By Michael Mulnix
Philosophy Department

One commonly held belief in the study of ethics takes moral claims to be somehow dependent upon social and individual circumstance, wherein the moral status of an action is a function of the environment in which it is carried out. The position of ‘moral particularism,’ however, uses this commonsense belief to argue for the further claim that each moral situation is importantly unique from all other moral contexts, and hence, any attempt to discover general moral rules is futile. The particularist argues that the reason we cannot develop such rules is that general principles, just by their very nature, achieve their generality by ignoring differences in context. Thus, rather than trying to develop general principles which would count as good reasons for action, the particularist claims that what counts as a good reason to act will always be completely dependent upon the particular context of that action. Moreover, reasons that motivate us to act in one context might very well count against acting in another (or, may even be irrelevant). Moral Particularism, then, is often motivated by the belief that no two contexts are similar enough to warrant the use of general moral rules.

In one sense, I am sympathetic to this view. For, if the belief that moral claims are in some way dependent upon social and individual circumstance is correct, then we should question whether we can develop general moral principles that can be applied across variable ethical domains. In fact, it appears to be commonsense that different contexts of actions should be mirrored by similar differences in our moral judgments, such that the rightness of an action does seem to be a function of the environment of the act. Nonetheless, moral particularism’s stronger claim that the uniqueness of moral contexts immediately implies that we cannot develop any general moral principles that justify our conduct seems highly suspect. Rather, I think that there are some basic general moral principles that apply across variable domains of behavior, but which are, nevertheless, formulated in such a way as to be highly sensitive to morally salient differences in context.

To explain, it seems obvious that accurate moral judgments are, at the very least, universalizable in the following sense: it would seem odd to claim that agent A should perform action X in situation S, while at the same time, agent B should not perform action X in a situation that is similar in all morally relevant respects to situation S. This is often called the Principle of Universalizability. Of course, there is no consensus on exactly what it means for two situations to be ‘similar in all morally relevant respects’. Interestingly, even a particularist can adhere to the Principle of Universalizability, since, as it turns out, there never are two situations that are similar in all morally relevant respects. As such, the particularist claims that we are not able to generalize our moral judgments across discrete contexts. Nonetheless, most would think that logical consistency minimally requires that whatever judgments I make about what I should do in a given situation are such that they imply that others who are similarly situated should likewise perform that action. Hence, the particularist’s claim that there are never two situations similar in all morally relevant respects also seems suspect.

Perhaps, the particularist is conflating what actually appear to be two separate claims. That is, there is a difference between claiming that there are no general moral principles to which we can appeal in determining whether a given moral judgment accurately describes the world on the one hand, and that whatever general principles we develop must be formulated so as to take into account differences of context, on the other. In other words, arguing that there are general moral principles that apply universally is not the same as arguing that there are some types of actions that are always right or always morally forbidden.

In fact, there are many examples of ‘objectivist’ moral views which argue for universal general moral principles that apply regardless of context, but which are not also absolutist. That is, while these views maintain that there are objective general moral principles, they do not claim that certain kinds of actions are always intrinsically right or wrong. J.S. Mill’s Utilitarian moral thought serves as a nice example. According to utilitarianism, one general and universal moral principle (sometimes called the Greatest Happiness Principle) governs the moral status of our actions. According to this principle, an action is right insofar as it yields the greatest net balance of happiness compared to alternative courses of action. Thus, whether an action is right or wrong is a function of the consequences that follow from that action.¹ What this means, then, is that when I am attempting to determine whether or not I should break a promise or lie to someone, I cannot rely on simple moral rules to determine what to do. Instead, I have to carefully deliberate about the action, considering whether if I lie or break a promise on this occasion, it would lead to a set of good or bad consequences. Moreover, even if on this occasion I decide it is morally permissible to lie, this does not mean that I can automatically conclude the same will apply tomorrow. That is, when considering whether to lie again tomorrow, I cannot immediately infer that it is acceptable simply on the basis that it was yesterday. After all, telling a lie today and telling a lie tomorrow might very well have different consequences, since they are performed under different contexts – most likely concerning different content and people. Still, this does not preclude my ability to appeal to one general moral principle to justify my action. Indeed, the Greatest Happiness Principle applies to all situations, despite the fact that it will yield different answers on different occasions. In this way, Mill’s moral theory is at one and the same time sensitive to unique and diverse contexts of action and adherent to a general moral principle that defines actions as right or wrong regardless of context.

Other objectivist moral views also achieve this end. Ethical Egoism is the view that an action is right insofar as it yields the best consequences for the agent of the act, and not society in general. It allows the same sensitivity to context (for the same reason that it takes consequences to be constitutive of right conduct). But, even the Virtue Ethics of Aristotle that adheres to the Principle of the Golden Mean seems capable of taking into account such differences as cultural and social norms, agent-relative values, and differences in context.² The key is that such moral theories situate these concerns against the wider background of a universal moral principle, one which is also commensurate with the claim that every moral context is importantly unique. What this shows, then, is that the desire to make ethics sensitive to differences in context does not entail a form of moral particularism. Further, it seems more amenable to reason and commonsense to think, instead, that morality does appeal to general moral claims, but that these moral principles ought to be formulated in such a way as to deal with diverse situations. Hence, to argue for his position, the particularist will have to do far more then catalog the sharp differences that make for unique contexts.

In claiming that no two situations are relevantly similar, the particularist must also deny that there are identifiable good reasons for behaving in a certain way in a given context. That is, if there are good reasons for a person to behave in certain way, then these reasons would have to describe some feature of that conduct that disambiguates good from bad reasons for acting – a feature that should be capable of generalization. There must be some determining factor – a second-order reason – that we use to sort good from bad reasons for action within a given context. Particularism, on the other hand, denies that any such moral feature capable of generalization exists. Yet, if such a moral feature does not exist – if moral reasons to act in Context X are always different from the moral reasons to act in Context Y – then it seems that there is a real sense in which the particularist denies moral rationality. In other words, if features of our conduct can count as reasons to act in one context but not in another, and if we are unable to explain this away by appealing to some second-order reason that reveals and explains the moral differences between the two contexts, then there really is never any good reason to do one thing rather than another.

Objectivist moral views have one major advantage over particularism: they preserve the commonsense idea that morality is ‘normative’. That is, moral views are used to make judgments about our moral obligations to ourselves and others. After all, if the fundamental questions of ethics concern how we ought to act, we need a set of principles to which we can appeal to serve as guides of our conduct. And, from my perspective, particularism fails to capture this normative element since, on this view, there are no general principles upon which I can rely when deciding what I should do in a given situation. Thus, on the particularist view, morality loses its action guiding character and, hence, we cannot rely on morality to help us decide how we should behave. Yet, this seems to undermine the very notion of morality altogether. Hence, when we combine the insight that particularism fails to capture normativity with the earlier insight that it also rejects moral rationality, we now have a clear reductio argument against the view. That is, particularism seems to entail some absurd implications, and as such, does not constitute a philosophically satisfying account of the nature of morality.

1To be sure, this is a very crude summary of the utilitarian perspective. Nonetheless, it can at least serve my purpose here, which is to indicate that there are ways of formulating general moral principles that can account for context.

2The Principle of the Golden Mean compels us to act virtuously and in such a way as to avoid the vices of excess and deficiency. Yet, what it means to behave in an excessive or deficient manner is highly dependent on context.

This article is part of ASpect’s November 2008 issue, Teaching the Big Issues.