Reddit reviews Ethical Intuitionism
We found 15 Reddit comments about Ethical Intuitionism. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Reddit reviews Ethical IntuitionismWe found 15 Reddit comments about Ethical Intuitionism. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
This is subjective, but in the moral philosophy course I'm taking right now we are currently covering what is called ethical intuitionism, and W.D. Ross and Michael Huemer (perhaps even Huemer more so than Shafer-Landau and Audi) can be considered some of the best here due to their innovative expositions. Ross is usually taught in intro classes, and Huemer even wrote a book called Ethical Intuitionism.
Wish I had time to engage properly today but I don't. Here's some well regarded arguments for realism you can look into if you haven't already.
Enoch's Taking Morality Seriously Shafer-Landau's [Moral Realism: a Defense] (https://www.amazon.com/Moral-Realism-Defence-Russ-Shafer-Landau/dp/0199280207/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_img_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=CNVDTNHGJW3FHXNR8821), Oddie's Value, Reality and Desire, Huemer's Ethical Intuitionism, Parfit's On What Matters Wedgwood's The Nature of Normativity, Cuneo's The Normative Web: An Argument for Moral Realism.
And here's some free papers you can read (too lazy to name them all, sorry):
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Richard_Boyd5/publication/240034001_How_to_Be_a_Moral_Realist/links/556f6f4308aec226830aab09/How-to-Be-a-Moral-Realist.pdf
http://www.academia.edu/4116101/Why_Im_an_Objectivist_about_Ethics_And_Why_You_Are_Too_
https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=433000088031098030104101075089022124028072042008084011092124087113084016108098084005098003032035018116033080110110127020085084106080012039033080068103113067015099089032030091083096096084064089109093065079071016028099008078093021125125068072101086002&EXT=pdf
https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=207103102008006126082026003080087077015002001000090086121025066112086090029103080091030096049125038001052020081100031102121000046002046043009065006112075102115099049080048111067091106094117103109111097113120126103124079110093018090122114122112110007&EXT=pdf
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~umer/teaching/intro181/readings/shafer-Landau2005EthicsAsPhilosophyADefenseOfEthicalNonnaturalism.pdf
http://www.readcube.com/articles/10.1007/s11245-016-9443-7?author_access_token=R2EN7zieClp6VWWEo8DyZPe4RwlQNchNByi7wbcMAY6_LyD8T3yNLLNQUBcKQRpfV5lbirZE36eSIc6PLipzIUjIvQrTe9aO4meFw0oJ_Dp784B0R9TnA9qTFaNLe9oWPQUaroxf3o-BsITKWjp_6Q%3D%3D
http://www.owl232.net/5.htm
>You have yet to justify that just because you control your body means you ought to have exclusivity over it
I forget exactly how it was put, but I heard it described one time that we typically recognize ownership based on people's willingness to defend their preferences. So if I prefer to own my body so much that I'm willing to go to extreme lengths to exclude its use by others, and others don't want to risk as much to take control of it, then the aggregation of the calculations that take place in people's heads tend to align themselves with a 'right to self-ownership'.
I think I heard it from David Friedman, and then a similar thing described by Michael Huemer in his book Ethical Intuitionism.
> In other words, you're contributing to a Christian sub when you are closed-minded to all Christian ideas. Why? To educate all of us dumb Christians?
I don't think you're dumb. I mean some of you definitely are, but that applies equally much to the atheists here as well (although I haven't yet been blitzed with homophobic PMs by one of them).
As to why.
> A great place to start, then, would be to explain why it's objectively wrong to be a "Bigot!" It's something you feel strongly about--and by the way, I happen to agree that real bigotry is wrong--so I'm sure you can explain in a way that won't appeal to the supernatural (since you're an atheist) or the subjective.
If you want me to prove moral realism and an egalitarian ethical theory, you're going to need to give me some time. If you want to skip my sad undergraduate reformularizations of them, see (1) and (2)^(1).
____
^(1. Expecting a single ethical theory to cover all moral situations is to my mind pretty foolish [you need multiple ones for different problems the same way chemistry, physics, and biology all study the natural world but are suited to different environments] but I think this gives the broadest coverage. Which theories are suited to what environments and questions is an important thing to discuss in itself.)
> [The universe is doomed to heat death.]
