Moral intuitionism, disagreement, and the prudent conscience

Brian Besong, Purdue University

Abstract

In this dissertation, I have two central goals. My first goal is to show that standard accounts of moral intuitionism are problematic views of moral knowledge (chapters 1-3). My second goal is to propose a less problematic account of moral intuitionism that can count as an alternative epistemological companion to moral realism (chapters 4 and 5). In its most general form, moral intuitionism is the view that, for at least some seeming states, when a moral proposition p seems true to an agent, that agent is justified in the belief that p. Standard accounts of moral intuitionism (henceforth "SMI") consider a seeming's capacity to confer justification to be determined by the seeming's phenomenological features alone. There are two main versions of SMI. The first (and most popular) version restricts the sorts of seeming states that are justification-conferring to self-evidential seemings, whereas the second version considers all seemings about moral propositions to be justification-conferring. In chapter 1 of my dissertation, I provide an account of SMI that focuses on the particular treatment of seeming states given by both versions of the standard intuitionist view. The chief problem with SMI is that it is incapable of handling a phenomenon common to pluralistic societies, namely, moral disagreement. When people disagree about their fundamental moral beliefs, basing their disparate beliefs on seeming states with equally strong phenomenological credentials, moral intuitionism treats both agents as having equally good epistemic support for their disputed beliefs. As I argue in chapter 2, disagreements of this type result in the epistemic defeat of each agent's disputed belief, such that after the disagreement is fully disclosed to both agents, each should withhold assent from both beliefs. In chapter 3, I argue that given how widespread this sort of moral disagreement is, accounts of SMI lead to a practical sort of moral skepticism whereby individuals are reduced to withholding assent from all their moral beliefs, except those universally agreed upon. As I argue in chapter 4, whether a seeming confers justification is not determined solely by its phenomenological features. Rather, the capacity of a seeming to confer justification is at least partially dependent upon the degree to which the cognitive faculty producing the seeming is functioning properly. Since the causal origin of a seeming is not one of the seeming's phenomenological features, my proposed account is a type of moral intuitionism, but a non-standard account (denying the thesis central to SMI). The relevant cognitive faculty that produces moral seemings is the conscience and, unlike other cognitive faculties, the propriety of its function depends upon an agent's possession and exercise of the intellectual virtue of prudence. To the degree that an agent is prudent, her conscience will be formed properly and will function as it ought, producing seeming states that confer justification onto beliefs in their propositional contents. Prudence, the intellectual virtue by which an agent is able to reason excellently about action, is therefore central to the possession and acquisition of moral knowledge, for its presence or absence in an individual determines the epistemic support had by that individual's seeming states toward her moral beliefs. For this reason, as I argue in chapter 5, disagreements in which individuals appeal to phenomenologically equivalent seeming states as the bases for their opposing beliefs do not (of themselves) lead to the mutual defeat of both beliefs, as per SMI. Instead, agents who are prudent have reason to maintain their disputed moral beliefs after disagreements like this unless they are justified in believing that the agent with whom they have disagreed is more or about equally as prudent as they are. In the cases where moral disagreement does lead to defeat, however, such defeat is epistemically good, for it eliminates less prudently formed beliefs and often provides the less prudent agent justification to endorse the more prudent agent's disputed moral belief, thus avoiding the skepticism faced by advocates of SMI.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Kain, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Philosophy

COinS