Intuitionism

Ethical intuitionism (or intuitionalism, also known as moral intuitionism) is the doctrine that ethical beliefs can be justified noninferentially through intuition. It designates those philosophical systems that consider intuition as our fundamental moral basis.

Intuition is both a psychological and a philosophical construct signifying knowledge or perceiving something without deductive or inductive reasoning. The knowledge or perception results from an amalgamation of cognition, affect, common sense, and ethical sense, all used to formulate moral rules for ethical decision making.

Moral intuition is characterized by some moral philosophers as a kind of apprehension of moral truth akin to mathematical knowledge, in which certain self-evident axioms are understood by mathematical intuition. For instance, one is justified in believing the proposition “Parallel lines never meet” by reflecting on and adequately understanding the proposition's content. Ethical intuitionists claim that such selfevidence also holds for certain ethical propositions (e.g., “It is prima facie wrong to deliberately cheat customers”). Nonetheless, while in mathematics, principles claimed to be self-evident are precise and largely agreed on by the experts, in ethics, so-called self-evident principles are vague and widely disputed. Consequently, various intuitionists differ on the nature of the moral truths that are apprehended via intuition.

People frequently face difficult moral choices such as whether to hire people with disabilities despite their lower productivity levels or whether their company should relocate overseas. They do so by intuiting what to do, relying on subjective feelings. Hunches, flashes of insight, and “executive experience” might be regarded as intuitive knowledge.

Examples of intuitions that most people would agree are moral truths include the following: Enjoyment is better than suffering; it is unjust to punish a person for a crime that person did not commit; courage, benevolence, and honesty are virtues; and if someone has a right to do something, then nobody has a right to forcibly prevent him or her from doing so. In each case, the appearance of truth is intellectual; you do not perceive that these things are true with your five senses.

Examples of ethical claims that are not intuitive, even for those who believe them, include the following: The United States should not go to war to defend other countries but only to defend itself; taxation for welfare purposes is unjust because it involuntarily takes money from some citizens; and capital punishment is wrong. Although these propositions appear true to many, they do not count as intuitions since they depend on other beliefs.

Therefore, while reason underlies the basis of most theories of moral philosophy, it has a more limited role to play in intuitionism. Although some basic truths are known without reason, once these truths about prima facie obligations are known, reason along with other knowledge can be used to form other ethical beliefs. For instance, the notion that “Taxation to raise welfare program funds is unjust” depends on beliefs such as “Most welfare recipients lazily avoid work” and “Most people's taxes are already too high,” and so it is not directly apprehended. Nonetheless, intuition has a role in one's concluding that the taxation for welfare is wrong, for intuition informs this individual that taking people's money for uses those people disagree with is prima facie wrong.

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