Ethics 1E WR- Intuitionism and challenges

Key Scholars

G.E Moore- Principia Ethica (teleological intuitionist)

Pritchard- Moral Obligation (deontological intuitionist)

Intuition

A form of a priori perception in reaction to a posteriori observation, how we make decisions

Innate and fallible

Moore key ideas

Science will not be able to establish the features of an action that make it good

Moral features are irreducable and we can only know them a priori

Goodness is an indefineable property and cannot be defined because it would have to have more properties to reduce it to, but it does not

Moore Yellow analogy

Good is good in the same way yellow is yellow- we can talk about it in terms of light rays and things that are yellow, but can’t define it in the same way we can’t define good because it is simple and can’t be reduced (considers attempts to define “good” naturalistic fallacy)

H.A Pritchard

-Believes humans can never know moral obligation through intuition

-Can’t define good because it is indefineable and irreducable

Pritchard- reasons for conflicting intuitions

People have conflicting intutions and moral obligations because some have more developed intuitions than others 

Pritchard- solvong conflicts of intuitions

In the case of conflicting intuitions, choose the greater obligation or go with the more mature intuition

Pritchard- Knowledge of obligation

Knowledge of obligation and good is “absolutely underivative and immediate”- compared to mathematical insight 

Pritchard- imagination

Imagination can help us with mora decision making because we can reflect on scenarios which allow us to intuit how to act 

Pritchard- thinking

Identified two types of thinking- general and moral

Pritchard- general thinking

using empirical evidence around us to present a logical argument

Pritchard- moral thinking

using intuition to lead us to a moral duty

Challenge- No proof that the intuition exists (Mackie)

No proof theres a section in the brain for the intuition, can’t be verified and isn’t backed up by empirical evidence 

Also argued the idea of the intuition is too odd to exist 

1) If objective moral values did exist they would be so different to everything we experienced we would not be able to recognise them 

2) Moral knowledge would never influence us to act in a certain way (like Hume saying sentiment is our moral motivation) 

Challenge- Inuitive truths can differ widely 

People have different ideas about moral obligation- if we all had intuition we would all agree (e.g. role of women overtime), even Moore would have valued things that we don’t value as much now 

Intuitive truths can differ widely (McMahon)

Uses slavery example- in the american south before the civil war people thought it was okay to own people, but it wouldn’t have been their intuition telling them that, it would have been their self interest and the finacial rewards 

Intuitive truths differ widely (Stratton Lake)

Two people could have very different intuitions about moral dilemmas so it can’t be intuition because we don’t all agree

Even the philosophers who created intuitionism don’t agree (Moore- teleological, Pritchard- deontological)

Challenge- no obvious way to resolve conflicting intuitions 

people have different intuitions and the theory does not give an adequate explanation of how we can decide who is correct so it fails. If there were objective moral truths they would be the same for everyone but people came to different conclusions about the same ethical situations (having conflicting intuitions) e.g people having different intuitions baout abortion- no evidence to support the intuition so can never come to a conclusion about who is right.