That doesn't mean our decisions don't matter in the here and now. Yes, all life will one day be gone. But does that mean it isn't really wrong in the here and now to exterminate Jews, torture innocent people for fun, and rape children? Obviously not. The journey matters, even if the destination cannot be changed. Some journeys can be better than others.
> [Evolution can explain our moral inclinations.]
It can explain our eyesight, our hearing, our ability to apprehend logical truths, etc. too. But we don't reject those as being irrational or unjustified. There is a moral theory which holds that our ethical intuitions are a function of reason, and that we can apprehend some moral truths like we apprehend some mathematical truths and logical truths. This seems compatible with the theory of evolution. We don't doubt the appearance our senses or cognitive faculties give us just because they are produced by evolution. Why treat moral appearances differently?
Relevant philosophy article: Evolutionary Debunking, Moral Realism, and Moral Knowledge, by Russ Shafer-Landau.
> [However, one must take into account that the definition of morality changes from a society to another...]
I don't think it is the definition of morality that is changing so much is people's evaluative beliefs about what is or isn't moral is changing. But our non-evaluative beliefs change throughout cultures and across time too. Non-evaluative disagreements don't suggest that there is no objective answer to be had, or that the subject of disagreement shouldn't be believed in. Why think evaluative disagreements are any different?
Furthermore, there are positive reasons to believe in moral realism. I would suggest Michael Huemer's Ethical Intuitionism. The gist is that we are justified in believing things are the way they appear (unless and until countervailing reasons are presented to think otherwise), and that moral realism appears to be true, justifying our beliefs in it until good reasons are offered to think otherwise. Here is something I posted in another thread on the matter:
> Phenomenal Conservatism is an epistemological view which says we are prima facie justified in believing things are the way they appear, unless we have stronger reasons to doubt that appearance. For example, it seems like there is a computer in front of me, so I'm justified in believing it is in front of me. For another, it seems like the arch at my apartment complex is taller than it is wide, so I'm justified in believing that is the case. However, I take out a measuring tape and measure the arch -- it turns to be wider than it was tall. Now I'm justified in rejecting my previous belief, and adopting the newer, presumably stronger, one. A third and final example: it seems like we can make inferences from two propositions to a conclusion. We see this not with our eyes, like the previous examples, but with our intellect, or reason.
> We have a range of moral appearances available to us. Some moral claims appear to be true, intuitively, in a similar manner as the appearance that we can make inferences from propositions. For example, "Torturing innocent people purely for fun is wrong" appears to be true. I think we see this with our intellect, our reason. I also think, in accordance with Phenomenal Conservatism, I have a prima facie justification for thinking this moral appearance is true. Therefore, the burden is now on the moral anti-realist to cast doubt on these moral appearances by offering a rebutting or undercutting defeaters for moral realism or my accounts of it. I haven't heard good anti-realist arguments yet, so I'm still a moral realist.
He explains these ideas with much more nuance in his book, and he handles lots of objections as well. (There are PDFs floating around online if you don't want to buy the book on the word of a stranger on the internet...)
AFAIK most of the philosophers are moral realists whether they're atheist or theist. Also Michael Huemer's Ethical Intuitionism may be change your view on morality.
> So most an-caps would agree that the societies would be run with natural rights as the rule of the land, how though does one prove that humans even have rights?
Not all an-caps derive their beliefs from natural rights, and there are different understandings of the term 'natural rights.' In any case, here are what I think are some good resources:
[1]: https://www.amazon.com/Ethical-Intuitionism-M-Huemer/dp/0230573746
[2]: https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Political-Authority-Examination-Coerce/dp/1137281650
>Well, what's your argument for the "maybe not"? Where else would you propose moral intuitions come from?>
I personally wouldn't make any argument for it yet as I'm not informed enough to, but I plan to read a few books on the topic in the coming months. Have you ever checked out this article?
>we probably find a case where your emotional response/moral intuition can be shown to be a bad reference for value judgments. Or would you disagree?>
I wouldn't disagree. But again, I'd like to look a little more into the issue.
>I don't think that's a good thing, but it shows me how my moral intuitions/emotions/empathy doesn't reflect the reality of what's right and wrong because I know the pig is every bit as morally relevant as a dog.>
No, I think you're right actually. I'd probably get extra upset if I read that someone was abusing a white bulldog. And that makes sense, but not a lot of sense.
