Intuition, Inference, and Rational Disagreement in Ethics

Abstract

This paper defends a moderate intuitionism by extending a version of that view previously put forward and responding to some significant objections to it that have been posed in recent years. The notion of intuition is clarified, and various kinds of intuition are distinguished and interconnected. These include doxastic intuitions and intuitive seemings. The concept of inference is also clarified. In that light, the possibility of non-inferential intuitive justification is explained in relation to both singular moral judgments, which intuitionists do not take to be self-evident, and basic moral principles, which they typically do take to be self-evident in a sense explicated in the paper. This explanation is accomplished in part by drawing some analogies between moral and perceptual judgments in the light of a developmental conception of knowledge. The final section of the paper presents a partial account of rational disagreement and indicates how the kind of intuitionist view defended can allow for rational disagreement between apparent epistemic peers.Ethical intuitionism is now widely recognized as a major position in ethical theory. But stereotypes of the view linger, and many people in ethics are unfamiliar with new versions of the position. The challenge for intuitionists is particularly acute because, especially from Moore and Ross onward, intuitionism has been burdened with some rather technical metaphysical and epistemological claims that are not essential to a plausible intuitionism. These claims concern the metaphysics of such notions as the good and the right and the epistemology of such notions as self-evidence and provability. My previous work has dealt with many challenges to intuitionism, but even a book-length treatment must make omissions. My project here is to highlight some major elements in my ethical intuitionism, to extend the position as so far developed, and to respond to some plausible objections to the view which have been recently posed.

Clarifying Ethical Intuitionism

“…Although this is the standard formulation (an analogous formulation can be given for knowledge), there are two senses in which EI is importantly incomplete as a statement of ethical intuitionism. Firstly, EI claims that there are non‐inferentially justified ethical beliefs, but there is a worrying lack of consensus in the ethical literature as to what non‐inferentially justified belief amounts to—e.g., differing accounts from Sinnott‐Armstrong () and Audi (). Secondly, it has been overlooked that there are plausibly different types of non‐inferential justification, and that accounting for the existence of a specific sort of non‐inferential justification is crucial for any adequate ethical intuitionist epistemology.…”

“…When considering the distinction between non‐inferentially justified belief and inferentially justified belief it is initially plausible that there is some relation between these and the psychological notion of inference . On one view, to engage in an inference is to proceed through ‘a kind of passage of thought from one or more propositions to another, in part on the basis of a sense of some support relation between the former and the latter’ (Audi : 485) . With this in mind, at least three possible distinctive features of non‐inferentially justified belief emerge: (1) non‐inferentially justified beliefs cannot be inferred; (2) non‐inferentially justified beliefs are not or need not actually be inferred; and (3) non‐inferentially justified beliefs are justified independently of an ability to infer them.…”

“…As Tropman (: 360) says, ‘being able to draw an inference to a belief might be a minimal condition for being justified in believing it, even if this inferential ability is not what justifies the belief’. Tropman illustrates her point by considering the claim made by some ethical intuitionists (e.g., Audi , ) that adequately understanding self‐evident propositions non‐inferentially justifies belief in them:

Suppose an agent believes a moral truth that is self‐evident. … Suppose further that she is completely unable to form any inference whatsoever to the truth in question.

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How not to test for philosophical expertise

“…There is no consensus on the nature of intuitions, though various proposals have great influence. It is, for instance, widely accepted that intuitions are 'non-inferential', where this means that they arise spontaneously in the mind, not as a result of deliberation or reasoning (Audi 2008). George Bealer (2000) refers to intuitions as 'intellectual seemings', or conscious episodes of applying a priori modal concepts to instances.…”

Being Appropriately Disgusted

“…Moral epistemologists have usefully highlighted the unique role of seemings in moral belief formation. 24 According to PCV, seemings about moral propositions confer epistemic justification onto beliefs formed in response to them to the degree that the agent experiencing the seeming is prudent.…”