In Defense of Dancy's Moral Particularism

• Main Authors: Chen Chang, 張晨
• Other Authors: Ser-Min Shei
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2006
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/27866255051019940811

碩士 === 國立中正大學 === 哲學所 === 94 === Moral particularism is one of the most fervently contested contemporary issues in the arena of ethics. The theory purports to claim that there are no defensible moral principles, that the idea that our moral practice is (at least partly) susceptible to the application of principles to particular cases is quite a misconception about what moral reason is. The particularist Jonathan Dancy, among others, argues for a holism in the theory of reasons, a doctrine which maintains that what is a reason on one occasion may be no reason at all on another, or an opposite reason on a third. On this view, moral reasons are in fact no different from other sorts of reason; we should distinguish between right and wrong in questions of conduct by analyzing cases. It has been pointed out that nevertheless holism may have very little to do with particularism, or that, even if they are related, holism does not necessarily yield particularism, for it could well be compatible with generalism, the view that the possibility of morality relies on the provision of a suitable supply of moral principles. The occurrence of invariant reasons (e.g., justice), further, may be seen as offering a base for legitimizing general principles, and thereby threatens to undermine the sustainability of particularism. And still other generalists posit different reasons for discrediting the particularist supposition; for instance, it seems to overestimate our capability in judging how to behave from case to case, and it fails to give a plausible account of moral education. I want in this thesis to argue that particularism is the prong that fits best into holism, and to defend it against challenges.