>Usually when people talk about ethics/morals they're talking about intentional choices to do some sort of good. This is a bit of a tangent, so probably no important. Just thought I'd mention that.>
I was kinda joking about the vultures and rats. I don't think they can be ethical like humans can be. That said, we're learning more about animal cognition all the time and I think we still have a lot more to learn. Have you ever read this article before? That and the other related SEP articles about animals are certainly worth checking out.
>Pulling the lever is what saves more people than simply leaving it, right?>
Right. A lot of people belittle this thought experiment but I think it's fun.
>So you'd argue that the conductor shouldn't save the several people on the tracks at the expense of the one fat guy or whatever?>
Right. And I think you phrased it right by saying shouldn't save. It boils down really to what one thinks about doing vs allowing harm. I think a consequentialist would say the difference between the two isn't morally relevant, right? If so, I understand where the consequentialist is coming from, but I might disagree. Again, I'm giving opinions about things like this when I shouldn't be, not having done my due diligence by reading more into ethics.
>Cute... In a hideous sort of way!>
That's the English Bulldog for ya. The English have a weird sense of humor.
>I haven't really thought about non-cognitivism specifically, but I have thought about moral anti-realism. It seems like non-cognitivism is a subset of that.>
There are some differences. The biggest being that moral anti-realism is a cognitivist metaethical theory and non-cognitivism theories like Emotovism are, obviously, non-cognitivist moral theories. I don't know if you require this, but I'll copy and paste something here for you:
>The cognitivist argues for two claims. The first is that when someone makes a moral claim they are expressing a belief. The second is that moral claims can be true or false; this is part of cognitivism because beliefs are the sort of thing that can be true or false. Philosophers call the potential for a claim to be true or false truth-aptness . Because beliefs are thought to be descriptions, cognitivism is sometimes called descriptivism.>
>Potential misunderstandings • Cognitivism is not the view that moral claims are true, since it is quite coherent for the cognitivist to hold that all moral claims are false (see Chapter 3 ). This is a common mistake and it is best avoided by remembering that cognitivism is a view about truth-aptness and not about truth.>
>Non-cognitivism The non-cognitivist argues that if a person makes a moral claim they are expressing a non-belief state such as an emotion: for example, to say that “killing is wrong” is to express disapproval towards killing. Put crudely, it is as if you are saying “Boo! Killing!” Consequently, because expressions of approval or disapproval are not the sort of things that can be true or false, the non-cognitivist thinks that moral claims are not truth-apt in the way that the cognitivist thinks moral claims are truth-apt.>
>Potential misunderstanding • Non-cognitivism is not the view that moral claims are about our own mental states. For example, it is not the claim that “killing is wrong” really means “I disapprove of killing”. In fact, this would be a form of cognitivism, which asserts that when we make a moral claim we are describing a mental state, in this case my disapproval of killing>
>Error theory in morality derives from three plausible views. The first is cognitivism, the view that moral judgements express beliefs and aim to describe some sector of reality and are consequently truth-apt. The second is non-realism , the view that there are no moral values that correspond to our moral beliefs. The third is that truth involves correspondence to facts. These three views lead to the radical conclusion that moral claims are systematically and uniformly false.>
>Moral error theory is a radical position. It is the view that all these statements are false : • Abducting and torturing children is morally wrong. • Providing famine relief to starving families is morally good. • Locking people in a church and throwing petrol bombs through the window is evil. • It is morally right to save the boy trapped in floodwaters. The error theorist would be quick to remind us that he is not saying that it is right to torture children, bad to give money to charity, wrong to save a boy trapped in floodwaters. For he argues that there is no moral truth at all.>
Moving on now.
>I think there is also factual evidence for morally relevant values. Those values being, as I mentioned before, positive and negative mental experiences.>
I think, but don't quote me on this, that another way of saying this is moral properties can be reduced to natural properties, and by "natural" philosophers mean the subject matter of the natural sciences, which include psychology.
Moral psychology would be an interesting project to look into.
