This is philosophy bytes with me, David.
Edmonds, and me, Nigel Warburton.
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That sounds like a moral principle.
More typical examples of moral principles are do not murder, always keep promises.
But Jonathan Dancy doesn't believe in moral principles.
He's well known for advocating what's called moral particularism.
When we have to decide how to act in a particular situation, there are no moral rules.
Instead, we should be alive to the situation's relevant moral features.
Jonathan Dancy, welcome to philosophy Bites.
It's nice to be here.
I hope the topic we're going to talk about is moral particularism.
I expect quite a few people listening to this will never have heard that term.
Could you just give us a clue what that is?
Well, most people think about right and wrong in a certain sort of way, which involves the idea.
At the bottom of it all are moral principles, principles of the right and principles of the wrong.
We are familiar with principles of these sorts.
It's wrong to kill, it's wrong to steal, it's right to help others, and so on.