more on this theme | more from this text
Full Idea
How can I be brought to see the truth of the principle of paying a debt except in connection with a particular instance? For this purpose any instance will do. If I cannot see that I ought to pay this debt, I shall not see that I ought to a debt.
Gist of Idea
I see the need to pay a debt in a particular instance, and any instance will do
Source
H.A. Prichard (What is the Basis of Moral Obligation? [1925])
Book Ref
Prichard,H.A.: 'Moral Writings' [OUP 2002], p.5
A Reaction
This isn't quite particularism, which would (I think) say that the degree of obligation will never be quite the same in any two situations, and so one instance will not suffice to understand the duty.
| 9256 | I see the need to pay a debt in a particular instance, and any instance will do [Prichard] |
| 9257 | The complexities of life make it almost impossible to assess morality from a universal viewpoint [Prichard] |
| 9254 | In philosophy the truth can only be reached via the ruins of the false [Prichard] |
| 9255 | Seeing the goodness of an effect creates the duty to produce it, not the desire [Prichard] |
| 9261 | The 'Ethics' is disappointing, because it fails to try to justify our duties [Prichard] |
| 9262 | The mistake is to think we can prove what can only be seen directly in moral thinking [Prichard] |
| 9260 | Virtues won't generate an obligation, so it isn't a basis for morality [Prichard] |
| 9259 | We feel obligations to overcome our own failings, and these are not relations to other people [Prichard] |
| 9258 | If pain were instrinsically wrong, it would be immoral to inflict it on ourselves [Prichard] |