Matjaz Potrc

Particularism is a justly popular ‘cutting-edge’ topic in contemporary ethics across the world. Many moral philosophers do not, in fact, support particularism (instead defending "generalist" theories that rest on particular abstract moral principles), but nearly all would take it to be a position that continues to offer serious lessons and challenges that cannot be safely ignored. Given the high standard of the contributions, and that this is a subject where lively debate continues to flourish, Challenging Moral Particularism will become required reading for professionals and advanced students working in the area. TABLE OF CONTENTS Vojko Strahovnik: Challenging Moral Particularism Brad Hooker: Moral Particularism and the Real World Robert Audi: Ethical Generality and Moral Judgment Mark Lance and Margaret Little: From Particularism to Defeasibility in Ethics Pekka Väyrynen: Usable Moral Principles Sean McKeever and Michael Ridge: Particularism and the Contingent A Priori Jonathan Dancy: Are Basic Moral Facts both Contingent and A Priori? Terry Horgan and Matjaž Potrč: Contextual Semantics and Particularist Normativity Nenad Miščević: When the Plot Thickens: Dancy on Thick Concepts David McNaughton and Piers Rawling: Holism about Value Anthony W. Price: Particularism and Pleasure David Bakhurst: Laughter and Moral Ambiguity: Particularist Reflections on the Ethical Dimensions of Humour

We sketch the view we call contextual semantics. It asserts that truth is semantically correct affirmability under contextually variable semantic standards, that truth is frequently an indirect form of correspondence between thought/language and the world, and that many Quinean commitments are not genuine ontological commitments. We argue that contextualist semantics fits very naturally with the view that the pertinent semantic standards are particularist rather than being systematizable as exceptionless general principles.