CHAPTER 9: INTUITIONISM

DEFINITION

Intuition teaches that there are objective moral truths, and that human beings
can find them by using their minds in a particular, intuitive way.

Norm is a rule, standard, or measure; it is something fixed with which we can

compare something else whose nature, size, or qualities we doubt.

Proximate or Derived Norm is one directly applicable to the thing to be measured

and is ready for use.

Ultimate or Original Norm is the last reason why the norm is what it is.

Moral Sense Theory is a theory in moral epistemology and meta-ethics

concerning the discovery of moral truths.

Connatural Knowledge is the name for prescientific knowledge that is neither

innate nor instinctive, but comes from the use of natural inclinations.

THEORY OF MORAL SENSE

Moral Sense Theory is a special faculty that the perception of moral good and evil
is the work of some faculty distinct from the intellect or reason. It was held by a
group of British moralist in the late seventeenth and throughout the eighteenth
century.

1. Shaftesbury was much taken up with the speculations on the beautiful. He

believed that a moral life is a beautiful life, in this way there is a moral
beauty. Shaftesbury considered sense of beauty as a special faculty of the
mind. When sense of beauty is applied to moral beauty it became a moral
sense.
2. Francis Hutcheson developed Shaftesbury’s views by separating the moral
sense from the aesthetic sense. It gives the former the specific function of
distinguishing right from wrong. Joseph Butler identifies moral sense with
conscience.
 3. Adam Smith approaches ethics from the standpoint of psychological
analysis. Conscience is an instinctive sentiment of sympathy.

These theories all demand some faculty distinct from the intellect to judge of
right and wrong, either making its sole function or identifying with aesthetic sense
or with conscience, or with the sentiment of sympathy.

David Hume agreed to Smith’s statements in reducing morality to feeling

especially to the sentiment of humanity, benevolence, or sympathy, and insists
that moral distinctions are not derived from reasons.

MORAL INTUITIONISM

Ralph Cudworth and Samuel Clarke’s moral intuitionism belongs to the same class
of opinion. They make the intellect the faculty of judging right from wrong not by
any reasoning but by immediate intellectual intuition of the eternal fitness of
things.

Moral judgments are not of an essential different nature from other judgments.
Any faculty other than intellect would not understand why certain actions are
good or bad. The norm would lower man’s moral life to the instinctive and brutish
in making other faculty.

Why should we expect man to use his reason in the fields of science, business
law, and politics, but not in the realm of morals and in the goal of life itself?

1. We need no special faculty in identifying the moral sense with the aesthetic
sense. There is a moral beauty exist. Virtue is beautiful while vice is ugly,
but this judgment comes from intellectual reflection rather than precedes
one’s judgment beauty is a moral beauty.

2. Conscience is the norm of subjective. It is also not a special faculty; it is only

the name for the intellect judging the morality of an act. Syllogism is the
conclusion from judging of conscience by a process of reasoning.
 3. Sentiments cannot be a reliable guide to know what is right or wrong. It is
constantly varying depends on the physical condition and emotional mood
of a person.

Reasons for Moral Intuitionism

1. Any well-meaning person has an immediate sense of what is right or wrong.

Moral instruction is to settle doubtful details, to supply one with cogent
reasons, and to bring consistency in moral beliefs.

2. Knowledge of right or wrong was not reasoned out and logically criticized. It
was a spontaneous knowledge occurring to the mind without consciously
directed reasoning. It must come from some intuitive of the mind
recognizing the right and wrong.

3. Reasoning on moral matters is a subsequent and confirmatory to an initial

direct perception of rightness and wrongness. We see first what is right or
wrong in our course of action and look for reasons. When reasoning leads
to an answer contradictory to moral judgment, we tend to let the reasoning
go and stick to simple moral intuition. The simple moral tuition became our
moral guide that is surer than our elaborate arguments that can arouse a
suspicion of rationalization.

4. Reasoning can go wrong on moral matters as easily as on other matters. We

must have a way of deciding basic moral issues. We must have to rely on
some kind of moral instinct, in sight, or intuition, which can act as a sure
guide.

Against for Moral Intuitionism

1. Intuition is too vague a word to be much use. Intuition is Latin for insights, a
looking in, and therefore a very appropriate word for the direct activity of
 the intellect in grasping self-evident truths. Intuition associated with
hunches, wild guesses, irrational inspirations clairvoyance, and other
fancies so lacking in scientific respectability as to give utterly the wrong
impression.
2. We have no innate moral ideas or principles because all our knowledge
came from our experience and our moral ideas are likewise derived from
experiences. Conscience is nothing but habit, by which we have become
accustomed through training to avoid actions of a certain kind and to judge
them to be wrong.

3. Intuition would be purely subjective and scientifically useless. It is a

disadvantage of being immune to objective criticism. There is no common
agreement on moral institutions, each one following his own personal
moral code revealed to him by his own personal insights.

4. The intuitionist must either appeal to intuition to establish the truth of their
own theory, thus convincing only themselves, or they must abandon
intuition and resort to rational argument when it comes to establishing
their theory.

Connatural Knowledge

A primitive way of knowing is often called knowledge by connaturally, connatural

in the sense that it comes with our nature. It is not inborn, but easily learned by
the experience of living. Self-awareness also reveals our own natures, a direct
perception of the powers we possess. We do not have to reason the matter out to
know what our minds and wills are for.