>Here's a little thought experiment: Suppose we lived in a universe with no positive or negative mental experiences. So no suffering, no depriving another of happiness, no ability to be distressed or stressed. All mental experiences (if they existed) would be neutral. Could morality or ethics still exist? You couldn't hurt or help anyone. I'd take the position that it couldn't, there would be no morally relevant way to affect anything.>
I mean, I think that sounds certainly plausible.
>since we naturally will value our own positive/negative mental experiences, if we're being objective we couldn't discount another individual's positive/negative mental experiences. To be consistent, we'd have to value them similarly to our own. To place value on our mental experiences and discount another's, even though the experiences are comparable would be irrational. I don't think that helps with the "should", it just works with a motivation that already exists. There's no traction on people that aren't committed to being rational in the ways I described.>
Right. The only thing to my mind at this point is to say -- one ought to be rational. But I couldn't give you a decisive reason right now why we ought to be rational. As Walt Whitman said defiantly, "Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes." He practically made a (rather benign) ethos out of that statement.
> It is entirely permissible in logic to hold that something can neither be proven nor disproven, this is the entire reason that we come up with new axioms to add on to our old ones in mathematics.
It might be permissible in logic, but that doesn't mean that there aren't propositions that are either true or false.
> Assuming a strict dichotomy of truth -- and further extending that to provability -- is a fallacy.
I don't know about provability and how that's relevant here, but I don't think that assuming that a proposition like "I have two hands" is either true or false is a fallacy in any way. You might argue that the proposition is somehow not truth-apt, or that there's not a fact of the matter about how many hands I have, but that would be an extremely hard argument to make.
> While it appears that there can be no argument for hard determinism based within the author's definition of "rational discourse", that does not on its own serve as a proof that it is false.
Of course there can be. You deny one of the premises and then provide your own argument for hard determinism.
> The meat here is in the question of whether hard determinism is possibly true, not MFT specifically, but assuming that choices are possible in premise 1 already assumes that hard determinism is false. So the author gets away with technically not begging the question while also already assuming the entire meat of the argument in one of the premises.
He addresses this in Objection #1, especially BQ2 and the last two paragraphs.
> What we must be interested with primarily then is their argument for the first premise, since that's where the actual meat is hidden, and that appears to me to be merely a pragmatic argument, and thus not actually demonstrating proof of veracity.
He doesn't make any 'deep' arguments for P1, because the fact is that there are not many people who are willing to deny it. If he still doesn't "believe that there exist these different senses of 'should'" as he writes there, then I guess the first part of his defense of P1 is his whole 2007 book https://www.amazon.com/Ethical-Intuitionism-Michael-Huemer/dp/0230573746 and the second part is so obvious that what he wrote in the free will paper should be enough.
I think you might still be under the wrong impression that this is supposed to be some kind of a mathematical proof, and that the premises must then be a priori true with 100% certainty, but that's not how philosophical arguments work. Typically, all you would need to accept a premise would be to believe that it's more likely true than false. And this doesn't make the argument "practical" in any way.
I come in from David Friedman's angle: Here's his Amazon review of Huemer's book Ethical Intuitionism:
> Like another reviewer, I started out agreeing with Huemer's basic claim, having concluded some forty-five years ago that the intuitionist position provided the most satisfactory explanation of normative beliefs. I read the book in part in the hope that he could provide better arguments than I had come up with, in particular a better rebuttal of what I view as the most serious challenge to our position. Unfortunately, he doesn't.
> He does do a very good good job of demonstrating that ethical intuitionism is a defensible position and offering arguments to show that most of the alternatives, including ones that are much more widely accepted, are not. But he does not provide an adequate response to the one challenge I am concerned with, the view that combines ethical nihilism with evolutionary psychology.
> The claim of that view is that there are no normative facts, that nothing is good or bad and there is no moral reason to do or not do anything. It explains our moral beliefs, the intuitions that Huemer views (and I view) as imperfect perceptions of normative facts, as explainable by evolution--they were beliefs that increased the reproductive success of those who held them in the environment in which we evolved, and so got hard wired into their descendants.
> That approach challenges intuitionism in two ways. First, it explains the evidence, my ethical intuitions, on the basis of facts of reality I already believe to be true. Once we have one explanation there is no need for another. Second, it raises the question of how, if there are moral facts, we could have acquired the ability to know them, since at least some of them would presumably have led us to modify our behavior in ways that reduced our reproductive success--make us less willing, for instance, to slaughter the men of a neighboring tribe and take their women.
