Public Policy & Administration Masters Theses Collection

A defense of a particularist research program

Leibowitz, Uri D — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 17:00:32 PDT

Particularism is one of the most interesting and controversial doctrines in moral philosophy today. Yet despite the considerable attention it has received in recent years, there is still extensive disagreement about its precise content, and whether it is a viable alternative to traditional moral theories. In this dissertation I develop, motivate, and defend a novel formulation of particularism. ^ In Chapter One, I present my formulation of particularism. I claim that particularism is not a single thesis but a research program. Research programs are collections of theories and methodological rules that can be characterized by their "hard core"—the set of commitments that cannot be abandoned without abandoning the research program altogether. The particularism-generalism debate, I suggest, is a debate over which research program we ought to pursue. Generalism is a research program characterized by the core hypothesis that in order to explain morality, and especially the rightness and wrongness of actions, we must appeal to exceptionless moral principles. Particularism is an alternative research program characterized by the core hypothesis that morality—including the rightness and wrongness of actions—can be explained without appealing to exceptionless principles. I go on to show that my formulation is not vulnerable to the most common objections to particularism.^ Chapter Two argues that particularist accounts of morality have a certain advantage over many of their more conventional competitors. Consider the following moral advice: (RD) Perform action A only if after reflecting on and deliberating about the normative status of A, you do not believe that A is morally wrong. I argue that if (RD) is good moral advice, then we should be able to explain how it is that the features that one considers while reflecting on and deliberating about the normative status of actions reliably track the real right-making features of actions. I claim that generalists cannot explain this fact, whereas particularists can. Finally, I submit that there is strong intuitive support for the claim that (RD) is good moral advice, and consequently, that we have reason to favor particularist accounts of morality over generalist accounts. ^ Chapter Three examines the nature of particularist explanations of the rightness (or wrongness) of actions. First, I discuss some reasons for thinking that explanations must be grounded in exceptionless principles, and I claim that a deductive approach to explanation is unmotivated. Next, I argue that we have good reasons for thinking that not all explanations are deductive, and I explore several non-deductive models of explanation, some that are based on the availability of ceteris paribus laws, and others that do not require laws at all. Finally, I argue that when we apply insights about the nature of explanation from the philosophy of science to ethics, we have good reason to believe that explanation in ethics need not be deductive.^ In Chapter Four, I propose a particularist interpretation of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. First, by focusing on Aristotle's proclaimed goals and methods in the Nicomachean Ethics, I show that we have ample evidence for thinking that Aristotle was not a generalist. Next, I argue that we can read Aristotle as offering an explanation of morality without appealing to exceptionless moral principles. More specifically, I maintain that Aristotle is not trying to help us identify which of the range of actions available to us is morally right; instead his theory is meant to teach us how to explain why those acts that we know are right have the normative status they do. I claim that Aristotle's doctrine of the mean is not intended to serve as a decision procedure, but as an explanatory schema that we should apply in order to explain why right acts are right. Finally, I explain how my proposed interpretation is compatible with Aristotle's claim that the study of ethics should help us to become good.^

'Can' and consequentialism: An account of options

Abrams, Edward Lee — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 17:00:24 PDT

I am confronted with choices every day. In many cases, I have to make a decision as to which of several options I will pick. Generally, it seems to me as though I am free with respect to this choice. In many cases, the choice is genuinely morally important.^ These thoughts call to mind two interesting philosophical problems. The first is the problem of freedom and determinism. How can we be free in a world that seems to be governed by physical laws that entail how our bodies, brains and environment will change over time? The second is the problem of how we understand the notion of an alternative action. The ethical theories that fascinate me the most are those according to which the moral status of an action is dependent not only on the nature of that action, but also on the natures of the actions that I could have performed instead. Which of the myriad of unperformed actions count as my options, and how are these options evaluated in the context of an ethical theory?^ My approach to addressing these problems is to offer a general account of 'can' that works as an account specifically of the 'can' of agent power. After reviewing the relatively diverse literature on power and 'can,' I present my view and argue that it solves many interesting puzzles and has advantages over the accounts I have criticized.^

Food Cultures, Total Diet Studies and Risk Management: Implications for Global Food Policy and Public Health

Pillsbury, Laura A. — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 05:21:29 PDT

Globalization, urbanization, and industrialization are continuously altering the increasingly complex relationship between humans and food. At any given time, food can raise issues regarding diet and health, risk and safety, ethics and morality, or governance and power. Universally, what we eat and how we eat it is a fundamental expression of cultural values and social relationships. Yet, the prestige given to science and risk analysis in policy justification has led to modern food policies that fail to fully grasp the multiple dimensions of food and the multiple scales of policy (i.e., local to global). This study specifically examines characteristics of the network that shapes risk assessment data collection methodologies. As minor as these methodologies may seem in the global scheme, the evidence they collect ultimately guides the policy discourse.

Approaching this analysis from an interpretive perspective, various social science methods are used to illustrate the linkages, interactions and power relations between national and international actors involved in a specific methodology – the total diet study (TDS). This research is designed to understand the influence of the TDS international collective knowledge network on how cultural and ethnic diversity in food preparation and consumption is recognized, understood and integrated into food safety research methodologies, national and global food policy, and food safety guidelines or standards.

By investigating the influence of policy institutions, management structures, and ideological frameworks on the design and implementation of TDS programs, this thesis reveals the constrained scope of expertise codifying the disregard for socio-cultural diversities of food preparation and consumption. The findings demonstrate the strong emphasis on positivist philosophies and scientific methodologies; however, vast knowledge of the socio-cultural determinants of health and food habits support the need to complement objective data with social and cultural data to fill in the gaps. A review of innovative TDS practices and the emergence of rigorous qualitative software tools demonstrate that the demand for empirical data does not have to come at the expense of the health and livelihood of ethnic subgroups. Further research on the costs associated with these alternative projects is necessary to determine their mainstream feasibility.