Audi, Robert - Intuition and Its Place in Ethics

2015/05/01

Journal of the American Philosophical Association, Vol 1 Issue 1 2015

This paper starts with a discussion of how William Ross has been revived by new intuitionist philosophers to try to develop the concept of self-evident moral propositions. The twentieth century featured unresolved struggles in ethics between realists and non-realists and between naturalists and non-naturalists. Ross was a realist non-naturalist talked about how one can "just see" the truth of some moral principles, though the relation between that property or ability and intuition was unclear. Throughout the century further work has been done here, author argues, to underwrite moral ontology and the conception of the self-evident.

Author takes us through different types of "intuition" in the philosophical literature (pg59-61), focusing on a sixth case of intuition being like cognitive perception or apprehension. Are these beliefs (doxastic), or just intellectual "seemings" (episodic), which could lead to a belief but aren't such as of yet? This is a phenomenological question that author explores next, specifically how episodic intuitions can lead to beliefs (pg62-3). One conclusion is that non-inferential "intuitive" beliefs are dispositions to have episodic (seeming) intuitions about the same propositional content, "evoking a sense of non-inferential credibility" (pg63). With this distinction in place, author sheds some light on the differences between how moral philosophers and epistemologists treat intuitions (pg64).

The intuitive and the self-evident have often been associated, and author takes time to discuss self-evident propositions (pg65-6). For author, the self-evident can also be justified through inference, proof, or other method, like an indirect one through intuition. So while self-evidence can become less dogmatic, the trouble then for intuitionists can be skepticism or denial over the truth of intuitive propositions: how does one prove something that is largely self-evident? (pg67) Author distinguishes between being justified in believing self-evident propositions and actually believing them (pg67), arguing that you can understand the proposition in question, therefore have justification in believing it, but fail to believe it. This is a curious outcome, so author considers what could lead to it: thorough skepticism or prior commitment to an alternate theory that denies the proposition (pg68-9). Furthermore, people can disagree in their reasons for believing p, but still both believe p; a higher-order issue is if they disagree "on reasons" (pg69-70). This kicks off a lengthy discussion on reason-giving and self-evidence (pg70-2), where author leaves room-- especially in philosophy-- for congruence on low-level intuition but not on higher-level disagreements on reasons. This discussion intends to leave self-evidence in tact despite rational disagreement. With self-evidence moderately salvaged, intuitionism in ethics is not "significantly worse off than any other major view in moral philosophy" (pg72).

Author goes on to talk about how intuitions could be data for moral reasoning similar to how perceptions are in epistemic contexts (pg73-4), but a crucial difference is that intuitions can be reviewed later and the propositions they are about can be affirmed or denied. As such, intuitions are good cases for being data in the work of moral philosophy.