The Nature and Objects of Intuition

• An intuition is the immediate apprehension of an object by the mind without reasoning.

• A moral intuition apprehends a moral object immediately, without reasoning.

• Three possible objects of moral intuitions:

  • Individual acts: Knowing directly that a particular act is right or wrong (e.g., assassination of Caesar by Brutus). This is called perceptional intuitionism or individual intuitionism.

  • Classes of actions: Knowing directly that a certain class of actions is right or wrong (e.g., telling the truth is always right). This is called dogmatic intuitionism or general intuitionism.

  • Moral principles: Knowing directly universal principles by which actions can be judged (e.g., treating a man merely as a means is always wrong). This is called universal intuitionism.

• Humans do have intuitions of all three kinds.

  • Some act guided solely by conscience without reasoning.

  • Some believe certain actions (e.g., lying) are always wrong, even in exceptional circumstances.

  • Some claim to know moral principles intuitively (e.g., goodness should be accompanied by happiness).

• Objections to intuitionism:

  • Not all actions, classes, or principles are known intuitively; doubt arises in many situations.

  • Intuition may fail in unusual or exceptional cases.

  • People make mistakes in their intuitions; intuition is not infallible.

  • Conscience provides too many varied intuitions, making it hard to form a consistent ethical system.

  • Intuitions may contradict one another (e.g., justice vs. mercy).

  • In every case, it is possible to give a reason for intuitions; intuition is not the final criterion.

• Two forms of intuitionism:

  • Strict intuitionism: Intuitions are unanalyzable; ethical study is reduced to describing intuitions; may lead to subjectivism.

  • Analytical intuitionism: Intuitions are valid but analyzable; can be justified by rational argument (e.g., Hutcheson’s moral sense: approves what benefits society or maximizes happiness).

• Intuitionism is often confused with deontology, but deontological theories can exist independent of intuitionism.

• Strictly, intuitionism: right vs. wrong is distinguished only by direct apprehension without reflection.

• Practically, the term is used for any ethical theory where intuitions play a large role, including the English eighteenth-century moral sense school and Butler.

The Moral Sense School

• Shaftesbury (1671–1713) held that goodness in man requires the balance of natural affections towards others (love, sympathy) and self-affections (love of life, ambition).

• Reason can guide the balance between these affections, but they also arouse a new affection called the moral sense.

• The moral sense is a natural feeling that leads us to approve or disapprove, serving as an impulse toward good conduct.

• When uncorrupted, the moral sense aligns with reason’s judgements.

• It may be corrupted by habitual evil conduct or false religious views, but not by honest philosophical speculation or free-thinking.

• Shaftesbury compared the moral sense to a sense of smell, suggesting that a cultivated taste or the moral connoisseur is the true guide.

• Just as a tea-taster develops refined judgement through practice, the moral sense can be cultivated and improved.

• Hutcheson (1694–1747) distinguished between material (objective) goodness and formal goodness of an action.

• Material goodness: determined by causing the greatest happiness for the greatest number, anticipating Utilitarianism.

• Formal goodness: determined by flowing from good affection in just proportion, guided by the moral sense.

• The moral sense leads particularly to benevolent actions, often disinterested in motive, but contributing to the agent’s true interest.

• For Hutcheson, the final moral standard is the actual consequences of actions, not intuition alone.

• Moral sense analogous to aesthetic judgement: judging between good and bad actions vs. beautiful and ugly objects.

• Both appear as feelings or emotions but involve making judgements.

• Historical parallels: Greeks used to kalon for both beautiful and good; some Stoics: “Only the beautiful is good.”

• Admiration for noble deeds is similar to admiration for great art; moral actions have intentional significance, whereas art has material embodiment.

• Aesthetic judgement is complex; “no disputing about tastes” often holds, yet can be educated like conscience.

• Education of taste: influenced by teachers, companions, beautiful objects, practice in arts, and theoretical study of aesthetics.

• Normative science of aesthetics studies objective principles, analogous to normative science of ethics for moral standards.

• The analogy between moral standards and aesthetic standards may approach identity, but not fully.

• Moral standards are likely more objective than aesthetic standards; contradictory judgements may exist in aesthetics, but not in ethics.

• Some objective value in art may actually be a moral value.

• From a teleological perspective, producing things of beauty can be considered right or good actions, as beauty contributes to good consequences.

• From a deontological view, actions may be good in themselves partly because they possess beauty.

• Examples of morally beautiful actions:

  • Antigone performing funeral rites against state law.

  • Captain Oates sacrificing himself in an Antarctic blizzard to help comrades.

• Professor Broad suggests the rightness of an action may lie in its fittingness to the circumstances or whole situation.

• It is normally fitting to act truthfully, independent of consequences.

• The actions of Antigone and Captain Oates were supremely fitting, even if the actual results were not significantly good, except providing a noble example.

• Moral fittingness is closely analogous to aesthetic fittingness.

• This intuitive recognition of fittingness can be called the moral sense.