Moral particularism is the view that there are no moral principles and that moral judgement can be found only as one decides particular cases, either real or imagined. This stands in stark contrast to other prominent moral theories, such as deontology or utilitarianism

Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism is an ethical theory holding that the proper course of action is the one that maximizes the overall "happiness", by whatever means necessary. It is thus a form of consequentialism, meaning that the moral worth of an action is determined only by its resulting outcome, and that one can...

. In the former, it is asserted that people have a set of duties (that are to be considered or respected); in the latter, people are to respect the happiness or the preferences of others in their actions. Particularism, to the contrary, asserts that there are no overriding principles that are applicable in every case, or that can be abstracted to apply to every case.

According to particularism, most notably defended by Jonathan Dancy

Jonathan Dancy

Jonathan Peter Dancy is a British philosopher, working on epistemology and on ethics. He is currently Professor Emeritus at the University of Reading and Professor of Philosophy at University of Texas at Austin.-Biography:...

, moral knowledge should be understood as knowledge of moral rules of thumb

Rule of thumb

A rule of thumb is a principle with broad application that is not intended to be strictly accurate or reliable for every situation. It is an easily learned and easily applied procedure for approximately calculating or recalling some value, or for making some determination...

, which are not principles, and of particular solutions, which can be used by analogy

Analogy

Analogy is a cognitive process of transferring information or meaning from a particular subject to another particular subject , and a linguistic expression corresponding to such a process...

 in new cases.

The term "particularism" was coined to designate this position by R. M. Hare

R. M. Hare

Richard Mervyn Hare was an English moral philosopher who held the post of White's Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Oxford from 1966 until 1983. He subsequently taught for a number of years at the University of Florida...

, in 1963 (Freedom and Reason, Oxford: Clarendon, p. 18).

A largely coincident view about law was defended by Castanheira Neves

António Castanheira Neves

António Castanheira Neves is a Portuguese legal philosopher and a professor emeritus at the law faculty of the University of Coimbra....

 in his 1967 major work.

Further reading

• Hooker B, Little MO (eds.) (2001) Moral particularism. OUP
• Dancy, Jonathan (2004). Ethics without principles, Oxford
  Oxford
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  : Oxford University Press
  Oxford University Press
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External links

• Dancy, Jonathan (2005). "Moral particularism", in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
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