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Intuition and Its Place in Ethics

ROBERT AUDI

Journal of the American Philosophical Association / Volume 1 / Issue 01 / March 2015, pp 57 -77DOI: 10.1017/apa.2014.29, Published online: 27 March 2015

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S2053447714000293

How to cite this article:ROBERT AUDI (2015). Intuition and Its Place in Ethics. Journal of the AmericanPhilosophical Association, 1, pp 57-77 doi:10.1017/apa.2014.29

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Journal of the American Philosophical Association (2015) 5777 C American PhilosophicalAssociationdoi: 10.1017/apa.2014.29

Intuition and Its Place in Ethics

abstract: This paper provides a multifaceted account of intuition. The paperintegrates apparently disparate conceptions of intuition, shows how the notionhas figured in epistemology as well as in intuitionistic ethics, and clarifiesthe relation between the intuitive and the self-evident. Ethical intuitionism ischaracterized in ways that, in phenomenology, epistemology, and ontology,represent an advance over the position of W. D. Ross while preserving itscommonsense normative core and intuitionist character. This requires clarifyingthe sense in which intuitions are non-inferential and explaining how self-evidentprinciples may be maintained without dogmatism, how intuition is significantlyanalogous to perception, and how rational disagreements can extend evento the self-evident. The paper distinguishes between two orders of normativedisagreement, shows how intuition can contribute to resolving normativedisagreements, and represents ethical intuitionism as capable of modified formsthat depart from its traditional claims in being neutral with respect to both ethicalnaturalism and metaphysical realism.

keywords: apprehension, disagreement, inference, justification, naturalism, norm-guidedness, perception, realism, reasons, self-evidence

Intuition is a mainstay of intellectual life. It triggers inquiry, guides thought, andundergirds judgment. Its focus may be as wide as a richly detailed narrative oras narrow as a single claim. It may be spontaneous or studied, vivid or faint,steadfast or fleeting. It may reflect confidence or hesitation, a wealth of evidence, ora mere glimmer of plausibility. But it does not rest on premises. Its basis is different.Intuition may lead thought in countless directions. Intellectual life without intuitionwould be impoverished, much as physical existence without perception would bebarren. Intuition is a resource in all of philosophy, but perhaps nowhere morethan in ethics. If its role in ethics is not essentially different from its role elsewherein philosophy, moral thinking depends on it in ways that hold great interest inthemselves and also provide a pathway to understanding philosophical reflection.Intuition figures centrally in muchmoral philosophy but most prominently in majorethical intuitionists such as Henry Sidgwick, G. E. Moore, and W. D. Ross. Allthree have been closely studied, but neither intuitionism in ethics nor intuition as a

This paper has benefited from discussion with more philosophers than I can list here, but for comments onearlier versions I would particularly like to thank Alex Arnold, Paul Audi, Sven Bernecker, Isaac Choi, DavidKaspar, Heather Logue, Artur Szutta, Mark Timmons, and anonymous referees who provided comments on theanonymized, semi-penultimate version.

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philosophical resource have so far received the kind of integrated treatment to begiven here.

1. The Revival of W. D. Ross

It may seem hyperbolic to speak of a revival of Ross, but although he wasnot forgotten by leading twentieth-century moral philosophers writing after hepublished The Right and the Good (1930), until the 1990s most of them consideredhim minor. This is partly because he wrote under the shadow of Moore,1 buta more important element was the influence of philosophical naturalism. Thatworldview tookmany forms, but in ethical theory twomain strands were influentialfor much of the past century. One was reductivist, the other eliminativist. Acontrolling naturalistic idea was that natural properties are the only propertieswe should countenance. Mills utilitarianism could be conceived as meeting thisstandard, butMoores Principia Ethica (1903) convinced most ethical theorists thatethical naturalism in any reductive form is unsustainable. Moral philosophers whoaccepted that conclusion had to choose between conceiving ethics as committed tonon-natural properties and framing an eliminativist view that accounts for moraldiscourse without positing them.

