Some Good and Bad News for Ethical Intuitionism

Philosophical Quarterly 58 (232):489–511 (2008)
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Abstract

The core doctrine of ethical intuitionism is that some of our ethical knowledge is non-inferential. Against this, Sturgeon has recently objected that if ethical intuitionists accept a certain plausible rationale for the autonomy of ethics, then their foundationalism commits them to an implausible epistemology outside ethics. I show that irrespective of whether ethical intuitionists take non-inferential ethical knowledge to be a priori or a posteriori, their commitment to the autonomy of ethics and foundationalism does not entail any implausible non-inferential knowledge in areas outside ethics (such as the past, the future, or the unobservable). However, each form of intuitionism does require a controversial stand on certain unresolved issues outside ethics.

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Pekka Väyrynen
University of Leeds

Citations of this work

Moral Perception and the Contents of Experience.Preston J. Werner - 2016 - Journal of Moral Philosophy 13 (3):294-317.
The significance of high-level content.Nicholas Silins - 2013 - Philosophical Studies 162 (1):13-33.
Intuitive non-naturalism meets cosmic coincidence.Matthew S. Bedke - 2009 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 90 (2):188-209.
Perceptual Intuitionism.Robert Cowan - 2013 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 90 (1):164-193.

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Analyticity reconsidered.Paul Artin Boghossian - 1996 - Noûs 30 (3):360-391.
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A priority as an evaluative notion.Hartry Field - 2000 - In Paul A. Boghossian & Christopher Peacocke (eds.), New Essays on the a Priori. Oxford University Press.
Moral Relativity and Intuitionism.Walter Sinnott-Armstrong - 2002 - Philosophical Issues 12 (1):305-328.

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