Particularism and the Space of Moral Reasons

195 Pages·2011·0.597 MB·English

by  Benedict Smith (auth.)

Particularism and the Space of Moral Reasons
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Particularism and the Space
of Moral Reasons
Benedict Smith
Durham University, UK
© Benedict Smith 2011
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2011 978-0-230-55281-4
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work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2011 by
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ISBN 978-1-349-36269-1 ISBN 978-0-230-29243-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230292437
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Smith, Benedict, 1975–
Particularism and the space of moral reasons / Benedict Smith.
p. cm.
Summary: “This book adopts a new approach to moral particularism. It
applies a range of novel ideas by drawing on different areas and t raditions
of philosophy, and includes discussion of human subjectivity, moral
e xperience and moral judgement”—Provided by publisher.
1. Ethics. I. Title.
BJ1031.S626 2010
170'.42—dc22 2010027562
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11
To my parents, with all my love and thanks
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Contents
Preface and Acknowledgements ix
1 Characterizing Moral Particularism 1
1.1 Particularism and moral philosophy 1
1.2 Abstraction 7
1.3 Theory and practice 9
1.4 Constraints 12
1.5 Metaphysics/epistemology 16
1.6 Holism 19
1.7 Particularism and epistemology 23
2 Particularism and Subjectivity 28
2.1 Rationality and moral knowledge 28
2.2 Platonism and practice 35
2.3 Practices, perspectives and the moral world 39
2.4 Projectivism and normativity 44
2.5 Rationality, experience and uncodifiability 49
3 Perception and the Myth of the Moral Given 56
3.1 Moral perception 56
3.2 Perception contra particularism 60
3.3 Looking and ‘looking away’ 66
3.4 The Myth of the Moral Given 69
3.5 From experience to judgement 72
3.6 Subjectivity and judgement 80
4 Moral Judgement 83
4.1 Judgement and moral epistemology 83
4.2 Judgement, rules and examples 88
4.3 Particularism, judgement and experience 92
4.4 Judgement and justification 97
4.5 Beyond judgement? 103
5 Moral Phenomenology 110
5.1 Phenomenology 110
5.2 Scepticism about moral phenomenology 113
5.3 Mandelbaum’s moral phenomenology 119
5.4 Dreyfusian moral phenomenology 121
vii
viii Contents
5.5 ‘Looks’ 128
5.6 Particularism and moral phenomenology 130
6 The Space of Moral Reasons 137
6.1 Placing in the space of reasons 137
6.2 Concepts and the moral world 140
6.3 Moral experience 142
6.4 What is ‘context’? 147
6.5 Thinking in the space of moral reasons 153
Notes 163
Bibliography 172
Index 179
Preface and Acknowledgements
In recent years moral particularism has become one of the most impor-
tant and widely discussed topics in moral philosophy. In writing this
book I aim to contribute to the ways in which it can be advanced. What
I have to say is, overall, sympathetic to moral particularism although
I am critical of the position in a number of ways. The central figure in
moral particularism is Jonathan Dancy who has been developing the
position for almost 30 years and his work is, of course, vital to what
follows. In engaging critically with particularism I draw on the work
of John McDowell and some aspects of the work of Wilfrid Sellars, the
former being in some sense the source of modern particularism. Sellars’s
work has provided a rich source of inspiration for many philosophers,
including McDowell, and it is Sellars who coined the phrase ‘the space
of reasons’ – a phrase that, at least in analytic philosophy, is now
familiar.
McDowell’s own work has also been extremely influential in a number
of areas and one purpose of this book is to try and draw together the
ways in which some of the insights and contributions that McDowell
has made more generally can be made especially relevant for the ways
in which moral particularism can be understood and developed. In
what follows I do not provide a comprehensive or scholarly account
of McDowell’s work, or Sellars’s, and those aspects that I do draw on
are only meant to be a part of a more general approach to the topic of
particularism.1
Chapter 1 serves to introduce the ways in which moral particularism is
characterized in relation to conceptions of moral philosophy. Differing
conceptions of what is constituted by philosophical inquiry and its
subject matter have important ramifications in this context. A contrast
is drawn between the nature and role of ‘theory’ and ‘practice’ as it
figures in debates over moral particularism, and the extent to which a
commitment to moral principles is a commitment to the importance of
‘theoretical abstraction’ in moral theory. I explain the central role that
holism about the nature of reasons has for Dancy’s version of particular-
ism, a crucial element in how he characterizes the view. In this chapter,
I also raise an issue that recurs at several places in this book. That is,
the relation between metaphysics and epistemology. I suggest that
issues in moral epistemology in this context have not been adequately
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