Particularism

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

Suppose a person who believes in "moral principles" is someone who believes that, "I have an obligation to do X under these circumstances," is only true if, "Everyone has an obligation to do X under these circumstances," is true. The generalist believes in a general obligation, then. However, one British guy (I think), a Prichard or something, said obligations were not predicates of actions themselves but of agents. So on this view, moral reasoning would not be knowing what everyone ought to do, and then applying this everyone-spanning knowledge to yourself or some other specific person. "I have an obligation to do X under these circumstances," might be true depending on various non-moral particular facts, supervening on the sequence of these facts perhaps; so a particularist can say that generalized discursion has a role in moral reasoning. But it is the particularly moral quality of knowing I am obligated to do something, that is seized upon here in a more primordial way, so that the addition of moral information to a pre-moral description does not result from deductive logic, or not logic alone at least by any means.

Now I'm sympathetic to the idea of general as well as particular obligations. Given the gradation of theory from specific details to overarching structures, I feel there would be a place for both dimensions of obligation. But then I doubt the opposition between generality and particularity.

[Avatar]

There are no inherent obligations, only accepted ones.

--A

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

If that were true, it could be the cause of particularism. If only acceptance establishes obligation, then unless we could show that everyone in particular did in fact accept something relevantly, we could not speak of a universal obligation as such. And even if we figured out a universal obligation, we would learn no new moral facts, so to speak--we would not be able to derive our particular duty from the general one, since we would only have the general one given to us after surveying the universe of particularity.

Another option, though, is to suppose that being a person, or someone with the ability to make choices, or free will, or whatever, means to implicitly accept certain standards or principles or whatever. Not in the sense that we can opt for non-acceptance, though; we already exist and accept these things, consequent on our existence. Then, everyone would in fact universally, if implicitly and therefore very subconsciously, agree to some perhaps abstract or esoteric prescription and justification of something. So everyone would, from their general nature even, give themselves to an obligation of some kind. So where would that leave particularism?

[Avatar]

I don't think we implicitly accept certain standards. We may be inculcated with them, but that is not the same thing. The "social contract" imposes an expectation on you, but there is no obligation to meet it, although there may be consequences for not doing so.

--A

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

I think it would be extremely hard to show that being a human, or sentient, or rational, or whatever, means accepting a given principle, or obligation, or whatever. However, I did end up thinking, "I am under a general obligation to place myself under a particular obligation, although the content of the particular will depend on my choices," to be true from my nature as a being with the power of action and choice, in the sense that using my free will at all, in general/the abstract, meant implicitly (in Locke's phrase, tacitly) accepting the responsibility of that will, which is obligation in general. Accordingly, all my obligations, in day to day life, are based on some form of explicit acceptance, and the only non-day to day obligation has no direct content. (At least as concerns this level of inquiry.)

[Vraith]

I don't think we implicitly accept certain standards. We may be inculcated with them, but that is not the same thing. The "social contract" imposes an expectation on you, but there is no obligation to meet it, although there may be consequences for not doing so.

--A

Yea, imposition of expectations and consequences.
Of course, not all of them are "bad." Though I think we have far too many of them.

But I think we do have a explicit-generic [I know that seems contradictory, but it isn't.] standards. And much evolves from that, explicitly and implicitly.
The vast middle sets up the field---then other influences alter/channel it.

Take killing. One extreme kind of person is OK with it. They aren't all psychopaths/warped minds who enjoy killing, either---but their default is a shrug.
The other extreme is people who just can't abide killing, at all, ever.
The vast middle---most people have an explicit-generic dislike of killing people...most are even a bit disgusted by killing animals, if they have to do it themselves.
I know it is popular/common to say "people are three meals away from barbarism" or whatever.
But that appears to be false. Barbarism happens---but what is more surprising is how often it DOESN't happen. Large swaths of the population have to be trained and prepared to enact barbarism.

It's not all inculcation---and a serious mass of the inculcation is to teach us to act in ways that we have an explicit-generic standard against.

Mig--I'd agree that there isn't an opposition, exactly, between the general and particular. But there is distinction and dissonance. Partly just the ordinary gap between abstract and material. Also, generals will always suffer from incompleteness and/or arbitrariness. And last because nearly all particulars are not wholly contained within on structure. Take killing above---an act of killing, at least those between potential agents, can almost never be judged solely from/on a moral perspective/basis.
OTOH, the same instance is almost never free of/isolated from moral context/structures

[Orlion]

Interesting stuff! I wonder though if this could answer the "objective vs subjective" morality framework. It could be that what would seem "subjective" to us is actually an "objective particular". An interesting ponderance...

