A Defense of a Particularist Research Program

What makes some acts morally right and others morally wrong? Traditionally, philosophers have thought that in order to answer this question we must find and formulate exceptionless moral principles—principles that capture all and only morally right actions. Utilitarianism and Kantianism are paradigm...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Leibowitz, Uri D. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Springer Science + Business Media B. V 2009
In: Ethical theory and moral practice
Year: 2009, Volume: 12, Issue: 2, Pages: 181-199
Further subjects:B Particularism
B Generalism
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Summary:What makes some acts morally right and others morally wrong? Traditionally, philosophers have thought that in order to answer this question we must find and formulate exceptionless moral principles—principles that capture all and only morally right actions. Utilitarianism and Kantianism are paradigmatic examples of such attempts. In recent years, however, there has been a growing interest in a novel approach—Particularism—although its precise content is still a matter of controversy. In this paper I develop and motivate a new formulation of particularism as a research program and I show that my formulation is not vulnerable to the most common objections to particularism. Moreover, I argue that the particularist research program shows enough promise to warrant further exploration.
ISSN:1572-8447
Contains:Enthalten in: Ethical theory and moral practice
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10677-008-9135-5