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

WJEC / Eduqas Religious Studies for A Level Year 2 and A2 Religion and Ethics

Key quote A self-evident proposition is one of which a clear intuition is sufficient justification for believing it, and for believing it on the basis of that intuition … but this is not because understanding provides justification; rather, it is because it is needed to get the proposition clearly in view, and so enables a clear intuition of it. But it is the intuition that justifies, not the understanding. (Standford/ Stratton-Lake) For Moore, the ‘what ought I do?’ was his secondary question to which his answer was to pursue those actions that produce more good. The identification of such actions was directly related to his self-evident awareness of intrinsic goodness found in aesthetic beauty and personal friendship relationships. He also recognised that there were mixed goods of less purity in the same way the empirical world is made up of mixed, complex phenomena. However, the goal to pursue acts that produce the greatest amounts of good are not shared by all Intuitionists. We will see that H. A. Prichard argued that it was not the ‘good’ (i.e. Moore’s first question that revealed the sui generis of moral knowledge) but rather the obligation to act, that is, the duty innate in the idea of ‘what we ought to do’, that was the basis, the sui generis, for all moral thinking. We will explore this more later. Likewise, W.D. Ross, like Prichard, rejected Moore’s proposal that to pursue the acts that produced the greatest amount of good was the best application of the self-evident, intuitive ethical knowledge. Indeed, in his book The Right and the Good , Ross argued that some actions are not dependent upon their consequences to be considered right or wrong. Ross argued that intuition could be used to establish what he called ‘ prima facie duties ’ such as fidelity, justice and keeping a promise. However, they are prima facie because they could be prioritised over another when a conflict of interest arises. However, according to Ross, there is need for a gradual awakening towards a revelation of this innate intuitive awareness and suggests that self-evident insights are: ‘not in the sense that it is evident from the beginning of our lives, or as soon as we attend to the proposition for the first time, but in the sense that when we have reached sufficient mental maturity and have given sufficient attention to the proposition it is evident without any need of proof, or of evidence beyond itself.’ In a similar fashion, another philosopher who advocated ethical intuitionism, H. A. Prichard, also felt strongly that the revelation of such ethical intuitions was not evenly distributed amongst people and that some had a more developed, or more mature ‘sense’ of intuition that others. Key quotes How do we acquire moral and axiological knowledge? Ross maintains that ‘both in mathematics and in ethics we have certain crystal-clear intuitions from which we build up all that we can know about the nature of numbers and the nature of duty’. (Stanford, Skelton) But despite what has been said above, critics of intuitionism can claim that the fact that there is disagreement between moral philosophers and even intuitionists themselves undermines the view that certain propositions are self-evident … Persistent disagreement amongst reflective, thoughtful, and comprehending moral philosophers may cast doubt on the view that any of these propositions are self-evident. (Stanford/ Stratton-Lake)

DRAFT

Key term Prima facie duties: rst impression; accepted as correct until proved otherwise

1.17 Why does an application of intuitive thought need a mature mind?

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