1E Meta-ethical approaches - Intuitionism Flashcards
Explain the views of intuitionism that objective moral laws exist independently of human beings and that moral truths can be discovered by using our minds in an intuitive way.
• The principles of ethics are a priori + exist independently
- These are self-evident truths ∴ do not need to be est.
- Just as ‘good’ = best defined as ‘good’, we recog. ‘goodness’ through intuition - it does not need any working out
• Moral agents possess a moral intuition to recog. good/bad
- Moore concedes that he does not know the intricate details of how it works
- Intuition = a faculty of knowing/sensing w/o use of a rational process
• ‘Good’ does not mean we recog. good actions/consequences
- We intuitively recog. intrinsic goods
- Moore highlights two: friendship + aesthetic beauty
• Our moral intuition reveals obj. moral truths
What is intuitionism also known as? Why?
• ‘Ethical non-naturalism’
• ∵ it removes itself from the idea that obj. moral laws can be induced from emp. world
- Does not mean that it is a metaphysical approach to ethics as it asserts that moral principles exist in the same way that numbers exist
Explain how our intuitive ability is innate and the same for all moral agents.
• Good = suigeneris (Latin for unique, without comparison)
• Ability to recog. ‘good’ = innate + same for all moral agents - universal
• Moore differentiated btwn intuition and things that are self-evident:
- Int. = process to arrive at recog. of things that are self-evident
• Conscious intuition reveals objective truths, not common sense things
• Int. ≠ about belief in what actions are right, but about things that are good in themselves - there is no way to know them to be true
Explain the view that intuition needs a mature mind so that it is not infallible.
• At some point, there must be a framework from which all judgements can be made
• If we continue looking retrospectively upon knowledge, there must be a ‘first cause’ otherwise knowledge would be infinite
- Does this begin w/ our education or is it a priori/innate?
• Intuitionists argue that knowledge of good = innate ∴ reveals a sense of infallibility to the idea of self-evident when it comes to acting upon this knowledge
• Any fallibility of intuition = directly related to how we practically apply iy, not to do w/ the recognition/self-evident nature
- W/ maturity, ppl will recog. that it is their duty to apply their intuitive knowledge
Explain the view that intuition allows for objective moral laws.
• Our duty can only be defined as the action that will cause more good to exist than any possible alternative
- We do this by weighing up consequences of actions
In what way does Warnack say that intuitionism and utilitarianism are similar?
• “They differ only about the question of how to assess the value of the consequences”
Explain H. A. Prichard’s notion that ‘ought’ is indefinable but can be recognised by intuition.
• Like Moore, Prichard argued that moral knowledge = indefinable
- ‘ought’ = a simple term
• Moore believed that ‘goodness’ = basis of our intuitive recognition, and that ‘rightness’/’oughtness’ = outworking of this (teleological)
• Whereas, Prichard believed that ‘rightness’/’oughtness’ = the basis of our intuitive recognition (deontological)
- When there are actual moral conflicts, we learn to decide upon the greater obligation, and over time, develop a more advanced, intuitive sense of right/wrong
• Despite emp. evi., moral intuitionism/sense of duty = driving force, not a goal of creating the most good
• ‘Duty’ remains an underivitable, indefinable, and irreducible concept
• Although duties may conflict, they are not reducible to one basic duty like consequentialism, and are independent of consequentialist thinking
According to Prichard, what are the two ways of thinking?
- General
* Moral
According to Prichard, what is general reasoning?
- Using emp. evi. to present a logical argument
- Preliminaries = gathering of claims - general reasoning may lead to an ultimate claim which may well be the ultimate moral duty, but it does not necessarily have to be
According to Prichard, what is moral reasoning?
- Using intuitive thought to recog. one’s moral duty
* It is present in our unreflective consciousness
What does Prichard say that general reasoning must not become?
• The driver for recognising one’s moral duty
- Only intuition can do this
What is the relationship between moral and general reasoning?
• Mor. reas. subsumes gen. reas, but gen. reas. should not take a subordinate role
• Prichard = fearful of the consequentialist nature of gen. reas. - pointed out that there is the potential for distortion of duty
- Refers to Aristotle’s eudaimonia to demonstrate how the identification of an intuitive ultimate good (eudaimonia) can be distorted when diff. duties are derived from it
• Gen. reas. shores up initial intuition - does not distort it
- Not used independently to arrive at a conc. by presenting/manipulating evi.
What did Prichard use to demonstrate that moral reasoning is that which is “confirmed by doubt”?
• Descartes’ principle of scepticism
- i.e. gen. reas.= used to confirm what we originally recog. through intuition
- e.g. mor. reas. states that it is my duty to be kind to my parents; gen. reas. confirms this
- We sometimes check mathematical additions even when it is correct
- “we, like Descartes, propose a process of reflection on our thinking to find a test of knowledge […] a condition which ex hypothesi existed independently of the process of reflection”
Explain J. L. Mackie’s challenge to intuitionism: the argument from queerness (no proof that moral intuition exists).
- I.ism = so implausible that Mackie referred to it as “the argument from queerness”
- There are no obj. eth. values (i.e. values that are verified/part of emp. world yet still independent of us)
- Intuitionists fail to explain why an innate, universal, moral intuition exists
- If moral properties were obj. values, they would be utterly diff. from anything else in the universe ∴ implausible that they exist; similar to Kant’s challenge of the cosmological argument that if G existed, he would be so diff. from our exp. that we would not be able to recog. him
- Our knowledge = limited to the phenomenal world ∴ not poss. to speculate about what may/may not happen independently of space/time
- The suggestions that moral judgements are made […] by just sitting down and having an ethical intuition is a travesty of actual moral thinking”
- Ppl have an intuition it will rain tomorrow - the weather forecast is not based on these intuitions
What is the challenge to intuitionism from a sociological perspective?
• Moral intuition comes through social conditioning ∴ our moral intuition = no more than a reflection of our community
