Renewing Moral Intuitionism

Author: Tropman, Elizabeth

Source: Journal of Moral Philosophy, Volume 6, Number 4, 2009 , pp. 440-463(24)

Publisher: BRILL

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Abstract:

According to moral intuitionism, moral properties are objective, but our cognitions of them are not always based on premises. In this paper, I develop a novel version of moral intuitionism and argue that this new intuitionism is worthy of closer attention. The intuitionistic theory I propose, while inspired by the early twentieth-century intuitionism of W.D. Ross, avoids the alleged errors of his view. Furthermore, unlike Robert Audi's contemporary formulation of intuitionism, my theory has the resources to account for the non-inferential character of particular, as opposed to merely general, moral beliefs. I achieve this result by avoiding the appeal to self-evidence to explain the possibility of non-inferential moral knowledge.

Keywords: ROBERT AUDI; MORAL INTUITIONISM; MORAL KNOWLEDGE; PROTOTYPES; W.D. ROSS; SELF-EVIDENCE

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/174046809X12464327133096

Publication date: 2009-12-01