TPQs (12/5) Group 4 Posts, Group 1 Responds

[Becko Copenhaver]

[co...@lclark.edu]

Moral Particularism seems to offer a compelling out for the difficulty of moral thinking. All of the moral theories we've learned about up to now seem to be susceptible to an objection from marginal cases. Yet, Particularism's rejection of principles is able to avoid these claims.

For example, under particularism, it isn't necessarily contradictory for us to say that pain, suffering, and mental capacity are relevant moral factors, but still hold that we shouldnt treat mentally disabled humans and pigs the same way. And we could defend our position by saying that other factors become relevant in the two different situations.

In other words, Particularism offers a lot more flexibility in making normative judgements by being open to more descriptive factors. If you were to pick between the big three moral theories, you would have to decide which one fits the criteria of evaluation, and then accept that some of its dictates will be unpalatable. It is the bitter pill you need to swallow to maintain consistency. Particularism seems to help mitigate this problem.

However, I am curious whether Particularism's flexibility in dealing with marginal cases opens itself up to a broader challenge. As McNaughton points out, we need principles to act on in our everyday life. For, even if we had could stop and take time to deliberate about all of our decisions, we never have complete information. As a result, we have to have some rules of thumb.

Does this make Particularism functionally useless? Even though I am not particularly sympathetic to the challenge from usefulness, it still is a potential problem with the theory. Is Particularism the flip side of the coin to Rule-Utilitarianism? And is open to the same type of objections? (I understood the objection against RU to go as follows: you follow the rules that best promote happiness, except when they wont actually produce the most happiness (ex. following the rules of the road). So, as a result, RU becomes nothing more than a more convoluted version of Act-Utilitarianism. This means that it doesnt actually give you a feasible decision-making process.)

To summarize my long winded question, I am essentially asking: Even if particularism is 'true', does it offer any meaningful criteria for leading our everyday lives? Can we commit to an ethical theory that cant be applied?

[estanbro]

The main point that Dancy brings up is that reasons for belief are very context sensitive. If no one is at the mall it may be a good reason to go to the mall yourself. Without anyone there, you could easily go about stress-free shopping. On the other hand, the reason no one is at the mall may be because a bomb threat was called in. In this case, there being no one at the mall is no good reason at all to go to the mall yourself; it is actually a reason for you to avoid going to the mall. Thus, reasons for belief are sensitive to context. This set of thinking seems obvious or uncontentious. Yet, when we turn away from these basic reasons, and turn towards moral reasons, things get tricky.

Dancy argues, and we have learned in class, that most people believe moral reasons to be based on principles. Moral particularism holds that because atomism is false, there are plenty of moral reasons but no moral principles. This is perhaps hard to buy in to. Many people believe that there are at least some invariant moral principles from which moral reasons are based on. Dancy then cites the example of "it always being wrong to torture babies, even in terrible circumstances." I would like to apply other moral theories to this "invariant moral principle" to see what they would say. Certainly utilitarianism says that you can torture a baby in order to save a million other people from being killed. Kantianism may hold a slightly different opinion, since the manner of killing the baby is torture. This may well be considered a kantian moral tragedy. However, the fact that utilitarianism may not hold this "invariant moral principle" to be invariant at all is interesting. Certainly under most (probably 99.99%) of cases you should never torture a baby. But this is a strong statement. And if we can find just one case, like where torturing the baby saves a million lives, then we can say the principle is not invariant. What do you guys think? Is never torturing babies under any circumstance an invariant moral principle?

[vmco...@lclark.edu]

I believe both articles were well-writeen and well thought out. The idea that particularism disregards moral principles, at first, seems to make a strong and difficult statement to defend. However, I believe the reasoning behind it starts to make more and more sense. To answer your question, I don't think that particularism is at risk for daily conflicts and situations. The fact that each situation is assessed and the action decided based on the given circumstances seems to favor particularism. Each distinctive aspect of a moral dilemma you face is taken into account, and general rules, and reasons behind the rules, are followed. However, this differs from abiding to moral principles because some moral principles might include "Never lie." Although in daily life, "white lies" (nonetheless lies) are necessary to tell to avoid each worse scenarios. A friend asks you if she looks fat, for example. And she is serious. And she is actually fat. But, you are her friend, and if you abided by the moral principle not to lie, you would greatly hurt her feelings. In this situations, and many others, moral principles could in fact produce a worse consequence. Therefore, I believe moral particularism is a probable theory to chose, for it allows an agent to look at the greater picture- literally- to make moral decisions.

[gru...@lclark.edu]

Dancy's reasons that atomism is false and cases of determining right action are too specific to circumstances to rely on a general set of moral principles. The threat of normative moral theories is the distortion of case conditions to be perceived through a filtered lens of inflexible principles yielding improper guidance for action. The conclusion reaches that the right is typically discernable or understood by moral intuition and possessing a set of principles is only a means of motivating an individual to not indulge whatever benefits lie in pursuing the knowingly immoral act. Could this approach to moral decisions be aligned with a virtue theorist approach? Moral intuition often seems to align with behaving in accordance with the virtues. Additionally, might moral intuitions in fact be sourced to any general truths or "right-making characteristics" such as McNaughton suggests? Does particularism's claim of case-sensitivity neglect the principle methods employed in evaluating each circumstance? 

