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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 the idea that the morality of an action is determined solely by its contribution to overall utility: that is, its contribution to happiness or pleasure as summed among all persons....
, for example. 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.






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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 the idea that the morality of an action is determined solely by its contribution to overall utility: that is, its contribution to happiness or pleasure as summed among all persons....
, for example. 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 Great Britain philosopher, working on epistemology and on ethics. He is currently professor at the University of Reading and at University of Texas at Austin....
, 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 both the cognition process of transferring information from a particular subject to another particular subject , and a language expression corresponding to such a process....
 in new cases.

A largely coincident view about law was defended by Castanheira Neves
António Castanheira Neves

Ant?nio Castanheira Neves is a Portugal philosophy of law and a professor at the faculty of law of the University of Coimbra.According to Castanheira Neves, law can only be understood through legal problems , which have to be solved within the law ....
 in his 1967 major work.

Further reading

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

    Oxford is a City status in the United Kingdom, and the county town of Oxfordshire, in South East England. It has a population of 151,000. The rivers River Cherwell and River Thames run through Oxford and meet south of the city centre....
    : Oxford University Press
    Oxford University Press

    Oxford University Press is a publisher and a department of the University of Oxford in England. It is the largest university press in the world, being larger than all the American university presses combined with Cambridge University Press....
    .

External links

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

    The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is a Open access online encyclopedia of philosophy maintained by Stanford University. The SEP was initially developed with U.S....
    .