‘Keep your eye on the intuitions…’ (theoretical problematizations of intuitive moral judgments in contemporary ethics)

Abstract

This paper explores how the knowledge of content and psychological foundations of strong, stable, immediate moral beliefs can be used in ethical theory. In contemporary ethics, such beliefs are usually termed ‘intuitive moral judgments’ or ‘moral intuitions’. The author evaluates three theoretical models that employ the analysis of moral intuitions. First of them, the social intuitionism of Jonathan Haidt, proceeds from the thesis that automatic intuitive reactions dominate our moral experience and considers moral reasoning (and moral philosophy as well) as a secondary, superficial activity lacking any binding force. In place of the philosophical examination of morals Haidt actually substitutes an approach with methods of evolutionary biology. The author proceeds to show that Haidt's model leaves unanswered the question of justification of morality and therefore can not offer an adequate explanation of it. There are some other theories which, while attempting to find a justification of moral norms and make a reasonable choice among them, still have an interest in the analysis of moral intuitions. Frances Kamm justifies and selects moral norms by establishing coherency in the sphere of intuitive beliefs. Peter Singer and Torbjörn Tännsjö try to separate the intuitions that are rational and have an actual imperative force from those which are generated by specific conditions of human evolution and should be discarded. The first class includes requirements of consequentionalist ethics, the second one deontological side-constraints. The author exposes the theoretical vulnerability of the model of Singer and Tännsjö and points to the strengths of Kamm's model.