Some good and bad news for ethical intuitionism

Philosophical Quarterly

Volumn 58, Issue 232, 2008, Pages 489-511

  Väyrynen, Pekka ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

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EID: 60949473625     PISSN: 00318094     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9213.2007.528.x     Document Type: Article

References (62)

1. For a distinction between positive and negative epistemic dependence, see, e.g., R. Audi, The Structure of Justification (Cambridge UP, 1993), p. 144
2. For this terminology, see J. Pryor, 'Is There Immediate Justification?', in M. Steup and E. Sosa (eds), Contemporary Debates in Epistemology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005), pp. 181-202, at p. 183
3. The regress argument comes in many versions, but the differences between them matter little to my present purposes. See, e.g., Pryor, 'Is There Immediate Justification?', p. 184
4. This makes more explicit the argument as presented in N Sturgeon, 'Ethical Intuitionism and Ethical Naturalism', in P. Stratton-Lake (ed.), Ethical Intuitionism: Re-evaluations (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002), pp. 184-211, at pp. 190-1
5. See also R. Crisp, Reasons and the Good (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006), p. 72
6. This point is due to Sturgeon, pp. 197, 202
7. More precisely, Sturgeon (p. 204) argues that ethical intuitionism is committed to either an implausible non-naturalist metaphysics within ethics or an implausible epistemology outside it. I do not need to deal with this complication, since I focus on the epistemological aspect of the argument. Some ethical intuitionists claim that an intuitionist moral epistemology is not committed to a non-naturalist metaphysics. See R. Audi, 'Intuitionism, Pluralism, and the Foundations of Ethics', in W. Sinnott-Armstrong and M Timmons (eds), Moral Knowledge?(Oxford UP, 1996), pp. 101-36
8. and The Good in the Right (Princeton UP, 2004), pp. 55, 232 n. 47
9. Indeed, ethical intuitionism seems quite compatible with definitions of ethical naturalism like, for instance, the one given in D. Copp, 'Why Naturalism?', Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 6 (2003), pp. 179-200
10. See Audi, The Good in the Right, p. 45
11. This paragraph canvasses the fuller discussion in Sturgeon, pp. 210-11
12. Sturgeon (pp. 202-3) cites epistemological similarities between physical and ethical 'intuitions' to support his claim about the ethical case
13. In this he follows R. Boyd, 'How to Be a Moral Realist', in G. Sayre-McCord (ed.), Essays on Moral Realism (Cornell UP, 1988), pp. 181-228
14. The proton example is from G. Harman, The Nature of Morality (Oxford UP, 1977), p. 6
15. For an argument that ethical intuitions are not in general products of inference from background beliefs, part of which relies on the autonomy of ethics, see M. Huemer, Ethical Intuitionism (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), pp. 103-4
16. Audi refers to Sturgeon for 'a quite different view of inference' in the context of distinguishing 'conclusions of inference' from 'conclusions of reflection': The Good in the Right, pp. 210 n. 12 and 45, respectively (cf. fn. 24 below). This distinction matters here only so far as we apply the autonomy of ethics in the familiar manner just to conclusions of reflection. Nothing that Audi says settles the extent to which this is the case
17. Thanks to an anonymous referee for suggesting that I need to address this possible line of response
18. See, among many others, L. Bonjour, In Defence of Pure Reason (Cambridge UP, 1998), ch. 4
19. H. Field, 'Apriority as an Evaluative Notion', in P. Boghossian and C. Peacocke (eds), New Essays on the A Priori (Oxford UP, 2000), pp. 117-49
20. also Copp, 'Why Naturalism?'
21. See M. Watkins and K.D. Jolley, 'Pollyanna Realism: Moral Perception and Moral Properties', Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 80 (2002), pp. 75-85, at pp. 77-8
22. For similar claims, see D. McNaughton, Moral Vision (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988), p. 58
23. M. Johnston, 'The Authority of Affect', Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 63 (2001), pp. 181-214
24. T. Cuneo, 'Reidian Moral Perception', Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 33 (2003), pp. 229-58
25. For discussion, see Sturgeon, p. 205
26. For a discussion that reaches this kind of conclusion, albeit via a slightly different argument, see S. McGrath, 'Moral Knowledge by Perception', Philosophical Perspectives, 18 (2004), pp. 209-28, at pp. 221-2
27. J. Pryor, 'The Sceptic and the Dogmatist', Noús, 34 (2000), pp. 517-49, at pp. 540 1
28. As Pryor quips, your sunglasses 'causally affect your experiences, but none of your perceptual beliefs is justified to any extent by your sunglasses': 'The Sceptic and the Dogmatist', p. 540
