1F: Meta-ethics: Intuitionism Flashcards
What is intuitionism?
- a cognitivie approach
- argues ethical statements express propositions
- objective moral laws exist independently of human beings
Objective moral laws exist independently of human beings
- There are fundamental truths that cannot be broken down into parts and cannot be defined by definitions of anything else other than those moral truths
- Moral principles are capable of being true and known through a special faculty called ‘moral intuition’
Moral truths can be discovered by using our minds in an intuitive way
- Moral intuition isn’t the same as knowledge gained through reasoning
- Isn’t the same as a feeling/hunch that brings about a sense of certainty
- Intuition clear and immediate intellectual awareness: needs no proof or demonstration
Intuitive ability is innate and the same for all moral agents
- “we all have and agree on this capacity”
- intuitive ability is not trained/taught into us subjectively
- Moore used analogy of the colour yellow: simple and objective, cannot be explained by other properties - we must all know it
- We must know good: not by definition/reasoning/deduction but through an innate ability to know the simple thing
Intuition needs a mature mind so not infallible
- WD Ross: we really need a mature mind to ensure we intuit that something is true and it might be that we don’t immediately recognise it as an intuition if we aren’t mature enough
- Requires familiarity with our intuitions and it might take time to contemplate if we aren’t well practised
- We can be wrong but this doesn’t stop it still being something truth-apt
Allows for objective moral values
- We arrive at intuitions before the use of any reason
- Intuitions are arrived at regardless of rational physical evidence: they are propositions
- For a mature mind, a moral truth is self evident
- Understanding wrongly doesn’t mean there isn’t some kind of objective value that exists independently of us
HA Pritchard
- ‘Ought to do’ has no definition
- We recognise what we ‘ought to do’ by intuition
- Two ways of thinking: general and moral
- No link between ‘ought’ and ‘good’: goodness is not an imperative
- We cannot move from non-normative premises to a normative conclusion
- Moral obligation presents itself directly to our intuitions
- Feelings of obligation are basic and immediate
- We cannot prove an obligation and can only intuit obligation
- Says general thinking is reasoning whereas moral thinking is intuition
Why is intuitionism a fallible approach?
Because we require mature minds to reason these moral laws
What 3 claims does intuitionism make?
- ‘Good’ is indefinable
- There are objective moral truths: don’t depend on human thinking/feeling
- The basic moral truths are self evident to a mature mind; known truths require no further proof/justification
What did Moore believe about proving moral judgements?
They cannot ever be proven empirically and so they are incapable of being proved: to define an ethical judgement as factual is an error
What does ‘prima facie’ mean?
- ‘first face’: on the face of it they are self evidently true
- foundational moral principles that moral laws develop from
- coined by WD Ross
What are the foundational moral principles (prima facie)?
- Beneficence
- Faithfulness
- Gratitude
- Justice
- Non-maleficence
- Promise keeping
- Self improvement
Who is Pritchard and what is the name of his work?
An English philosopher and ethical intuitionist
- ‘Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?’
What did Pritchard state about moral obligation?
To justify it by reducing it to an interest/something else is a mistake: moral obligations present themselves directly to our intuitions
What did Pritchard believe about the notion of ‘good’?
- It is simple and undefinable concept
- We understand when to act through reason and intuition
