In this paper, I try to offer a full-fledged defence of principle-based ethics against moral particularism. My discussions not only refute particularists’ allegations against moral generalism but also provide a positive rationale for a principle-based approach in ethics. By borrowing insights from Brandom’s and Peregrin’s normative pragmatism, I describe the fundamental roles of moral principles. In my view, moral principles constitute morality, and they can function as default reasons in our moral deliberations. Moreover, I argue that my principle-based conception of ethics has advantages over particularism since it explains the phenomenological experience and covers basic intuitions in the moral domain that particularists have difficulty explaining.
The aim of the study is to explain the place of communities in contemporary pluralistic democratic societies. The shared values of particular communities by which they are primarily defined, may perceive an integrating process and universalistic requirements of bigger entities as a certain threat. In the study, the author deals with the nation as a community, whereby a national identity is supposed to be understood as one of the key values of the community. From this point of view, the author reflects on the issue of European identity justifying its importance based on the demands of universalism and particularism.
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