Principled Ethics

Generalism as a Regulative Ideal

Bibliographic Data

ID8090796
AuthorsSean Mckeever (Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Davidson College, North Carolina., corresponding author), Martin Ridge (0000-0003-0915-7285), Michael Ridge (University of Edinburgh), Sean D McKeever
Year2006
Pages242
Publication date2006-04-20
Open AccessNo
TypeBOOK
VenuePrincipled ethics (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherOxford University PressOxford (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1093/0199290652.001.0001
OpenAlexW4241275669
Open LibraryOL18262540M
ISBN9780199290659
LanguageEN
Citations received36
References cited52

Moral philosophy has long treated principles as indispensable for understanding its subject matter. However, the underlying assumption that this is the best approach has received almost no defence, and has been attacked by particularists who argue that the traditional link between morality and principles is little more than an unwarranted prejudice. This book meets this particularist challenge head on and defends a distinctive view called ‘generalism as a regulative ideal’. After cataloguing the wide array of views that have gone under the heading ‘particularism’, the reasons why the main particularist arguments fail to establish their conclusions are explained. Generalism as a regulative ideal incorporates what is most insightful in particularism (e.g., the possibility that reasons are context sensitive - ‘holism about reasons’) while rejecting every major particularist doctrine. The book resists the excesses of hyper-generalist views according to which moral thought is constituted by allegiance to a particular principle or set of principles. It argues that in so far as moral knowledge and wisdom are possible, all of morality can and should be codified in a manageable set of principles, even if we are not yet in possession of those principles. Such principles are not objects of mere curiosity, but play an important role in guiding the virtuous agent

Anthropocentrism · Context (archaeology · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Ideal (ethics · Morality · Possession (linguistics · Sociology · Free Will and Agency · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment · Ethics · Grondslagen · Philosophy · Principle (Philosophy) · History