Deductive reasoning using moral principles has traditionally been considered the standard way in which moral judgements are reached. This view has been challenged by a group of thinkers known as particularists who claim that the principlist model is flawed. They propose a fundamentally different approach which does not include moral principles and instead uses a holistic assessment of all of the relevant factors present in a particular case to determine right action.
The following essay contains a critical discussion of the particularist case against principlism. The essay will open with an explanation of principlism and the process of how moral judgements can be reached deductively using moral principles. Next, the particularist method of moral reasoning will be introduced and discussed. Following that, there will be an explanation of how moral judgements can be reached without the use of moral principles, and an alternative method will be outlined. The final argument against principlism discussed will be one derived from Saul Kripke’s interpretation of Wittgenstein’s rule-following paradox.
After the case against principlism has been made, the essay will then critically evaluate that case by revisiting the particularist arguments and offering critical commentary on them. The core argument made by this essay will be that while particularist arguments successfully demonstrate principlism to be unreliable, there is insufficient reason to suggest that it should be replaced by particularism. The problems with principlism that are exposed can be rectified without abandoning moral principles. Perhaps by taking the approach of Rossian generalism.
Principlism is the ethical view that moral principles should be used when making moral judgements. Gerald Dworkin defines principles as statements containing moral language, and when used in the context of a particular situation, produce a conclusion containing a direction on how one ought to act in that situation. Dworkin refers to the conclusions brought about by contextualizing moral principles as moral judgements. Moral judgements are law-like directives and they contain words such as ‘should’ and ‘ought’. There is a broad spectrum of different kinds of moral principles which one may consult when making moral judgements. These principles can originate from religious tenets such as the ten commandments or from normative ethical frameworks like Kantian ethics or utilitarianism. They can also be informal like a loose and unrefined personal code, or a cultural expectation to respect elders. To be a principlist is not to adhere to any particular ethical system or principle, it only requires that one uses moral principles when making a moral judgement. A moral judgement can be deductively concluded when moral principles, in conjunction with a particular situation, are written as premises in a syllogism. Here are two examples:
Example 1
P1 (principle): It is morally right to help those in need when it causes no harm to oneself.
P2 (situation): A hungry homeless person asks Billy for food, and Billy has a sandwich that he intends to throw out.
C (judgement): Billy should give the homeless person his sandwich.
Example 2
P1 (principle): It is morally right to fulfil one’s promises.
P2 (situation): Sally has promised her brother to help him with his homework.
C (judgement): Sally should help her brother with his homework.
A group of philosophers known as particularists have offered a collection of arguments against principlism, and a fundamentally different approach to moral reasoning and the production of moral judgements. Particularism is the view that there are no fixed moral principles that can be applied universally. In order for a moral agent to make properly informed and accurate moral judgements, they must assess all of the relevant unique contextual factors relating to that particular case. A key particularist claim is that the principlist’s universal application of general moral principles inevitably leads to some cases where the moral judgement that is deductively concluded misses the mark.
Such a case can be illustrated with a simple example. Tom is a principlist and firmly believes that a good person always follows their principles. One of his principles is the belief that one should always keep their friend’s secrets. Tom’s reason for this belief is quasi-Kantian. He believes that if people divulge their friends’ secrets, then nobody could be trusted to keep secrets. One day, Tom finds out that his friend Micheal has been involved in a hit and run incident causing serious harm to somebody. Michael left the scene of the incident in a hurry and has managed to completely evade any legal ramifications. Michael is an alcoholic, and appears to show little remorse for his actions. It is likely that he will drive while under the influence again. While he was disturbed by the actions of his friend, Tom ultimately decides to keep his friend’s secret. Several months later, while driving under influence, Michael is responsible for another accident. This time causing a fatality. In this unfortunate situation, Tom applied his principle and made the moral judgement to keep Michael’s secret. Had he chosen to report Michael to the authorities instead, it is probable that Michael would have never caused an innocent person to lose their life. Tom’s reasoning in this case highlights the pitfalls of principlism and what Jonathan Dancy calls atomism.