Like you, I believe there would be a mix of general and particular morals, with the particular ones appearing to be more frequent. In this case, Avatar's "We only have obligations that we accept" could be corrected to "We only accept obligations that are particular to us". We might also be able to deduce (hope I'm using that right!) the existence of a general obligation: it is morally forbidden to impose a particular obligation on someone who does not possess the "particularity" of that obligation.

For example, an asthmatic would be acting immorally if he obliged those without asthma to use an inhaler. The obligation of the inhaler is particular to those with asthma and would not apply to those without asthma.

[Linna Heartbooger]

Well, I wanna stir up the pot a bit...

We've got SRD-reader peoples here...
What if humans have an obligation to redeem their failures?
The main protagonist in those books was all like "the only way to get out of this is to destroy myself."

And what if God's sovereignty is like ...super-powerful?
...like even more extreme than SRD's visionary "authorial sovereignty" which he wreaks upon fictional characters?

To be concrete, suppose I flip out at and speak harshly to someone I barely know.
Or foolishly to someone I know well.
(These are sins we do every day.)
What if I create a need in myself for God's grace?

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

@Linna, I directly agree that it is a basic "rule", that, "If I do something wrong, I have an obligation to do something to make amends for it," is true. Concepts like forgiveness and punishment and the like, seem just as basic as happiness, so that the utilitarian (say) who tries to organize moral judgment around the concept of happiness, does so in a way that automatically fails to account for the substance of guilt.

Now, on some other level, the list goes:

• 1. The general obligation (to place myself under particular obligation).
  2. The construction procedures for placing myself under particular obligation (following these procedures is "good", even morally, or "right" or "obligated" or at least permitted--we might recast (1) as, "I am permitted to permit something in particular").
  3. Obligations/permissions (positive moral conditions, that is), as such constructed.
  4. Deontic logic. For example, suppose we begin moral reasoning from an image of goodness, and then, from the conceptual opposition between good and evil, infer what is evil from that image by mirroring it. An obligation from (3) will then give rise to further obligations, permissions, etc.
  5. The problem (if this list is the list of problems on the Test) of amendment, i.e. non-ideal theory (as Rawls called it), to wit the morally reasonable reply to actions that are themselves morally unreasonable.
  6. Inferences from (4) and (5) conjoint, along with further constructions from (2)-(3).

[Vraith]

We might also be able to deduce (hope I'm using that right!) the existence of a general obligation: it is morally forbidden to impose a particular obligation on someone who does not possess the "particularity" of that obligation.

Huh...maybe...kinda? Or not...I'm gonna think a bit here---
There is an immediate question/problem to deal with---can we, as a matter of fact, impose any obligations on anyone at all? Or can we only impose consequences?
Particular people can accept the obligation,...because they agree with it. Or they can merely choose to obey it...either because they dislike the consequences of disobeying, or they see some advantage to accepting it despite disagreement with the truth/necessity of the rule.
There is, I think, obligation other than chosen acceptance.
Created-entailed obligation.
It's particular/individual...but can, I think, allow deduction of some general statements/rules.
It might be stated as "One ought to/is obligated to keep one's word."
There is a lot of moral and ethical and legal material on this.
But BESIDES that, materially underpinning those is a hard fact.
Giving ones word IS the creation of an obligation.
When one promises, one doesn't accept the obligation, one makes the obligation.
It's about as objective as can be achieved. Denying/not accepting the obligation is logically and materially incoherent.

Oh, sweet, just noticed Linna's pot-stirring, and it might connect to this...expanded.
Given what I just said about creating obligations---are there OTHER acts/actions that do so?
And how? Where? When? Am I obligated to redeem my failures, even if they come about despite my intentions/promises?
And what about my successes? Because, as far as I can tell, no outcome, ever, is pure. TC may have saved all of that universe. But he is still a rapist.
Linden may have learned love and helped renew/rebuild the world...she still woke the Worm and caused the slaughter of millions. [I think it said millions didn't survive in the epilogue].
[[[I personally don't believe in redemption. Of any kind...but the obligation may exist even if all things are irredeemable.
Damn. The obligation might exist BECAUSE all things are irredeemable.]]]