29. Like him, I ignore the question whether, and how, we can draw a distinction between 'observation' and 'theory'. This question deserves discussion, however, since it matters whether every ethical belief is a theoretical belief (and in what sense). Sturgeon seems to think yes, whereas Audi thinks no: 'Intuitionism, Pluralism, and the Foundations of Ethics', p. 110
30. See, e.g., L.M. Miller and M. D'Esposito, 'Perceptual Fusion and Stimulus Coincidence in the Cross-Modal Integration of Speech', Journal of 'Neuroscience, 25(25) (2005), pp. 5884-93
31. My formulation here reflects the view that evidence consists in some cognitive grasp of facts, propositions, or 'contents'. But I have no problem with the alternative view that evidence consists in facts or propositions and it is having evidence that consists in some cognitive grasp of them
32. I take the expression 'distinct evidence' from McGrath, who defends the view that we 'have moral knowledge by perceiving moral facts, and this perceptual knowledge does not rest on non-moral evidence' (p. 223). (She does not say what counts as 'resting on'.) For a related but more detailed position, see J. Greco, Putting Sceptics in their Place (Cambridge UP, 2000), pp. 241-4. Neither McGrath nor Greco endorses foundationalism, however, since neither claims that all the rest of our ethical knowledge is based on perceptual ethical knowledge
33. This case might also cast doubt on the epistemological, as opposed to psychological, relevance of Audi's distinction between 'conclusions of reflection' and 'conclusions of inference' (The Good in the Right, pp. 45-6; cf. II above)
34. See S. Siegel, 'The Contents of Perception', in E.N. Zalta (ed.), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2005/ entries/perception-contents, §4
35. This example is from S. Siegel, 'Which Properties are Represented in Perception?', in T. Gendler and J. Hawthorne (eds), Perceptual Experience (Oxford UP, 2005), pp. 481-503, at p. 481
36. For an argument, illustrated with an example involving Cyrillic characters, that which concepts one possesses can causally influence what contents one's experiences possess, see C. Peacocke, A Study of Concepts (MIT Press, 1992), p. 89
37. See W.D. Ross, The Right and the Good (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1930), ch. 2
38. R. Shafer-Landau, Moral Realism: a Defence (Oxford UP, 2003), ch. 11
39. For a form of a priori intuitionism which claims not to require any moral truths to be self-evident, see Huemer, p. 106
40. I take this definition from Audi, 'Self-Evidence', Philosophical Perspectives, 13 (1999), pp. 205-28, at p. 206
41. Cf. Bonjour, p. 120
42. Shafer-Landau, pp. 250-65
43. P. Stratton-Lake, 'Introduction', in P. Stratton-Lake (ed.), Ethical Intuitionism: Re-evaluations (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002), pp. 1-28, at pp. 18-23. See also Huemer, ch. 5
44. See again the references listed in fn. 30 above
45. See Audi, 'Intuitionism, Pluralism, and the Foundations of Ethics', p. 112
46. Shafer-Landau, p. 248
47. See Audi, 'Self-Evidence', p. 219
48. Compare W. Sinnott-Armstrong, 'Moral Intuitionism Meets Empirical Psychology', in T. Horgan and M. Timmons (eds), Metaethics after Moore (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006), pp. 339-66
49. and Moral Skepticisms (Oxford UP, 2006), ch. 9. 37
50. See Ross, ch. 2; Shafer-Landau, ch. 11; Audi, The Good in the Right, ch. 2; Huemer, ch. 5; Crisp, ch. 3
51. For a form of ethical naturalism that is a case in point, see Copp
52. Audi says this after having argued that a self-evident truth may not be analytic in the sense of being a truth that is 'grounded in a simple containment relation of concepts' ('Self-Evidence', p. 222). Huemer says that the colour sentence seems obvious on reflection although we have no analytic definition of 'red' and 'green', let alone a derivation of the sentence from them (pp. 111-12)
53. P. Boghossian, 'Analyticity Reconsidered', Nous, 30 (1996), pp. 360-91, at p. 363
54. For recent discussions of analyticity with this kind of thrust, see B. Jackson, Species of Meanings: a Study of Semantic Kinds and Semantic Structure (Cornell University, PhD dissertation, 2005), ch. 2
55. G. Russell, Truth in Virtue of Meaning (Oxford UP, forthcoming)
56. See also N. Salmon, 'Analyticity and Apriority', Philosophical Perspectives, 7 (1993), pp. 125-33, at p. 130
57. See Sinnott-Armstrong, 'Moral Relativity and Intuitionism', Philosophical Issues, 12 (2002), pp. 305-28
58. 'Moral Intuitionism Meets Empirical Psychology'; Moral Skepticisms, ch. 9
59. For an intuitionist response, see Shafer-Landau, 'A Defense of Ethical Intuitionism', in W. Sinnott-Armstrong (ed.), Moral Psychology, Vol. 11: The Cognitive Science of Morality (MIT Press, 2008)
60. Among those who endorse such principles are Huemer, p. 99
61. Pryor, 'The Sceptic and the Dogmatist'
62. Thanks to Erik Johnson, Antti Kauppinen, Russ Shafer-Landau and anonymous referees for useful comments. Also thanks to Brendan Jackson for helpful conversations