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Ethics and Intuitions: A Reply to Singer

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Abstract

In a recent paper, Peter Singer suggests that some interesting new findings in experimental moral psychology support what he has contended all along—namely that intuitions should play little or no role in adequate justifications of normative ethical positions. Not only this but, according to Singer, these findings point to a central flaw in the method (or epistemological theory) of reflective equilibrium used by many contemporary moral philosophers. In this paper, we try to defend reflective equilibrium from Singer’s attack and, in part, we do this by discussing Singer’s own favoured moral methodology as outlined in his Practical Ethics. Although basing ethics solely on (certain kinds of) intuitions certainly is problematic, we argue, basing it solely on ‘reason’ gives rise to similar problems. The best solution would arguably be one which could strike a balance between the two—but, we suggest, this is precisely what reflective equilibrium is all about.

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Notes

  1. For a good overview of this trend, see Doris and Stich (2005). Indeed, this ‘experimental trend’ is not unique to moral philosophy but can also be found in many other domains of philosophy—see, e.g., Liao (2008) for an overview.

  2. This is not intended as a definition of what practical intuitions are, but rather as a rough sketch of the phenomenon. For a discussion of related definitions, see Tersman (2008: 391–392).

  3. Tersman (2008) suggests another possible interpretation of Singer’s argument here: Perhaps the idea is that we can extrapolate on research in other academic disciplines indicating that “when people’s judgements in other areas are affected by their intuitions, this detracts from their reliability, especially when the intuitions are manifestations of a disposition formed as a response to situations other than those judgements concern” (393). In the end, however, Tersman does not think that such an extrapolation is possible, because ethics simply is rather different from other fields (Tersman 2008: 393). We disagree with this interpretation of Singer’s argument, but even if it is correct, it may be noted that Singer’s argument turns out to be a kind of theoretical intuition—now the intuition that the relevant extrapolation is possible.

  4. Tersman (2008) suggests another debunking explanation of Singer’s “rational” intuitions: At one point, Singer suggests that we should give less weight to certain of our practical intuitions on, e.g., abortion and euthanasia, since we may hold them simply because we have grown up in a society dominated by the Christian religion (2005: 345). However, Tersman correctly notes that many of the theoretical intuitions which Singer wants to give more weight to have also been a part of our Christian heritage (2008: 401–402).

  5. However we acknowledge that this may be due to our framing of the questions or perhaps signalling our own ideas to the students in a way which somehow affected their answers. We wish to thank an anonymous reviewer for The Journal of Ethics for reminding us about the difficulties in determining what intuitions people actually have.

  6. To be fair, Singer notes Kant’s view on the universality of morality (Singer 1993: 11) and also the first part of the argument below, which is interpreted as an argument for the idea that moral requirements are requirements of rationality (Singer 1993: 318–325).

  7. For different interpretations of universalizability in ethics, see Rabinowicz (1979).

  8. Reflective equilibrium can be interpreted both as an ideal state, where all moral judgements cohere to such a degree that they are justified, and as a process for the revision of moral judgements, which ultimately aims at such a coherence and thus is a method for defending and criticising moral judgements. It is primarily the latter interpretation that is relevant in this context.

  9. To be sure, all proponents of a reflective equilibrium would agree that the point of the method is to determine what normative judgements are warranted or justified and not to explain why we in fact embrace the normative judgements we embrace, pace Singer (2005: 345).

  10. It is revealing that Singer’s criticism of reflective equilibrium focuses upon Rawls, who uses the method to defend some rather conservative or commonsensical conclusions (even though in some regards Rawls is very radical—his theory of justice can be used to argue in favour of an even more demanding redistribution in favour of the worse off than Singer’s normative theory would allow for—cf. Collste 2004), and not more developed and timely accounts of reflective equilibrium (see, e.g., Tersman 1993).

  11. We are further claiming that Rawls himself was a proponent of the wide reflective equilibrium (in fact, we cannot think of anyone who is in favour of the narrow interpretation), although not as obviously as Daniels (1997). However, our main errand in this context is not to defend a certain interpretation of Rawls, but the method of reflective equilibrium.

  12. Moreover, it is distinctive as compared to other views on moral justification as well as, e.g., some sorts of particularism (cf. Tännsjö 1998: Chap. 2; Tersman 2008: 400).

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Acknowledgments

The idea of writing this article came about during a nice chat (over some nice white wine) which the authors had with Professor Singer in Stockholm, May 2008. For helpful comments on previous versions we wish to thank our colleagues at University of Birmingham, University of Gothenburg and Karolinska Institutet, as well as an anonymous reviewer for The Journal of Ethics.

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Correspondence to Joakim Sandberg.

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Sandberg, J., Juth, N. Ethics and Intuitions: A Reply to Singer. J Ethics 15, 209–226 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-010-9088-5

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