of criticism and attack by decolonial theorists from the Global South is a debased form of universalism, what might be termed “ethnocentric universalism.” Second, equipped with a conceptual grip on ethnocentric universalism, it shows that the picture on which ethnocentric universalism confers some innocuous epistemic privilege to members of dominant groups is not quite accurate—ethnocentric universalism is incompatible with (...) the epistemic flourishing of members of dominant groups. And third, based on that claim, and the additional consideration that ethnocentric universalism equally undermines the epistemic flourishing of members of historically marginalized groups, it proposes an emancipatory framework for engaging with it. (shrink)

How do we justify the normative standards to which we appeal in support of our moral progress judgments, given their historical and cultural contingency? To answer this question in a noncircular way, Elizabeth Anderson and Philip Kitcher appeal exclusively to formal features of the methodology by which a moral change was brought about; some moral methodologies are systematically less prone to bias than others and are therefore less vulnerable to error. However, we argue that the methodologies espoused by Anderson and (...) Kitcher implicitly appeal to the substantive principle of “moral universalism.” This sets up the positive project of the paper: an attempt to vindicate moral universalism with a pragmatic genealogy. Using resources from cultural evolutionary theory and the history of ideas we argue that the universalistic norms widely committed to in many societies today have the function of maintaining cooperation in large anonymous groups. Furthermore, while universalistic norms play this instrumental role, their functional benefits are best secured when people following such norms do so for intrinsic rather than instrumental reasons. Finally, having elaborated our pragmatic genealogy, we close by considering how this genealogy should affect our commitment to moral universalism and how it can complement the methods of Anderson and Kitcher. (shrink)

A reply to Patrick Stokes' “Between Generalism and Particularism About Conspiracy Theory".

This paper is a critical investigation about the historical origins of two contemporary approaches in ethics: moral particularism and moral generalism. Moral particularism states that there are no defensible moral principles and that moral thought doesn’t consist in the application of moral principles to cases, but in understanding the morally relevant features of an action, which vary from case to case. In opposition, moral generalism is the traditional claim that moral decisions are made by applying general rules to (...) particular actions. Plato is often seen as a moral generalist for his appeal to Forms which are universal standards, while Aristotle is regarded as a precursor of moral particularism for stressing the importance of the “the prudence”, which is the intellectual capacity to perceive the irreducible specificity of a context, and the importance of “the means” which differs from person to person. First I will take Plato into discussion, and I will briefly reconstruct his theoretical account on Justice and virtue in order to establish his “generalist” orientation. Then I will analyze Aristotle’s alleged particularism by appealing to his texts and assessing some considerations of a few contemporary authors. At the end of the paper, I will question both particularism and generalism for the appropriation of the two ancient philosophers, on the ground that modern moral philosophy which is an action centered ethics is hard to reconcile with ancient moral thought which was an agent centered one. (shrink)

In this paper I argue for a particularist understanding of thick evaluative features, something that is rarely done and is fairly controversial. That is, I argue that sometimes that the fact that an act is just, say, could, in certain situations, provide one with a reason against performing the action. Similarly, selfishness could be right-making. To show this, I take on anti-particularist ideas from two much-cited pieces (by Crisp, and by McNaughton and Rawling), in the influential Moral Particularism anthology (...) (eds.) Hooker and Little (OUP). My paper has already been cited by other people working in the field. (shrink)

Many philosophers have claimed that the folk endorse moral universalism. Some have taken the folk view to support moral universalism; others have taken the folk view to reflect a deep confusion. And while some empirical evidence supports the claim that the folk endorse moral universalism, this work has uncovered intra-domain differences in folk judgments of moral universalism. In light of all this, our question is: why do the folk endorse moral universalism? Our hypothesis is that (...) folk judgments of moral universalism are generated in part by a desire to punish. We present evidence supporting this across three studies. On the basis of this, we argue for a debunking explanation of folk judgments of moral universalism. Our results not only further our understanding of the psychological processes underpinning folk judgments of moral universalism. They also bear on philosophical discussions of folk meta-ethics. (shrink)

The paper critically scrutinizes the widespread idea that Russell subscribes to a "Universalist Conception of Logic." Various glosses on this somewhat under-explained slogan are considered, and their fit with Russell's texts and logical practice examined. The results of this investigation are, for the most part, unfavorable to the Universalist interpretation.