Particularism and moral judgments                                                                      

    Extreme particularists claim that moral judgments should not be based on moral rules or moral principles.   But extreme particularism offers little advice about how a proper moral judgment should be made. Can particularism be amended to provide better moral guidance? Perhaps the best way to do this is to consider the conditions conducive to making good decisions and also the qualities necessary in a good decision-maker. The hope is that with standards to evaluate a decision-maker and his or her circumstances, we can determine whether a moral decision is properly made.     Top                                             

Rawls’ competent judge                                                                                   

   We often place requirements on judgment-makers. We expect a teacher grading philosophy papers to be knowledgeable and trained in philosophy, and a ballet critic to be informed about ballet. Are there standards for a good ethical judge? In a seminal paper written in the 1950s the influential American philosopher John Rawls proposes standards that may be used to evaluate the moral judge and also to determine whether a judgment-maker is making decisions under the appropriate conditions. An acceptable judge, called a competent judge, is of at least normal intelligence; has adequate knowledge to be normally aware of the likely consequences of actions; is able to find reasons for and against a possible judgment; considers questions with an open mind; takes into account his or her prejudices; and has a sympathetic awareness of both sides of a case. We expect someone who makes sound judgments to have these traits, but we have increased confidence in a decision of a competent judge when: the judge is immune from the consequences of the judgment, including personal gain or loss; the judgment results from careful inquiry into an actual case of conflict; the judge feels certain about the judgment; and other competent judges have made similar judgments in similar cases.
    If all of these standards are met, Rawls maintains that we can have a high level of confidence that a judgment is good, and if any of these standards are violated, we have good reason to question a judgment. Rawls' standards are commonly applied in many areas of inquiry. For example, when a judgment maker in medicine is not immune from the consequences of his or her judgments, we have some reason to question the judgment.
    Although Rawls' standards contain much wisdom, even when applied to areas outside ethics, we may certainly question each. We may wonder how one moral judge can really be sympathetic to all sides of an issue, and how such a judge is going to eliminate bias. Bias is often hidden from a person's full awareness. We tend to rationalize bias -- that is, people try to find good reasons for even blatant biases. We need to have some form of control over bias so that determining whether a bias is present is not left in the hands of a particular judge. Traditionally, rules and principles have been used to limit the extent to which personal interest and bias enter into judgment making. We all know about bias against people with different backgrounds, but bias may also be subtle, for example, the respect we give to a well-dressed person. Even this relatively insignificant bias may lead to improper moral judgments.   Top

The consistency requirement

    Rawls' view is a form of particularism because it does not permit the use of rules or principles when basic judgments are made. However, he is not an extreme particularist because he advocates general requirements that function as higher-level rules -- rules about the judgment maker -- to regulate moral decision-making. But Rawls goes one step further by requiring consistency across judgment-makers. He says:

It is required that the judgment be stable, that is, that there be evidence that at other times and at other places competent judges have rendered the same judgment on similar cases, understanding similar cases to be those in which the relevant facts and the competing interests are similar.

    This is Rawls' second abridgment of particularism. Not only does he put demands on the judgment maker, but he insists that judgments meet an important moral consideration: similar cases must be decided similarly, even when the judgment is made by other judges. Where similar cases are not decided similarly, we have reason to question those judgments. Moral experience includes the frequent demand for a sort of moral equality. If a teacher decides on a grade for one person, similar work should receive a similar grade when done by another person. If males and females, blacks and whites have grades established differently, we suspect that the teacher's judgment is faulty. The same holds for moral judgments. Rawls requires that similar cases be decided similarly no matter who does the judging. This helps to limit bias and self-interest. One way to require that self-interest and bias are absent from a judgment is to demand that moral decisions be universalizable: when cases are similar, no matter who is involved, the cases should be similarly decided.     Top

Generalizing good judgments: developing moral principles

    Rawls' position contains two main parts. In the first part, he proposes the development of a set of judgments meeting all the requirements listed above. The other part builds a set of general standards or rules that are induced from, or generalized versions of, the judgments of competent judges. Using these rules, you and I can make proper judgments whether or not we are competent judges. Rawls says little about these general rules and instead concentrates on basic judgments formed without the use of rules or principles.
    Rawls gives the judgments of competent judges a special status because they are used to generate moral rules or principles. At least initially, he does not rely upon principles to explain competently formed judgments. Under Rawls' view, once we have the principles (based on competent judgments), we check to see whether other good judgments fit the principles. Principles are derived from judgments, but once in place, contrary to extreme particularism, principles may be used to make moral judgments. To view Rawls' position as a moderate form of particularism, we should keep in mind that the judgments of competent judges do not follow from principles, but are used to support principles. The judgments of competent judges may be though of as "moral facts" not reducible to any formula, even to the known psychological disposition of the judges. We simply do not know how such judgments are made. What we do know, according to Rawls, is that the judgments of competent judges should command our respect.    Top

Evaluating Rawls’ approach

    The judgments of competent judges seem to play a role much like facts or observations in science. Of course, we don't respect all observation statements in science. Our scientific theories are well advanced, and observation claims must meet many tests before we accept them as scientifically interesting. Likewise, we expect that the judgments made by competent judges will be scrutinized carefully before they are given much status. Contrary to what Rawls claims, we are likely to use moral principles and rules in that scrutiny, just as a scientist uses theories and laws to judge whether to take an observation seriously. Rawls' reliance on a basic set of judgments fails to understand or take seriously enough the give and take of theory and judgment. But still, in science and in ethics, some judgments do seem to be unexplained by known theory and yet they are acceptable. We may determine that a judgment is better than our principles, and reform not the judgment but the principles. If a principle is basic, like the principle against harming, we are most unlikely to reject the principle out of hand; so in the face of a solid, reforming judgment, reinterpreting rather than rejecting the principle is more likely. The reforming role given to moral judgments is strengthened by Rawls' analysis because his standards help to determine how much status we should give particular judgments; for example, those that are made in relation to self-interested considerations, other things being equal, should be given less weight than those that are based in disinterested considerations.    Top