Abstract

Cogent moral arguments often have nothing to do with moral principles. Such arguments can be strictly analogical, moving from particular to particular directly; it is a misconception to suppose that they are merely a disguised form of reasoning from a rule. Philosophers have nevertheless emphasized reasoning from rules, and though such reasoning is often perfectly sound, it is easily overdone. Today's philosophers are typically so fond of invoking principles--principles that have lately grown so rarefied and ungainly as to force a smile from the young and a blush from the fair--that the principles themselves are often no less controversial than the points they are invoked to justify. The absurdity of which is then obvious. If you dispute the point at issue, you will also dispute the principle; but no one is rationally persuaded by giving for a reason something he disputes. ;This thesis tries to capture a few of those absurdities, and to guess at how philosophers could have supposed that rules were a necessity of moral argument in the first place