According to Dancy, Tom’s reasoning represents the position of atomism, the view that a moral reason that applies in one case will invariably carry the same validity in all similar cases. Atomism holds that reasons and judgements are not contextual and should be applied consistently in all situations. Dancy rejects this and instead suggests that moral reasoning should be done while considering the perspective of holism, the view that a moral judgement should emerge from a contextual, individualized assessment of all the relevant factors involved in a given case. In order to determine which moral reasons are more relevant to a particular case, Dancy offers the concept of valency. The valency of a moral reason denotes its overall relevance to the case being examined. Factors that are more relevant in a particular case are given a positive valency, and less relevant or irrelevant factors are given a negative valency. In different situations, the valency of a specific reason changes. The view that honesty is a virtue has high positive valency in the case of communicating with a friend or spouse. If there is a murderer at the door asking where he can find your friend, then the valency of honesty is extremely negative. Valency can be used to weigh moral reasons against one another in order to determine which moral reasons should be heeded and which should be cast aside when making a judgement in a specific case.
Returning to the case of Tom and Michael, the key relevant factors at play are: 1. the principle of keeping a friend’s secrets, and 2. that Michael has caused harm to someone and could cause harm to more people in the future. If a particularist were in Tom’s position, they would likely determine that Michael’s actions, and the danger he presents has a higher positive valency than the view that they should keep their friend’s secret. Based on this assessment, they would likely make a moral judgement to report Michael to the authorities.
Gerald Dworkin offers some useful discussions about the manner in which people morally reason which can be used as part of a larger particularist argument against principlism. Dworkin suggests that an absence of moral principles does not necessarily mean that individuals cannot arrive at good moral judgements. Dworkin provides commentary on points made by Hastings Rashdall against so-called philosophical intuitionism which bears a resemblance to modern particularism. Rashdall is skeptical of the view that moral principles are not required in moral reasoning. He claims that without the use of general moral principles, moral judgements could become arbitrary. Dworkin responds by questioning the assumption that a lack of principles necessitates arbitrary moral judgements. He doubts there is any reason to suggest that such decisions would be impulsive or otherwise arbitrary. He uses this argument – that there is a lack of evidence to draw strong conclusions – very liberally in this discussion. Rashdall asserts that in order to guide one’s moral decision-making process, there must be a principle or rules to serve as guides. After a moral judgement is reached, it should be clear post-hoc how that judgement was deduced. Dworkin again points out that this assertion is an assumption. He suggests that just because moral principles are used in justifications post-hoc, that does not necessarily mean those same principles were used in the process of reasoning. Rashdall’s next point is that in order for morality to be taught, moral principles are required. Dworkin responds by pointing out that effective learning is done through other means such as socialization and observation and believes those are feasible methods of moral education as well.
A key point Dworkin makes is that there is no empirical evidence to suggest that people use deductive reasoning at all when coming to moral judgements. He does not seek to offer any evidence of his own, but uses that fact to suggest that it is possible that there are other ways in which humans can make moral judgements. Dworkin offers some alternative models for moral reasoning that do not include the strict use of moral principles. He first discusses what he calls the model of prototypes. This method of reasoning includes comparing a typical example of a certain concept, object or category to a similar one in order to develop an understanding of a new instance based on a typical example. For instance, the prototype of a car has typical car-like features such as four wheels, an engine, a windscreen and so on. This prototypical car can then be used to make sense of something similar like a van or a truck as it can be understood as an extension of the concept of a car.
Prototypes can be used in the same way to morally reason. Instead of relying on deductive reasoning using principles, Dworkin suggests that prototypical examples of previous instances can be used to determine moral judgements in cases that bear a similar resemblance. For instance, a prototypical example of cheating might include features like a willful bending of the rules, gaining an unfair advantage, and the use of deception. Prototypes can contain judgement-based features such as unfair, or wrong. A prototype can then be used to reach a moral judgement on a specific case by relating it to the prototype. The prototype of cheating just devised can be used to understand a case where an individual searches through their teacher’s laptop to find answers to the test in order to pass without studying, or a case where an athlete used banned performance enhancing drugs before an upcoming game. Both of these cases exhibit a willful bending of the rules, gaining an unfair advantage, and the use of deception qualifying them for a negative moral judgement. This process completely circumvents moral principles. In addition to prototypes, Dworkin outlines several additional models of moral reasoning that do not require moral principles such as so-called paradigm case reasoning and analogical reasoning among others.