Knowledge through connaturality is an act of the intellect and is, like other forms
of knowledge, an immanent activity whereby the knowing subject goes out and
mingles in the life of others without ceasing to be himself. Unlike the rational,
discursive knowledge characteristic of the sciences and philosophy, however,
connatural knowledge is not achieved primarily through concepts and by way of
demonstration. It is rather a knowledge resulting from an interaction between
sensitivity and affectivity, intellect and will, knowing and loving. It is thus a type of
knowledge caused in some way by the unitive tendencies of man's appetites, in
particular his rational appetite, or will. As knowledge, it is essentially an act of the
intellect; as connatural, it involves appetite and will. Because it is a mode of
knowing involving desire as well as intellect, it is a highly personal act, evidencing
in the concrete that knowing is an act of the whole man, of a person, who knows
through his intellect but whose knowledge is affected, at times intrinsically, by
noncognitive factors. Again, unlike rational, discursive knowledge, connatural
knowledge is directed to the concrete individual, not to the abstract universal

The connatural refers to a linking or union of two, and it is a linking that springs
from something intrinsic to the natures involved. Knowledge is itself a nature,
and, as a nature, is distinct from the nature of the knowing subject. Yet it is fitting
for man to know; this act is "in accord" with his nature. Thus, in a loose sense, one
can say that knowledge itself is connatural to man. Moreover, one can apply the
term connatural to whatever is fitting or proper either to the act of knowing itself,
or to the faculties of knowledge. Again, acts of knowing, even in the speculative
order, become connatural to a person whose intellect has been strengthened
through habits or virtues inclining him to judge easily in certain areas of
judgment.

The type of knowledge usually referred to as connatural is knowledge through

affective inclination, a knowledge wherein the connaturality influences not only
the manner in which knowledge takes place but also what is known. It is
knowledge wherein "love passes into the condition of the object," as John of St.
Thomas put it. It is the type of knowledge characteristic of the good man in his
judgments of moral questions, of the mystic with regard to divine things, of the
artist with respect to his work. Connatural knowledge in the strict sense, then,
refers to judgments that are based not "on the perfect use of reason," but rather
on an inclination or affinity of the knowing subject to the object known, an
inclination caused by affective factors within the knower.

The First Moral Principle

The second area in ethics which an intuitive knowledge is unavoidable is that of
first principles from which all other moral principles and directing norms are
logically derived. Ethics deals with the way a man must regulate his conduct in the
actual world of experience. Since man cannot go through the experience of life
again, hence, must have some way of knowing with certainty the basic principles
from which all the rest of his ethical knowledge is derived.

Does “ought” can be derived from “is”? If it can, then it could be said that ethics
need no self-evident, since its basic principles can be derived from other sciences,
and ultimately from metaphysics. Since Hume emphatically stated the
impossibility of deriving the “ought” from the “is”, mainly on the obvious ground
that you cannot get an “ought” in the conclusion when there was none in the
premises.

Hume and Thomas Aquinas have in common in their general philosophical

outlook. They seem agree for the different reasons on the underivability of the
“ought: from the “is”.

Thomas Aquinas said that the first principle of morals can be understood
independently of the conclusions that can be drawn from it and whether they
assume the form of law or not. The first principle of moral life, which can be
stated in various ways: “Do good and avoid evil”. “Lead a life of virtue”, “Be the
kind of man you ought to be”, “Seek to accomplish the purpose of your
existence”, is not so much a precept of the natural law as a first principle and
presupposition of all moral living. One may ask intelligently, “Why should I be
moral?” but not, “Should I be moral?” just as in metaphysics one may ask, “What
am I?” but there is no point in arguing the question, “Am I?”

SUMMARY

We may admit moral intuition with or without a special faculty for performing it,
giving us immediate insight into the moral quality of our particular acts. We may
deny moral intuition altogether to get rid of unverifiable subjective claims. We
may reduce moral intuition to its narrowest scope.
A norm of morality is a rule or standard that can help determine the goodness
and badness of a human act. A proximate norm is readily applicable to the acts,
while ultimate norm guarantees the validity of the derived norm.

The moral sense of theory appeals to special faculty to distinct from the intellect
for judging right from wrong. There are ethicists see special faculties as
unnecessary because it would make moral conduct irrational.

Intuitionism holds that man is direct, immediate, or intuitive knowledge of

morality with our without faculty. The General reasons for moral intuitionism:
We can identify what is right from wrong without giving reasons. We can identify
right and wrong without knowing ethics. We can use reasoning to confirm
judgments and reject arguments that contradict basic moral beliefs. The General
reasons against moral intuitionism: Intuition is too vague to use. We are not born
to have moral ideas or principles. Intuition is purely subjective experience and
scientifically useless. And the intuitionist can convince no one but himself.

Connatural Knowledge comes from the use of natural inclinations. It is knowledge

in the intellect, but it is unformulated because it is has not been clearly defined
and argued out. Ethics is the endeavor to formulate primitive moral judgments.

Lastly, the first principle of moral, such as “Do good and avoid evil”, must be
derived from other knowledge. This moral principle should be intuitively known
and self-evident.