This paper aims to explore the structure of moral deliberation and the role that rules play within it. The first part discusses a debate between H. Putnam and M.C. Nussbaum: Nussbaum has developed an account of moral deliberation centered on discernment through perception, but Putnam has objected that such an account does not seem capable of taking rules seriously. Nussbaum’s response, which reflects a form of ethical particularism, is then compared with a more articulated response that can be reconstructed through S. Niccolai’s book, Principi del diritto e principi della convivenza. The second part is therefore dedicated to this book and to the “topical tradition of the regulae iuris” that it investigates. I reconstruct the account of the reality of practical experience and of juridical-moral deliberation underlying this tradition, and I also examine the implications of this account concerning history, reason, and the relationship between rules and exceptions.
