Embeddedness and the psychological nature of default reason

On how particularists should address the flattening objection

Datos Bibliográficos

ID10692312
AutoresPeter Shiu-Hwa Tsu (0000-0003-0430-1460, National Chung Cheng University, autor de correspondencia)
Año2025
Volumen76
Número1
Páginas365-383
Fecha de publicación2025-12-03
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe Philosophical Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0031-8094 • E-ISSN: 1467-9213
EditorialOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/pq/pqae061
OpenAlexW4399979822
IdiomaEN
Referencias citadas34

Particularism is widely conceived to endorse the view that moral reason is context-dependent. This being so, it is often accused of flattening the moral landscape—treating the feature of promise-keeping as constituting no more of a (moral) reason for action than the feature of wearing a yellow shoelace in advance of the considerations of the contexts. In reply, Dancy maintains that his particularism allows some features such as promise-keeping to have a reason status by default, ontologically speaking; it is just that their default reason status might get ‘switched off’ in some contexts. In this paper, I will argue that Dancy's ontological understanding of default reason wouldn't help the particularists address the flattening objection, due to a violation of what Tsu calls ‘the embedded thesis’, which is a general constraint on how moral reason behaves. However, once the nature of default reason is correctly understood as psychological, particularism will be enabled to deflate the flattening objection, or so I will argue

Cognitive psychology · Cognitive science · Economics · Embeddedness · Epistemology · Flattening · Positive economics · Social science · Sociology · Engineering · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Philosophy · Psychology · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment