Ethical Intuitionism: A Structural Critique

Journal of Value Inquiry 50 (3):631-47 (2016)
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Abstract

Ethical intuitionists regard moral knowledge as deriving from moral intuition, moral observation, moral emotion and inference. However, moral intuitions, observations and emotions are cultural artefacts which often differ starkly between cultures. Intuitionists attribute uncongenial moral intuitions, observations or emotions to bias or to intellectual or moral failings; but that leads to sectarian ad hominen attacks. Intuitionists try to avoid that by restricting epistemically genuine intuitions, observations or emotions to those which are widely agreed. That does not avoid the problem. It also limits epistemically genuine intuitions, observations or emotions to those with meagre content, and the intuitionists offer no plausible explanation for how inference from such insubstantial propositions can engender substantial moral knowledge. Instead of moral knowledge, intuitionism offers the prospect of mutual name-calling between intellectually stagnant groups. I criticise and reject the principle of phenomenal conservatism, to which intuitionists sometimes appeal.

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Citations of this work

Falsificationism and the Pragmatic Problem of Induction.Danny Frederick - 2020 - Organon F: Medzinárodný Časopis Pre Analytickú Filozofiu 27 (4):494-503.

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References found in this work

Ethical Intuitionism.Michael Huemer - 2005 - New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Objective knowledge: an evolutionary approach.Karl Raimund Popper - 1972 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Compassionate phenomenal conservatism.Michael Huemer - 2007 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 74 (1):30–55.
The realm of rights.Judith Jarvis Thomson - 1990 - Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Moral Perception.Robert Audi - 2013 - Princeton University Press.

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