[beaub]

On Darcy and his discussion of invariance and, particularly, baby torture, I think we can see that there are a select number of cases in which torturing a baby would not only be permissible, but it would morally oblige the agent. One would be the 24-esque scenario, in which millions (or billions) of people are at risk of certain death due to some technological development and one person holds the key or mechanism to halt to the progression of that destructive technology. Perhaps the person with the answer is a baby. Why the baby is in such a scenario is meant for another forum, but it is clear that not only Utilitarianism, but certainly our overwhelming moral intuition would permit and oblige the torture of that baby in an effort to save the death of millions. Thus, we cannot remain invariant that torturing babies is absolutely never permissible. However, as Cory notes, it is hard to conceptualize committing to particularism when it perhaps cannot actually be applied. 

[nse...@lclark.edu]

The context sensitivity of particularism is well-articulated in both of the articles on the subject. Particularism is contingent on atomism being false and moral principles not existing, from which follows the idea that although there are no moral principles, there are many moral reasons. The existence of many moral reasons is, in some ways, analogous to the existence of many virtues in Virtue Theory. In virtue ethics, we learned that there is always a morally right action, it is just not obvious to those who are less virtuous (further from the means of whatever virtues apply to a given moral dilemma/predicament). Does the idea that there is always an objectively morally right action in a given situation make sense from the viewpoint of a particularist?

[mblak...@lclark.edu]

I am inclined to argue that from the viewpoint of a particularist, there is always an objectively morally right action to take. Simply because particularism eschews the atomism of most major theories does not mean it gives way to any sort of behavior or thought being justifiable morally. I think "objectively" is the word that causes me some questioning of this, however. With moral judgment being administered solely by the agent in a situation, not a principle, it becomes difficult to use the word "objective." Particularism seems to revolve greatly around the subjectivity of the agent. If everyone were virtuous, there could possibly be an objective, ever-morally right action but since this is not the case, I find it hard for an action to exist in which everyone would agree on its moral strength. 

[larr...@lclark.edu]

You make a very interesting comparison between particularism and virtue ethics. After some thought, I believe that Dancy would caution that a virtue ethicist may take a moral situation and  "distort the relevance of relevant features by insisting on filtering them through principles, in a way that is at odds with the falsehood of atomism." Virtue theory's goal is to create eudimanea, and to do so by doing what a virtuous person would do. I don't think that virtue theory is directly at odds with particularism, but considering virtue may be the equivalent of filtering features of a moral situation through principles. Virtue may be the type of consideration Dancy speaks of when he says we use moral principles to "rectify a distortion in natural judgement." We use virtue to correct our viciousness and give us a set of traits that make us better human beings. So it would seem that considering virtue is not considering the particular nature of a moral case but considering human traits that help us lead better lives. This could be considered a distortion of moral features in different cases.

[Ian Dechow]

Perhaps I'm overgeneralizing but to me when I look at history, more specifically the history of philosophy, I see a trend. This trend is the fluctuation between two points of view. One point of view (lets call it type one) consists of ethical theories that are based on hard principles i.e. Kantianism and Utilitarianism. The other (Type Two) consists of ethical theories that are more circumstantial and tend to leave more room for gray area i.e. particularism and virtue ethics. Many philosophers are stuck on the notion that one of these scenarios is right and what is wrong. To me this seems wrong, to me it seems that you can't have a type I ethical theory without a type II one, In the same way you can't have Yin without Yang. It is productive to make the distinction between these two types and is imperative to acknowledge that they do have a relationship. I don't see a happy middle ground between these types of theories to be possible but I do see them as compatible, even today many ethical theorists are both virtue ethicists and Kantians.

[jswe...@lclark.edu]

I'm fond of this idea of overarching context sensitivity, as it doesn't try to simplify or put into structure the intricacies of moral navigation.  Many theories try and develop systems that will apply universally while holding sound.   This however, as we've learned, is impossible in that every ethical theory has it's weakness.  Virtue theories context sensitivity however does not try to sweep under the rug the complexity and variation of world.  It is daunting, yes, that every moral dilemma has a different solution, and that you can not look this solution up on the internet, but is it any more daunting than the idea that a system can be built to encompass morality?  Or that every moral dilemma has a single right action? 

[sbea...@lclark.edu]

That is an interesting point, what is considered a right action varies in particular situations according to virtue theory.  This is quite ambiguous because every decision that anyone has ever made has been unique; it has taken place at a unique time, location, and has involved different agents, all of which can sway the morality of that action.  It seems Dancy is highlighting that the reasons we have for taking actions can be the same in a many different situations, but that the factors that influence the morality of that action are variable, so there is no way to universalize a moral principle because there are external factors in every particular situation that can change the moral determination.  Particularism comes in where these moral principles lack the ability to encompass the complexity of the situations in which our actions take place.

[jshaw]

While I do believe that each moral dilemma is highly context sensitive, I still find it too simple to say that there are no general principles. Dancy does mention that there are a few, such as not killing a baby. But to say that there are no general principles would go against a lot of the different theories, all of which have some merit one way or another.