One influential response to this choice came with the positivism of A. J. Ayer. Onhis naturalistic view, moral predicatessay, right and wrongare emotive anddo not represent genuine properties. In the aftermath of positivism, this eliminativiststance was developed by C. L. Stevenson, R. M. Hare, and many others (see Steven-son [1944], Hare [1952], and for a more recent versionnorm expressivismGibbard [1990]). In their hands, ethical naturalism survived the rejection of bothpositivism and naturalistic reductivism in ethics. The power of progressively refinedeliminativist and naturalistic ethical theories reduced Moores overall influence inethics, but it also kept him in view since his anti-naturalistic arguments were takenas indirect support for the noncognitivist position that moral predicates do notexpress genuine properties, and, correspondingly, assertive moral sentences do notexpress propositions. Moore is important, then, for both strands of naturalism: hisanti-reductivist arguments forced ethical naturalists either to refine reductivism inethics or to devise a non-reductive naturalism aimed at meeting his challenge.2

Twentieth-century ethics exhibited two pervasive tensions, both still unresolved.One, just described, is between naturalism, whether cognitivist or not, and non-naturalism, championed above all by Moore; the other is between realism andanti-realism. Here Ross is crucial: he is both a non-naturalist and a realist, and,beyond that, his ethical intuitionism strikingly combines a commonsense normative

1For discussion of this point and an account of major elements in twentieth-century intuitionism see Audi(2004, especially ch. 1).

2The non-reductive responses include Brandts ethical naturalism byway of naturalizing practical rationality,as well as other views, arguably including Cornell Realism. Brandt (1979) maintained that his accountmade possible saying everything we need to say in ethics without commitment to non-natural properties ornoncognitivism. A recent statement of Cornell Realism is Sturgeon (2006). This view is arguably reductivistregarding moral properties but not regarding moral concepts.

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core and a sometimes far from commonsensical epistemology concerning that core.The core is a list of moral principles well known among moral philosophers andwidely respected in applied ethics.3 The principles express obligations of justice andnon-injury, veracity and fidelity to promises, beneficence and self-improvement,and reparation and gratitude. Ross considered these principles self-evident. Forinstance, he thought it self-evident that if one promises to do something, one hasa prima facie duty to do it. The same kind of obligation applies to avoiding liesand injustices and, on the positive side, to aiding others in need.

Like Moore, Prichard, and many earlier philosophers, Ross took the self-evidentto be unprovable but just as certainly not in need of proof. He represented the self-evidence of the everyday moral principles he formulated as like that of a mathemat-ical axiom or a form of inference.4 Pronouncements like these led many to believethat for intuitionists, one can just see the truth of the principles, as with logicaltruths corresponding to elementary inferences. One might call this the just-see (orluminosity) stereotype regarding self-evident propositionsgiven a good look atthem, which was considered implicit in any comprehending consideration, one justsees their truth. This conception of self-evidence partly accounts for the view thatintuitionism is dogmatic and its claims of self-evidence conversation stoppers.It also partly accounts for skepticism about claims of self-evidence, about thejustificatory value of intuition, and about the substantive power of a priori reason.

Ross avoided claiming that only the self-evident is an object of intuition, and heemphasized that seeing the truth of his principles required a certain mental matu-rity. But he did not explicate that notion.Muchwork in recent decades has done so,and there is now wide agreement that a new intuitionism is possible by preservingmuch of the Rossian core, clarifying intuition, and providing amore plausible moralepistemology.5 The new intuitionism has, among other things, far more to say aboutintuition, a different conception of the self-evident, and a more modest ontology.All of these topics are important for understanding any field of philosophy.

2. Six Dimensions of Intuitional Discourse

In the history of philosophy, intuition has played diverse roles. Keeping to thetradition of ethical intuitionism, which includes a major epistemological element,we find at least six cases essential for fully understanding intuition. First, there arecognitive intuitionsintuitions that p. These have propositions as objects and arein that sense propositional intuitions. These are the most common kind of intuitiontraditionally considered in ethics. Suppose I have the intuition that accepting a

3Notably, Rawls devoted considerable effort to distinguishing his position from Rosss, which he apparentlyrespected (1971: 40). Indeed, Rawlss Justice as Fairness (2001) contains passages that appear to give intuitionthe kind of role it plays in much of Ross; see, for example, p. 134.

4Ross called the moral principles he considered self-evident self-evident just as a mathematical axiom, or arule of inference, is evident (1930: 29).

5For critical discussion of the new intuitionism, as I and several others have represented it, see Hernandez(2011) and Kaspar (2012). The new intuitionism also differs from Rosss view normatively and axiologically,but my concern is mainly ethical theory less broadly conceived.

