There’s no totally satisfying answer, I think, to the question of how ethical intuitions should affect what we think is good/right/best/etc. Among other reasons, those of us who prefer principles over myopic intuition-consultation point to the fact that human intuitions seem to turn on irrelevant facts (e.g., different framings of the trolley problem provoke different responses from many humans, even when the differences seem like they shouldn’t be morally relevant). I recommend Peter Singer’s Ethics and Intuitions. (And if it seems too long, I would prioritize section 3.)
Clearly we can’t just throw intuitions out, since then we have nothing left! But I—and Peter Singer in the linked piece—think intuitions should be a guide to help us generate broader principles (and I happen to find utilitarianism appealing as such a principle), and I think intuitions shouldn’t be seen of as data that give us direct access to moral truth and that ethical theories must explain, since considering the source of our intuitions, they’re not directly generated by moral truth.
intuitions shouldn’t be seen as data that give us direct access to moral truth,
I think that our initial moral intuitions about particular situations are—along with immediate occurrences like “Courage is better than cowardice”—the lowest-level moral information, and these intuitions provide reasons for believing that the moral facts are the way they appear.
Sometimes intuitions conflict, like if someone intuits
I should pull the lever to save five in a trolley problem
I shouldn’t kill someone and use their organs to save five others
The two scenarios have no morally relevant differences
So we need principles, and I find the principle “consult your intuition about the specific case” unappealing because I feel more strongly about more abstract intuitions like the third one above (or maybe like universalizability or linearity) than intuitions about specific cases.
There’s no totally satisfying answer, I think, to the question of how ethical intuitions should affect what we think is good/right/best/etc. Among other reasons, those of us who prefer principles over myopic intuition-consultation point to the fact that human intuitions seem to turn on irrelevant facts (e.g., different framings of the trolley problem provoke different responses from many humans, even when the differences seem like they shouldn’t be morally relevant). I recommend Peter Singer’s Ethics and Intuitions. (And if it seems too long, I would prioritize section 3.)
What do you think is the source of ethical knowledge if not intuitions
Clearly we can’t just throw intuitions out, since then we have nothing left! But I—and Peter Singer in the linked piece—think intuitions should be a guide to help us generate broader principles (and I happen to find utilitarianism appealing as such a principle), and I think intuitions shouldn’t be seen of as data that give us direct access to moral truth and that ethical theories must explain, since considering the source of our intuitions, they’re not directly generated by moral truth.
I think that our initial moral intuitions about particular situations are—along with immediate occurrences like “Courage is better than cowardice”—the lowest-level moral information, and these intuitions provide reasons for believing that the moral facts are the way they appear.
I’ll read the Singer paper.
Sometimes intuitions conflict, like if someone intuits
I should pull the lever to save five in a trolley problem
I shouldn’t kill someone and use their organs to save five others
The two scenarios have no morally relevant differences
So we need principles, and I find the principle “consult your intuition about the specific case” unappealing because I feel more strongly about more abstract intuitions like the third one above (or maybe like universalizability or linearity) than intuitions about specific cases.
When your intuitions conflict you can think of your relative credence and then maximize the expected quality of your choice.