Particular Reasons

Particular Reasons

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Particular Reasons

dc.contributor.author	Berker, A. Selim
dc.date.accessioned	2009-03-14T17:15:52Z
dc.date.issued	2007
dc.identifier.citation	Berker, Selim. 2007. Particular Reasons. Ethics 118(1): 109-139.	en
dc.identifier.issn	0014-1704	en
dc.identifier.uri	http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:2664288
dc.description.abstract	Moral particularists argue that because reasons for action are irreducibly context-dependent, the traditional quest in ethics for true and exceptionless moral principles is hopelessly misguided. In making this claim, particularists assume a general framework according to which reasons are the ground floor normative units undergirding all other normative properties and relations. They then argue that there is no cashing out in finite terms either (i) when a given non-normative feature gives rise to a reason for or against action, or (ii) how the reasons that are present in a given context play off each other to determine one's overall duties. However, the conjunction of these two theses leaves particularists without a coherent notion of a reason for action: posit too much irreducible context-dependence in the behavior of reasons, and the reasons-based framework breaks down. One upshot is that the particularists' challenge to principle-based approaches to ethics has not, at present, been successfully made out; another upshot is that perhaps the best way to formulate that challenge involves renouncing the reasons-based framework all together.
dc.description.sponsorship	Philosophy	en
dc.language.iso	en_US	en
dc.publisher	University of Chicago Press	en
dc.relation.isversionof	http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/521586	en
dash.license	LAA
dc.title	Particular Reasons	en
dc.relation.journal	Ethics	en
dash.depositing.author	Berker, A. Selim