Generalism as a Regulative Ideal

Abstract

This chapter argues that there are reasons to try to codify the moral landscape, and that these reasons are recognizably moral. A proper understanding of the nature of historical moral progress bolsters this argument. The task of codifying morality is best understood as a collective one. Like many collective tasks, it is most efficiently pursued with a suitable division of labor. The chapter defends some of the traditional notions of moral theory as aiming for deeper and more unifying explanations where they can plausibly be found.

Reasons, Reason, and Context

“…More fully: There are weaker formulations of holism that are not committed to the universal generalization 38 being true-as both Dancy (2004) and McKeever and Ridge (2006) note-though exceptions will be treated as "special".…”

“…Although the argument for particularism based on holism has been challenged on a number of fronts (see especially Ridge and McKeever (2006)), whatever force it retains is undermined once we realize that reasons are merely representatives-that is, once we understand reference to reasons as reference to facts that serve as representatives of normative clusters. Since particular facts may belong to, and hence serve as representatives of, different normative clusters in different (non-conversational) contexts, it's only to be expected that, as Margaret Little (2001: 34) puts it, a "consideration that in one context counts [as a reason] for an action, can in another count against it or be irrelevant".…”

Particularism in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics

“…Collections of essays on particularism include Hooker and Little (2000) and Lance, Potrc, and Strahovnik (2008). See, also, McNaughton (1988), Louden (1991), Shafer-Landau (1997), Sinnott-Armstrong (1999), Little (2001), Cullity (2002), Holton (2002), Lance and Little (2004, 2006a, 2006b, Väyrynen (2004, 2006a, 2006b), McKeever and Ridge (2006, Raz (2006), Crisp (2007), Stangl (2008, 2010), and Leibowitz (2009a, 2009b The persistent failure to find and formulate exceptionless moral principles that provide an adequate account of morality invites us to examine the presumption that such principles are essential to moral theorizing-a presumption that has been widely endorsed but rarely, if ever, argued for. 8 As I see it, those who are willing to give up this presumption are particularists, while those who retain it are generalists.…”

Facilitating resolution of forest conflicts through understanding the complexity of the relationship between forest industry and environmental groups

“…A person acts only on such values that they can wish everyone else to act on (McKeever andRidge 2006, Kant 2004). Such values are principles.…”