WJEC/Eduqas RS for A2/Yr2: Religion and Ethics (DRAFT)

T1 Ethical Thought

This section covers AO1 content and skills

E: Meta-ethical approaches: Intuitionism Intuitionism: objective moral laws exist independently of human beings and moral truths can be discovered by using our minds in an intuitive way The best way to approach Intuitivism is to begin with re-visiting a concept from Year 1. In philosophy, the term a priori was used. This term is usually quite heavily associated with the areas of philosophy such as logic and rationalism. Remember that a priori refers to knowledge that we may have prior to experience; that is, an innate, conceptual awareness of principles, for example, those associated with mathematics like shapes and numbers. G. E. Moore had proposed that ‘good’ was a simple concept and indefinable other than in relation to itself, then just as with mathematics, the principles of ethics are a priori and exist independently of human beings. In addition, these are self-evident truths and therefore truths that do not need to be ‘established’ and known through some kind of rationalism. It is important to note that Moore did not explain how a recognition of good was to be implemented, processed or caused; it just ‘is’. Just as ‘good’ is undefinable, or at best defined as ‘good’, in the same way we just recognise ‘goodness’ through ‘intuition’ and it does not need any working out. He wrote: ‘Again, I would wish it observed that, when I call such propositions Intuitions, I mean merely to assert that they are incapable of proof; I imply nothing whatever as to the manner or origin of our cognition of them. Still less do I imply (as most Intuitionists have done) that any proposition whatever is true, because we cognise it in a particular way or by the exercise of any particular faculty: I hold, on the contrary, that in every way in which it is possible to cognise a true proposition, it is also possible to cognise a false one.’ In other words, once we begin to apply reason or suggest something is worked out through reason, error becomes possible. This was important for Moore and relates to his two key questions about moral philosophy. In the preface to his book Principia Ethica Moore also suggests that there are two key questions for moral philosophy: (1) what kind of things ought to exist for their own sake? and (2) what kind of actions ought we to perform? His answer to the first question was that such things that ought to exist for their own sake were intrinsically good. We can see these things even though they are indefinable, and we cannot present any evidence to support this other than simply recognising this. The answer to the second question was that we ought to perform actions that bring about this intrinsic goodness and this can be supported by empirical evidence. The term ‘Intuitionism’ is also referred to as ‘ ethical non-naturalism ’ because it removes itself from the idea that objective moral laws can be induced from the empirical world. However, this does not mean it is a ‘metaphysical’ approach to ethics as it also clearly asserts that moral principles are ‘there’ in the same way concepts such as numbers ‘exist’. Intuitionism has also been referred to as a ‘ non- metaphysical moral realism ’. Key quote Our first conclusion as to the subject-matter of Ethics is, then, that there is a simple, indefinable, unanalysable object of thought by reference to which it must be defined. By what name we call this unique object is a matter of indifference, so long as we clearly recognise what it is and that it does differ from other objects. (Moore)

Specification content Objective moral laws exist

independently of human beings; moral truths can be discovered by using our minds in an intuitive way.

Key quote G. E. Moore’s Principia Ethica was first published in 1903. It has become the custom to regard it as the source from which the subsequent moral philosophy of the century has flowed. (Warnock)

DRAFT

Key terms A priori : prior to the senses Ethical non-naturalism: an alternative term for Intuitionism Non-metaphysical moral realism: an alternative term for Intuitionism

Key quotes Principia Ethica actually

downplayed the metaphysical side of its non-naturalism, saying that goodness has ‘being’ but does not ‘exist’, as numbers too do not exist, and in particular does not exist in any ‘supersensible reality’, because there is no such reality. (Hurka) Intuitively the intuitionists seem right. Empirical investigation can tell us many things about the world, but it does not seem that it can tell whether certain acts are right or wrong, good or bad … That seems to be something that cannot be known empirically. (Stanford, Stratton-Lake)

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