ABSTRACT
The open and closed moralities are commonly distinguished in large measure by their insistence respectively on particularity or universality of requiredness. The distinction is variously made by different writers in France,2 but it is a widespread preoccupation there, and has excited some interest recently among English philosophers.3 The latter generally consider that a moral position is possible only on the basis of some universalizable maxim whereas continentals tend to hold that universalizable morality is closed morality, and inferior to what is uniquely required for me in my situation.
