Moral judgments without rules or principles

   Some philosophers argue that moral rules and principles are always improperly applied; they should never be used to make a moral decision. For example, a rule claiming that we should keep promises seems too rigid given conflicting circumstances. The circumstances in making any moral judgment are complex, so ethical particularists argue that real situations, the particular cases we face, make the application of moral rules myopic. Any rule, because rigid, always misses relevant moral considerations. Consequently, rules should not be used in making moral decisions.
    Real circumstances have depth. Suppose a person fails to keep a promise to help a friend study logic because he or she needs to work for some extra money. Perhaps you react by saying either that the promise should be kept or that it was OK to break the promise. But real circumstances are always deeper. Suppose the friend needing help is socially insecure, or has been having difficulty dealing with a depressing situation, perhaps the death of a family member. What might appear to be a relatively unimportant matter now looks much more serious. On the other hand, the need for extra money may be very pressing. Without it, a tuition bill might not be paid, disrupting registration courses. Real situations involve people with particular backgrounds, needs, desires, ambitions, problems, advantages, disadvantages, and much more. Unless all of these are taken into account, even in what appears to be a simple moral choice, the wrong decision might be made. In short, simplistic rules, particularists claim, lead to poor moral judgments.   Top

Dancy’s argument

    Recently, the British philosopher Jonathan Dancy presents an interesting argument against the use of moral rules and principles in ethical decision making. He divides moral theories into three types, and in doing so conflates moral rules and moral principles: (1) theories using one principle, (2) theories based on many principles, and (3) theories without principles. After arguing that (1) and (2) are not proper ways to guide behavior, he concludes that particularism, the theory that rejects principles, is the correct basis for ethical judgment.
    Dancy first looks at theories with only one principle. For example, a theory may claim that we behave correctly provided we never harm anyone, including ourselves. This theory fails, like other single-principled theories, because by being overly abstract it misses too much that is morally important in making moral decisions. We take seriously many things in addition to harm: freedom, rights, justice, and even promises. Because it is abstract, a single principle will mask a potentially overwhelming number of morally relevant features in any moral decision.
    Dancy believes that one-principle theories are manifestly inadequate, so he does not launch an argument against such theories. We suspect he has in mind reasons like those offered in the preceding paragraph: using an abstract principle leads to conflict and indeterminacy (or an inability to make a moral judgment). Instead he turns his argument against any theory that incorporates many moral principles or rules as a way to deal with the complexity of moral decision-making. Now he argues that we face the problem of conflicting principles, one principle instructing us to do one thing while another tells us to do something else. For example, justice might tell us to force a poor person to pay a debt to a richer person, while compassion may advise the opposite. With many principles, we increase the probability of conflict in moral deliberation; faced with conflicting principles, we must attempt to determine which principle takes precedence. Conflict forces us to make decisions that are not rule-guided because we have to decide which rule has greater moral force in each case. This judgment is particularistic because it is not guided by rules or principles. The dilemma is clear: the more principles we have, the more likely we will face conflict among them. Since the potential number of morally relevant features of a case is enormous, we need many principles. Because it has many principles, the most adequate principled theory is also the most likely, due to more likely conflict among those principles , to demand special judgments in actual cases.
    Thus the use of one principle and the use of many are rejected. This leaves, by default, a theory without principles. Dancy concludes:

So the progress is from monism, the view that there is only one moral principle, through pluralism, the view that there are many, to particularism, the view that there are none.

Extreme particularism and salient features

    Dancy's particularism may be called extreme particularism because it does not allow principles any role at all in moral decision-making. But Dancy does make one concession: that some features in particular cases are more important than others; these are the salient features of a case.
    Dancy brings up the point about salience when he offers a case for consideration. So far his argument has been negatively oriented: he presents three choices and rejects two. This is risky argumentation because he may be missing other options. Also, we need to know that particularism is a workable theory because it might also be objectionable, leaving us a path from monism through pluralism and particularism to a rejection of morality (or to moral nihilism). To show that particularism is workable, Dancy compares moral decision making with another branch of value inquiry, aesthetics. We do judge things to be good works of art, or we judge them to be beautiful. Dancy believes that this is successfully done without principles, which means, if correct, that particularism is successful in aesthetic evaluation. In his view, in judging something beautiful -- say, a building -- we take into account salient features. These are the features of a work of art that typically lead a person to form a judgment about its beauty. Salient features are those that stand out when we carefully consider a case, such that they evoke a decision. In some moral decisions, the display of great courage may stand out, leading people to the judgment that, in the context, an act is good. It is not because we have a rule that requires courage, but because in this case courage stands out, guides our attention, and evokes the contextual judgment.
    We make ethical judgments, Dancy argues, by giving special attention to morally salient features: people's interests, harm done, expectations, virtues, and so on. We don't use them as principles; instead we pay special attention to them, so that they are not overlooked and so that they may evoke a judgment. Even though the use of salient features is different from the use of rules, this avowal of salience does move him a step away from an extreme particularism.   Top

Moral intuitionism

    Typically, people believe that principles and rules help us make moral decisions, but if the particularist is correct, how can we make ethical decision without using principles or rules? One answer is that we use intuitions. Intuitionism is the doctrine that our best knowledge comes by direct awareness. We may not reason that a symphony is beautiful; instead we directly experience its beauty. After we are directed to listen to its salient sounds, we immediately know that they are beautiful, just as we know that the color of the wall is green after looking at it carefully and under proper lighting. Particularism is typically a form of moral intuitionism. We don't need to reason that a brutal beating is morally wrong, or that taking unfair advantage of a child is morally wrong, or that ethnic cleansing is horribly immoral.    Top

Moral holism

    Particularists are often holists as well. Holists believe that the whole is more than the sum of its parts and that we can only adequately comprehend a situation when we see it as a whole. We cannot know whether a building is beautiful unless we view it in relation to all its surroundings. We cannot know whether an action is right or wrong unless we view it in relation to its time and place, to other actions before and after, to the individuals involved, and so on. But a particularist does not need to be a holist; he or she may conclude that judgments may be made in relation to parts without attending to the whole. The particularist's unique claim is that principles are not validly used in making ethical decisions.   Top