Principlism can be attacked on a more fundamental level by assessing Saul Kripke’s interpretation of Wittgenstein’s rule-following paradox and the impact it has on moral principles. The rule-following paradox can be described as a seemingly contradictory inability for rules to provide definitive instructions, despite the fact that giving instructions is their intended function. In order for a rule to be followed, it must first be interpreted. This presents the problem because there is no clear guidance on how to properly interpret a rule meaning multiple and even contradictory interpretations are always possible. An example to illustrate this could be a rule that states “use appropriate language” in the context of writing an essay. This rule can be logically interpreted to mean a number of different things. It could mean: use correct grammar, offensive language must not be used, use a formal academic tone, use the language that the person marking it speaks. By itself, the rule does not explicitly explain what to do.
Moral principles are affected in the same way. Without external factors providing context, the meaning of specific moral principles is not clear. Different people can logically interpret the same moral principle in vastly different ways. To illustrate this, consider the following examples of moral principles. In both of these examples, there are key terms which can be logically interpreted to have different meanings.
Example 1: All people should be treated with equality.
Interpretation A: Equality means that all people should be held by the same moral standard and abide by the same laws. Whenever somebody breaks the law, the same penalty should be imposed on them.
Interpretation B: Equality means that all people should enjoy equal opportunities and have access to equal government resources.
In the first example, equality has a negative meaning and is concerned with justice and punishment. In the second example it has a positive meaning and pertains to the welfare of disadvantaged people.
Example 2: One should do no harm.
Interpretation A: One should not cause direct harm to another person through their actions.
Interpretation B: One should not cause harm to another person in any way, including through their own actions, or indirectly.
In this example the scope of what harm includes changes. In the first example, it appears that causing indirect harm to others is permissible as it has not been explicitly forbidden.
The rule-following paradox highlights the inherit subjective element present in all moral principles. It shows how different factors such as context and personal interpretation can lead to inconsistent moral judgements. This questions the reliability of moral principles generally and potentially undermines principlism. Since moral principles are always subjectively interpreted and applied inconsistently, perhaps they should not be relied on as the primary means of moral reasoning.
Together, the views of Dancy and Kripke demonstrate that deductive reasoning using moral principles is not a consistently reliable method of reaching moral judgements. The views of Dancy demonstrate that what is a good moral reason in one case does not necessarily mean it will apply in other cases. Kripke’s interpretation of the rule-following paradox undermines the reliability of moral principles by showing that there is no objective guide on how to interpret them leading to inconsistent applications of them. Dancy’s concepts of holism and valency coupled with Dworkin’s various alternative methods for arriving at moral judgements without principles provides what could be a viable alternative to principlism.
These views contain good reasons to be critical of the reliability of deductive reasoning using moral principles, but they fail to provide a good reason for why particularism would be a suitable alternative. The problems these arguments present for principlism can be sufficiently addressed without discarding moral principles altogether.
Kripke’s interpretation of the rule-following paradox does not force the conclusion that moral principles should not be used. It can be appropriately interpreted as a serious warning to moral agents that moral principles on their own do not offer objective guidance, and effective interpretation is always required. It can caution moral agents to be aware of what factors are motivating their interpretations of principles, and whether those factors have the potential to negatively impact their interpretations. If a moral agent is making a genuine moral effort, an awareness of the rule-following paradox will sharpen their moral reasoning skills. In this view, the rule-following paradox can be seen as lending strength to principlism.
It is true that even the most careful deductive reasoning using appropriate moral principles sometimes leads to incorrect moral judgements, sometimes with devastating consequences. It is possible that if a particularist found themselves in the same moral conundrum, the flexibility of their reasoning might have allowed them to make the correct moral judgement and avoid the negative consequences. This does not automatically qualify particularism as it is possible for principlism to incorporate a similar degree of flexibility. In Brad Hooker’s critique of particularism, he discusses Rossian generalism, a view which can be considered a middle-ground between particularism and principlism. Rossian Generalism regards moral principles not as absolute dictums but looser obligations referred to as prima-facie duties. Prima-facie duties serve as guidelines that can be omitted when a moral agent believes they are inappropriate or insufficient for the situation at hand. Prima-facie duties can be weighed against each other and compared in the similar manner as reasons with differing valences can be compared in particularism. This allows for more flexibility than rigid principlism but with the safeguard of using moral principles as guidelines.
