Moral Perception and Particularity Book

I've noticed two interesting trends in the philosophical literature on friendship. The first is that many contemporary virtue theorists do not identify themselves openly as virtue theorists, or, if they do, they hedge about it. The second trend is related to the first (I'm guessing): contemporary virtue ethicists reinvent the wheel each time, with little reference or help from Aristotle (the consummate virtue theorist).

Lawrence Blum came on the scene in the early 1980s, not long after Michael Stocker published his famous article using the phenomenon of friendship to critique both utilitarianism and Kantian deontology (the dominant moral theories). His critique was similar to Stocker's, although his argument more sustained in "Friendship, Altruism and Morality." Neither principle-based nor impartialist theories can adequately capture moral motivation, and accordingly they cannot account for the ways in which our conative (affective) capacities inform our cognitive moral deliberations and/or actions. Relatedly, because they miss the sentiments as a major component of moral life, they also miss (or mis-describe) personal relationships, including friendships. So all in all, Blum is arguing for a partialist (particularist) theory of morality, and this will require a thorough accounting of moral psychology.

"Moral Perception and Particularity"(1994) is a follow-up to that critique and extends those arguments still further, while connecting himself to the (then) current trends in feminist care ethics and communitarian theory. His aim is to move away from the personal/impersonal dichotomy and to provide a communitarian moral psychology that properly values what he calls "the altrustic virtues." Once he establishes a what he calls a "limited community relativism," he is positioned to provide a theory of childhood moral development that fosters and promotes the altruistic virtues.

His inspiration is the Moral Exemplar as Iris Murdoch envisions her in her novels and philosophical writings. Murdoch's characters are exemplary in their attention and receptivity to the particularity of others; they care for others at personal cost, without losing their own identities in the process. To care for others requires accurate moral perception: we must correctly identify salient moral features of a situation before we can determine if/when to act. Blum points out that this moral perception often goes on in the absence of principles, as it is prior to (and informs) moral judgment. Murdochian exemplars have excellent moral perception, as well as a surplus of compassion. Compassion is informed and sustained by and through a whole host of moral sensibilities and capacities.

Compassion is Blum's favorite virtue, and one gets the impression that he thinks it far surpasses the others in importance. He prefers it to empathy, which he finds to be a psychologically vague concept.

My criticism of this book is similar to my critique of the justice/care dichotomy in feminist theory. For all of the work done to legitimate the partialist and affective dimensions of morality-- including all of the decimating critiques of utilitarian and deontological theories--most care theorists end up acknowledging that morality requires both principles and "care," thus welcoming "justice" back into the fold. But why? Why perpetuate this unhappy marriage? Divorce already, I say.