Amadeusz Just

The chapter discusses ethical rules in the context of universality and locality. It begins with a brief overview of the exchange between Kantian ethical universalist Onora O’Neill and Wittgensteinian ethical particularist Cora Diamond. Building on O’Neill’s critique of the Wittgensteinians, it then explores two types of locality in moral thought: emotion-based and practice-based locality. Section 3 examines the universality of rules, particularly with regard to their abstract nature. I argue that O’Neill’s belief that abstraction makes rules universally followable is based on a questionable view of concepts and their relation to our lives. Section 4 briefly discusses some reasons for placing rules at the core of our moral life, and highlights the differences between Kant and O’Neill on this issue. The first part of Section 5 revisits emotion-based and practice-based locality, addressing some confusions from earlier presentations. The second part of Section 5 sums up the prospects for rule-based locality.