meant to prevent the possession of a set of beliefs that cannot be simultaneously true. For example, it would be rationally inconsistent to believe that pain is harmful, that animals do not deserve harm, and that animals deserve pain. If this is the only meaningful way to consider consistency, then to evaluate it differently in the case of moral reasons would be incorrect. Objections regarding rationality also question the particularist's view on moral knowledge. When a selfish child encounters a situation where they are taught to value generosity, the moral generalist recognizes this as the child acquiring ethical knowledge in order to apply it in the future. Particularism denies this and argues that acts can be justified by a sort of sense perception. Rather than deducing permissibility from general moral principles, the agent learns to see the salient moral features of a situation in a particular way. See also Particularism Meta-ethics Ethics Rationality Further reading Hooker B, Little MO (eds.) (2001). Moral particularism. OUP. Dancy, Jonathan (2004). Ethics without principles, Oxford: Oxford University Press. References External links Dancy, Jonathan (2005). "Moral particularism", in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Tsu, Peter Shiu-Hwa. "Moral Particularism", in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Meta-ethics