intuitionism

Question 1

moore

Answer 1

• key text was principia ethica
• followed hume claiming that in many ethical arguments people started with facts & slip into speaking of moral vlaues without making clear they switched basis they were arguing
• moore said can’t define good to avoid naturalistic fallacy
• so he is non-naturalist
• agreed moral values are natural properties out there in universe to be discovered

Question 2

what do naturalists say about term ‘good’

Answer 2

• its complex and analysable#- can be explained with a horse where a horse is analysable in terms of its parts (forehead, muzzle, elbow) & ethical naturalists compare this to good as it’s complex and analysable in terms of natural properties like pleasures/desires
• moore rejects this & says it’s not natural and is simple & unanalysable as unlike ‘horse’ good cannot be broken down in terms of its natural properties
• can be compered to as yellow as you cn point to it and say it’s yellow but doesnt explain what it is
• so for moore good is good

Question 3

intuitionism

Answer 3

• can’t define moral terms using natural temrs
• what is good produces pleasure and what is bad produces pain
• reducing moral property to a natural property is a mistake
• argued moral terms like good cannot actually be defined or broken down further
• good is good and indefinable but we just recognise it when we see it
• morality doesn’t have a definitions and we still recognise good and bad

Question 4

w.d. ross

Answer 4

• the right & the good the foundation of ethics - pointed out people sometimes have conflicting duties & may not be at all obvious which should take priority
• duties: keep out promise, do not injure, return favours, not harm innocents
• all known as prima facie (at face first)
• moral intuition comes in when forced to consider conflicting duties & consider them as well as possible then common snese/intuition will say what to do

Question 5

strengths of intuitionism

Answer 5

• everyone has moral intuition and use this to check moral arguments
• overcomes central problem of ethical naturalism as seems to be no agreement as to what ‘facts’ of ethics are
• still form of moral realism meaning statements can be true or false. realistic about admitting moral intuition not perfect which explains why w estill have disagreements in our moral intuitions

Question 6

weakness of intuitionism

Answer 6

• doesn’t give us a satisfactory answer to the question of how it is that we come to have intuitions of right/wrong as if we can’t observe the presence of such a faculty it seems more likely it doesn’t exist
• people may have different intuitions about what is right
• can be influenced by prevailing social normas as had we lived in 18th century we may have intuited what they had accepted like slavery is right as is hwat you were brought up to believe so may not be anything more than unconscious acceptance of norms of society we live in

Question 7

neo-naturalism

Answer 7

• would approach is ought gap by using socio-biological fact
• means it leaves plenty of room for ethical discussions as not always clear what leads to human flourishing
• could argue that the flourishing of humans is too narrow to be factual context of ethics since humanity is simply one species within biosphere
• more accurate description would be that ‘good’ is what contributes to flourishing of biosphere as whole