> Despite these problems, I have not yet abandoned my current moral position, in part because the alternative position fails to answer the questions I want answered, indeed implies that they are unanswerable, that there are no actual oughts. In part also, I fail to adopt the nihilist position because I am unable to believe it. That inability is psychological, not logical. I cannot actually believe that there is nothing wrong with torturing small children for the fun of it or murdering large numbers of innocent people, both conclusions that follow from the view that nothing at all is wrong or right.
I differ from Friedman in that I'm not unable to believe that there is nothing wrong with torturing small children for fun--I'm fine with taking the moral nihilist position.
When I use moral language I am talking about my values/preferences.
Still, I think Huemer's moral intuitionism comes very close to what I value and I still think it's useful to have such a system of ethics.
>I am the first to say that libertarian authors have frequently relied upon controversial philosophical assumptions in deriving their political conclusions. Ayn Rand, for example, thought that capitalism could only be successfully defended by appeal to ethical egoism, the theory according to which the right action for anyone in any circumstance is always the most selfish action. Robert Nozick is widely read as basing his libertarianism on an absolutist conception of individual rights, according to which an individual's property rights and rights to be free from coercion can never be outweighed by any social consequences. Jan Narveson relies on a metaethical theory according to which the correct moral principles are determined by a hypothetical social contract. Because of the controversial nature of these ethical or metaethical theories, most readers find the libertarian arguments based on them easy to reject.
>It is important to observe, then, that I have appealed to nothing so controversial in my own reasoning. In fact, I reject all three of the foundations for libertarianism mentioned in the preceding paragraph. I reject egoism, since I believe that individuals have substantial obligations to take into account the interests of others. I reject ethical absolutism, since I believe an individual's rights may be overridden by sufficiently important needs of others. And I reject all forms of social contract theory, since I believe the social contract is a myth with no moral relevance for us...
~ Huemer from Problem of Political Authority. (The book argues in favor of anarcho-capitalism, but will also give you a strong foundation for minarchism)
His moral philosophy is intuitionism. I also highly suggest his other book Ethical Intuitionism - it's a great intro to metaethics and spurred my interest in philosophy to begin with.
If you can't afford either, he has some chapters over at his faculty page.
It asserts a moral realist position (objective moral facts) on the basis of our intuitions - essentially common sense morality (see: GE Moore, and WD Ross). It is a respectable academic philosophy (as opposed to Objectivism) and has recently seen a resurgence.
Here is a good summary of what Huemer's approach lends itself to
If you would like a broad overview of metaethical theory that presents the various viewpoints in a fairly simple to understand format, while also offering extra material covering more complex aspects, see Michael Huemer's Ethical Intuitionism. He does have a moral objectivist thesis in the book, but he covers all the various viewpoints very fairly, and he has a special talent for breaking complex arguments down into simple chunks. I think his argument is weakest against moral nihilism, but he demonstrates fairly conclusively that subjectivism is untenable.
Ah good. But you've got an MA, no? Whereas both mine are undergrad and in subjects I don't care about (study science, they said. Commit crimes against the lower mammals. Study law, they said. Hang out with lawyers. Become a lawyer, do paperwork. What a dumbass.)
Yeah, I've got R&P. I just ordered The Groundwork earlier tonight. I ordered Practical Ethics yesterday, actually as well, I thought that was supposed to be the Singer? I'll get the other two when I get paid.
Also have you read Huemer's Ethical Intuitionism? Someone told me it was the best defence of moral realism of recent times.
This is a really difficult question and people disagree, you could also ask the fine people over at r/asksocialscience. More philosophically, Michael Huemer has written a book on Ethical Intuitionism. My own thought is that if there need to be philosophical arguments for it, it cannot be said to exist innately, though social science may also return different answers from different studies. As I said, this is a difficult question that different people have different opinions on in the philosophy world.
I know you don't want any Huemer facts...but I thought it was cool that Stuart Rachels wrote a back cover review for Michael Huemer's book on Ethical Intuitionism.
I had that Elements too, though unfortunately I'm in the same boat as you so no recommendations. Just...please don't dogmatically adopt ethical theory that leads you to the conclusions you want to be true, m'kay? (cough Ethics of Liberty)