 This characterization of the debate is so far too impressionistic to provide a tractable framework for philosophical inquiry. The literature reveals many ways to sharpen the debate, and sharpening is indeed needed. But both generalism and particularism are best seen as intellectual traditions in moral philosophy, each of which has a number of distinct but related strands. This article attempts to disentangle some of those strands with the most attention being given to recent stages of this debate.