Remembering Alston's ‘evaluative particularism’

Abstract

AbstractWilliam Alston uniquely offers the divine-command theorist his ‘evaluative particularism’ – the idea that God Himself, the concrete individual, uniquely serves as the supreme standard of (moral) goodness. This allegedly retains God's sovereignty over the moral realm without subverting His goodness or entailing that there are moral principles, the truth of which does not depend on God. However, it is argued that Alston's view faces three initial challenges: justificatory analogies with the two most viable particularist programmes fail; disanalogies between scientific and scriptural data jeopardize the prospect of determining God's relevant essential properties a posteriori; and it harbours problematic entailments regarding (human) moral goodness even if the first two challenges are met.