Jonathan Dancy
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Jonathan Peter Dancy (born 8 May 1946) British philosopher, working on epistemology and on ethics. Currently professor at the University of Reading and at University of Texas at Austin.
Dancy, after having worked on problems of epistemology, and more particularly on the nature of perception (argument from illusion), emerged as the leading proponent in ethics of moral particularism (also: ethical particularism). He also defends what he calls the holism of reasons, namely the idea that a consideration that is a reason for acting in a certain way in one case may not be a reason for acting in that way, or even a reason for not acting in that way, in other cases. In this sense, reasons are context-dependent. Dancy argues that the holism of reasons provides a major support for the main claim of his particularism, i.e. that there are no moral principles but that morality can get on perfectly well without them.
[edit] Works
- "On Moral Properties", Mind, 1981, XC, pp. 367-385.
- "Ethical Particularism and Morally Relevant Properties", Mind, 1983, XCII, 530-547.
- An Introduction to Contemporary Epistemology, Oxford, Blackwell, 1985.
- Moral Reasons, Blackwell, Oxford, 1993.
- Practical Reality, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000.
- Ethics Without Principles, Oxford : Clarendon Press, New York : Oxford University Press, 2004.
[edit] External links
- "Moral Particularism" – J. Dancy's art. in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Publications list
