Moral Principles are Not Moral Laws

Abstract

What are moral principles? The assumption underlying much of the generalism–particularism debate in ethics is that they are (or would be) moral laws: generalizations or some special class thereof, such as explanatory or counterfactual-supporting generalizations. Iargue that this law conception of moral principles is mistaken. For moral principles do at least three things that moral laws cannot do, at least not in their own right: explain certain phenomena, provide particular kinds of support for counterfactuals, and ground moral necessities, “necessary connections” between obligating reasons and obligations. Moreover, neither a best-systems theory of moral principles nor any of the competing theories of moral principles proposed by Sean McKeever and Michael Ridge, Pekka Väyrynen, and Mark Lance and Margaret Little could vindicate the law conception of moral principles. I conclude with some brief remarks about what moral principles might be if they are not moral laws.

Prinsip moralitas merek dalam undang-undang nomor 20 tahun 2016 tentang Merek dan Indikasi Geografis

“…One thing that moral principles do is explain the phenomena "falling within their scope," which scope at least includes the instances of the laws they guarantee.A second thing that moral principles do is support counterfactuals, or counterfactual conditionals.A third thing that moral principles do is ground, "necessary connections" between right and wrong-making circumstances (events, states of affairs, etc.)" (Robinson, 2008). Terjemah bebas, Prinsip-prinsip moral melakukan setidaknya tiga hal yang tidak dapat dilakukan oleh keteraturan biasa dan, karenanya, generalisasi yang menggambarkan keteraturan tidak bisa dilakukan juga.…”

Reasons and Moral Principles

“…20 See e.g. Lance and Little (2007), Robinson (2008;Väyrynen (2009b). 21 One hard case for this characterization are views like analytic utilitarianism, according to which the property of being morally right is identical to the property of maximizing aggregate utility because the predicates is morally right and maximizes aggregate utility are analytically equivalent.…”

“…37 Some recent contributions include Robinson (2008;), Väyrynen (2009b), and Leibowitz (2011. 38 Dancy (2000) In any of these forms, holist generalism will endorse more complicated principles than generalists have traditionally endorsed.…”

A utilitarian account of political obligation

“…39 In this sketch of the distinction I am not concerned with the metaphysical question concerning what moral principles are (e.g., moral laws, rules, relations between universals, dispositions, etc.). See, e.g., Robinson 2008Robinson & 2011. My interest with moral principles is in distinguishing between different types of moral principles (derivative and non-derivative) and using this distinction to classify theories of political obligation.…”