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

If we say that an obligation to redeem ourselves exists because of our sins but also because we are unable to ultimately make amends, we might be given a picture of an obligation that we are always supposed to approximately fulfill as best we can day to day, with the sum total of our days, from the POV of the one Day of eternity, resembling the perfection of redemption that is locally impossible.

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

@Vraith, too, though:

Another construction procedure is the act of permitting, as something we do. It is easy in deontic logic to show that a set of permissions is itself an obligation. That is, PA ^ PB ^ PC = O(A v B v C). For we are permitted to do only what we are permitted to do, so we are prohibited from doing what we are not permitted to do, and a prohibition is an obligation with the negation operator added in to it. So, we are permitted to do only A or B or C, but this is the same as saying that we are obligated to do at least one of them. So, if we permit various things in a certain order, we can construct a relevant obligation.

Others include forgiving and certain acts of imagination (Rawls' original-position argument being a perhaps imperfect representation of this process). I think that various emotional things heavily affect(!) all of this, too. Like the nature of romantic love is a problem that moral philosophers have to seriously and fundamentally contend with in exploration the motives of morality. It may be that volitional elements in the feeling of romantic love conspire, from the heart, with the mind, to construct special duties or permissions or rights or whatever, in relation to those we love. If those terms sound too clinical, it might be more that we construct a special grace in relation to the beloved, or a special value or necessity or importance or trust. But whatever deontic or normative or whatever trait that attaches to this or that here or there, will attach by us attaching it, using something in our will.

[Avatar]

Or can we only impose consequences?

Only consequences.

--A

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

Interesting stuff! I wonder though if this could answer the "objective vs subjective" morality framework. It could be that what would seem "subjective" to us is actually an "objective particular". An interesting ponderance...

Probably, or maybe rather, it would have to be part of the answer, since the only way to answer this type of question is to find as comprehensive a reconciliation of concepts as possible. (Evidence for a scientific theory, you might say, comes from experiments and observations thereon, tempered by mathematical reflection; but a philosophical "theory" is "closer to truth" if it has more depth to it than rivals, if it links more concepts, etc.)

Like you, I believe there would be a mix of general and particular morals, with the particular ones appearing to be more frequent. In this case, Avatar's "We only have obligations that we accept" could be corrected to "We only accept obligations that are particular to us". We might also be able to deduce (hope I'm using that right!) the existence of a general obligation: it is morally forbidden to impose a particular obligation on someone who does not possess the "particularity" of that obligation.

This would, in fact, be a nice, sort of Kantian move in the game of ethical concepts. I have no objection to the proposal at all and really, I'm wondering why I didn't see this already?

[Mighara Sovmadhi]

Or can we only impose consequences?

Only consequences.

--A

I wonder, though, if the "consequence" of a person's action is really a threatened punishment, then is it really a consequence? For let us suppose a murderer murdered someone. This murder does not directly cause the execution of the murderer. Being executed is not a physical consequence of the crime. In fact, unless the murder is outed and the killer apprehended in turn, there will be no place for an execution, and so there will be no executive(?!) consequence to the crime. But also, even if the killer is jailed, it will be the choice of the authorities to kill this person in turn. The killer does not cause his or her executioners to kill the killer. So ultimately, the punishment imposed on the killer is not an actual consequence of the killing, and thus no one can impose consequences as such: the effects of the killing and all other crimes will simply be whatever physical motions are set in motion by the movements required to conduct the killing.

We might deny, "The killer does not cause his or her..." on the ground of social causality: if society supervenes on physical reality (if people are just physical, artificially intelligent machines, if you will), then physical facts can set in motion chains of causes and effects with a social subset. So the killing, perceived by the authorities, triggers various chemical reactions in the authorities' brains, reactions that determine the authorities' behavior, until should they apprehend the killer, they are being caused to try to kill the killer, and they are in turn caused to fulfill their goal when the killer is under their control.

[Vraith]

Or can we only impose consequences?

Only consequences.

--A

I wonder, though, if the "consequence" of a person's action is really a threatened punishment, then is it really a consequence?

Yes...even if other factors intervene to make it not an inevitable consequence, there is a known initial environment, a social/legal architecture, an act that sets it in motion/brings the structure/system to bear, and a knowable [even if not guaranteed] outcome, all in a causal chain.
The multiplicity of other possible paths, intervening ifs/thens, array of other potential or actual consequences doesn't negate the one that proceeds prohibition>act>punishment.

[Avatar]

Agree with Vraith.

--A