Shelby composed a blog post about the relative importance of an ethic being intuitive, and begins by asking just how important it is. I would like to offer my opinion on that matter.
The most important goal, when faced with a seemingly intractable problem, is clarification, and as such, the most important clarification in this instance, I think, is the question: important for what? Is intuitive credibility important for the viability of an ethical theory? Or is intuitive credibility important in order to get people to follow said theory? Ideally, viability would necessarily lead to a following, but alas, things are not so ideal.
My intuition (forgive me) is that intuitive credibility may make an ethical theory more appealing, more accessible, and easier to follow, but it is rather irrelevant to the moral viability and credibility of the theory itself.
I do so humbly believe that morality is objectively based and with the proper amount of investigation, an appropriately ethical code can be offered. There are actions that are right, and there are actions that are wrong. Yes, there are many who object to this and I welcome such protestations. If I am right, however, as I suspect that I am, the intuitive credibility of an ethical theory should not matter. If it can be objectively demonstrated, than how people first feel about a theory has little significance.
There is right and there is wrong; the niche of intuition is insubstantial.
You're surely right(!) that whether anyone can understand, or viscerally feels the force of, an ethical (or any other) theory is formally irrelevant to its epistemic value, its probative force, or the truth or falsity of its propositions.
ReplyDeleteThis formal fact, however, seems a little hollow when we observe that theorizing, knowing, understanding, etc. are activities of persons. Thus unless a theory can be rendered intuitively plausible to SOMEONE, it doesn't even exist as a theory. Moreover, where moral theory specifically is concerned, not all the relevant conclusions are merely epistemic (as Aristotle notes, the conclusion of a practical syllogism is not a proposition but an action). Thus we would perhaps be right to hold moral theorists to a standard of intuitive plausibility as well as formal adequacy.