Many of the problems that both particularism and principlism present to moral agents are sidestepped by the Rossian generalist. For instance, the task of moral education can become difficult within the particularist framework. For a principlist, moral education comes in the form of teaching explicitly worded moral principles, the reasons why one should hold those principles, what the consequences are if they do not follow those principles and so on. Particularists do not have such a convenient way of communicating moral reasons. Particularist moral reasons are much more abstract and require effort to properly articulate. When teaching morality, a Rossian generalist can do so by articulating a moral principle with the aside that it is an optional guideline and not an absolute universal command.
A Rossian generalist is not tied down to any specific moral principle or reason in the same way that a rigid principlist such as a Kantian is. A Rossian generalist will always have options such as in the typical cliche moral conundrums which trap those that subscribe to common normative ethical views. If a murderer knocks on the door of a Rossian generalist’s house enquiring about the location of their friend, the Rossian generalist will have no qualms about lying. If the Rossian generalist finds themselves holding the lever in the unfortunate trolley problem scenario, normally, they would be ethically bound to cause no harm, but given that causing not harming one individual would consequently harm many, the Rossian generalist could cast aside the ‘do no harm’ principle in favor of the ‘the greatest good for greatest number of people’ principle based on the requirements of the situation at hand.
Hooker argues that a Rossian Generalist is more trustworthy than a particularist. This is because one can never know what reasons a particularist will honor when making a moral judgement. Particularists can be unpredictable, and this can cause problems when engaging them in sensitive relationships such as a business or romantic relationship. Rossian generalists have a degree of the same uncertainty as there is no guarantee that they will act according to specific moral principles. At the very least, moral principles play some role in their reasoning. This does not guarantee consistency, but it allows for more predictability than the particularist. This leads to a tentative conclusion that a society consisting of Rossian generalists would be more desirable than a society consisting of particularists. If trust is considered to be a primary desirable quality in a person, then it follows that a partial adherence to moral principles in Rossian generalism would provide a greater foundation for trusting interpersonal relationships than particularism.
Rossian generalism is generally able to achieve what particularism sets out to achieve, but since it uses moral principles instead of a series of individual case analyses, it does so with less effort on behalf of the moral agent. A pitfall of the Rossian generalist strategy is that by loosening moral principles to optional guidelines, the consistent guidance of clear moral principles is forfeited. This pitfall is also present in particularism.
After critically evaluating the particularist case against principlism, there appears to be insufficient reason to conclude that principlism ought to be replaced by particularism. The particularist arguments point out many problems inherent to the principlist strategy, but these problems can be adequately rectified without the need of being replaced by a fundamentally different system in particularism. Rossian generalism proves to be a viable middle ground between the flexibility of particularism and the simplicity and clarity of principlism. Particularism is a very clever and ambitious idea but it is simply not necessary.
References:
Jonathan Dancy, “Unprincipled Morality,” in Ethical Theory: An Anthology, ed. Russ Shafer-Landau (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2007), 772-775.
Jonathan Dancy, “Moral Particularism,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Winter 2017 Edition, ed. Edward N. Zalta, accessed September 1, 2024, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-particularism/.
Gerald Dworkin, “Unprincipled Ethics,” in Ethical Theory: An Anthology, ed. Russ Shafer-Landau (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2007), 786-794.
Andrew Hamilton, “Kripke’s Wittgenstein on Meaning,” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, accessed September 1, 2024, https://iep.utm.edu/kripkes-wittgenstein/.
Brad Hooker, “Moral Particularism: Wrong and Bad,” in Moral Particularism, edited by Brad Hooker and Margaret Olivia Little, 1-22. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
P. Vayrynen, B. Hooker, & M. Little (2002), “Moral Particularism,” The Philosophical Review, 111(3), 478-. https://doi.org/10.2307/3182563.