Moral Intuitionism and Social Aspects

Introduction to Moral Intuitionism

• Moral Realism: posits that there are mind-independent moral truths.
• Moral Intuitionism: asserts that we can intuitively know basic moral principles.
• Trustworthiness of Moral Intuitions: A challenge is explaining why moral intuitions are epistemically sound.
  • Common claims:
  • Basic moral principles are self-evident.
  • Without evidence to the contrary, it is acceptable to trust one’s intuitive judgments.
• BCS Framework: Bengson, Cuneo, and Shafer-Landau propose a social angle to moral intuitionism, emphasizing the social aspects of moral practice over individual intuition.

Trustworthiness Criterion

• Trustworthiness as Warranted Cognitive Reliance: An agent can rely on a practice if it meets certain social and cognitive conditions.
• Key Conditions for being in "good working order":
  1. Social Well-Established: Broad community participation over time.
  2. Deeply Entrenched: Practice becomes second nature to participants.
  3. Sophisticated Evaluation Methods: Critical assessment of outputs of the practice (error detection, expert consensus).
  4. Engenders Achievement: Enables success in moral projects (relationships, empathy).
  5. Internally Harmonious: Consistency and coherence of outputs among participants.
  6. Externally Harmonious: Outputs must cohere with other trustworthy cognitive practices.

Challenges to Social Moral Intuitionism

• Questioning the Social Aspect:
  • It is unclear how conditions 1 and 2 contribute to epistemic trustworthiness.
  • Example of a solitary, reliable cognitive practice demonstrates that social participation is not essential for epistemic reliability.
• Truth-Connection Challenge:
  • Moral intuitions must reliably track actual moral truths.
  • BCS's reliance on coherence and consistency does not directly establish a connection to truth.

Evaluation of BCS’s Proposed Methods

1. Consistency Testing: Merely ensures outputs are not contradictory, not indicative of their reliability.
2. Conditions for Output Production: Practitioners being in good conditions doesn’t guarantee truth.
3. Reflection on Moral Exemplars: Moral exemplars may not lead to accurate outputs in flawed practices.
4. Experiments of Living: Engaging in moral scenarios doesn’t aid in confirming the accuracy of moral intuitions.
5. Reflection on Moral Concepts: Understanding concepts does not guarantee that they align with moral truths (e.g., ancestral concepts might not suit modern dilemmas).

The Necessity of a Moral Intuition Practice

• Definition Issues: BCS doesn’t firmly establish what constitutes the "moral intuition practice" distinct from other cognitive practices.
• Cognitive Practice Variance: Clarification is needed on how moral intuition is defined by both subject matter and source, as its reliability remains unestablished.

Perceptual Practice Analogy

• Comparison with Perception: Discrepancies in perception demonstrate that cognitive practices can yield inconsistent outputs.
• Trustworthiness Issues: Just because a practice is social, doesn't mean it reliably tracks truth; essential characteristics need thorough examination to see how they function under current conditions.

Conclusion and Implications

• Resistant Challenges: BCS’s social moral intuitionism fails to clearly show the epistemic advantage over traditional moral intuitionism.
• Call for Conceptual Evolution: There is potential for re-evaluating moral concepts in light of modern moral challenges (e.g., climate change).
• Unanswered Queries: New conceptions of responsibility and moral engagement are necessary to address contemporary dilemmas.

Summary of Key Points

• BCS’s emphasis on social elements needs justification regarding their impact on epistemic reliability.
• Traditional moral intuitionism may hold advantages against the new social frameworks.
• Further research is needed to establish a sound social moral intuition practice and its implications for moral philosophy today.