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bottle of wine as a gift from an undergraduate student would be wrong. I find thisproposition credible in its own right though I can also argue for it. The secondcase we must take into account is intuitiveness. For me, the proposition about suchgifting has this property; that is, in its own right, taken in itself, it appears true: itevokes what might be called the sense of non-inferential credibility.

Intuitiveness is also predicable of concepts, arguments, and other intellectualphenomena, but their intuitiveness is largely explicable in terms of the intuitivenessof certain propositions in which they figure. A third case, then, is related to thefirst two. Propositions may be called intuitions when they are considered intuitiveor are regarded as intuitively known. You might say, for instance, that p (someproposition) is an intuition we share, and in building a philosophical accountof, say, reasons, we might speak of what intuitionsroughly, what intuitivepropositionsabout reasons should guide us.6

A fourth case is that of objectual intuition: a kind of non-propositionalintellectual perception: a direct apprehension of either a concept, such as thatof obligation, or of a property or relation, such as the property of being justified orthe relation of entailment. These direct apprehensions (apprehension is the morecommon term for objectual intuition) are, when occurrent, significantly akin tosensory perceptions: as with perceptions, their object is present in consciousness.An occurrent intuition of obligation, for instance, may embody apprehensionsof agency and of being bound. The same cognitive content is dispositionallyinstantiable. If I have, occurrently, an intuition of the fittingness of doing a deed tomy having promised to do it, I need not cease to have it when my mind is whollyoccupied with other matters.

A fifth case is indicated where writers on intuition view it as a kind of non-inferential judgment: a sort of intellectual verdict on a proposition or situation.7

In ethics, certain moral judgmentsjudgmental intuitionsare often so viewed, aswhere, on considering an accusation against a friend, one thinks, That is unfair.Judgmental intuitions seem to entail a kind of assent to the proposition in question:the sort of affirmational response normally taken to underlie sincere judgments.

These five cases are connected with a sixth: just as we have perceptual facultiessuch as vision, we have intellectual faculties, including intuitionreason in onesense of that wide-ranging term. The faculty of intuition is a kind of apprehensionalcapacity: a non-inferential capacity through which we know what we intuitivelydo know. It is not a modular part of the mind but a general capacity needed forphilosophical reflection and manifested in relation to each of the other five cases. Itis appropriately called non-inferential because of the way it responds to content incontext: above all, to the appearance of truth in propositional objects considered in

6Moore went so far as to say that in calling propositions intuitions, he means merely to assert that they areincapable of proof (1903: x).

7 Identification of intuition with judgment fits some of Rosss references to convictions and is explicit insome citations below. Echoing a widely held view, Sinnott-Armstrong, Young, and Cushman say: When werefer to moral intuitions, we shall mean strong, stable, immediate moral beliefs (2010: 246). Further pertinentdiscussion is provided in Stratton-Lake (2002) and Huemer (2005). I should add that I am presupposing thatinference is conscious. Some use inference to encompass non-conscious processes that, as underlying ordinaryperception, appear possible for the brain. These apparently do not entail justificatory premise-dependence.

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their own terms rather than as supported by premises. Intuition is like perception inthe directness of its cognitive deliverances, but it does not require unresponsivenessto premises. Intuitions (as deliverances of this capacity) may not come fast, anymore than an aesthetic response to a complex painting need come at first look, butintuitions are not inferentially dependent on premises.

Consider Rosss promissory principle, accepted in much ethical literature beforeand after him: If one promises toA, one has a prima facie obligation toA. I take thisto be roughly the claim that promising entails a moral reason to do the promiseddeed: a reason that is prima facie in being strong enough to justify doing the deedin the absence of stronger opposing reasons but weak enough to be overridableby those. Ross and most other intuitionists would say, using the six locutions justdescribed, that through our intuitive capacity that we can see the truth of theprinciple; that when the principle is considered with adequate understanding, it isintuitive; that one has an intuition of the obligation-making power of the relation,promising; that one may have an intuition whose content is this principle; that theprinciple itself is an intuition (a kind of intuitive datum) an ethical theory shouldaccommodate; and that judgmental intuitions may have such principles as theirpropositional contents.

Intuitions as cognitive attitudespropositional as opposed to objectualintuitionsneed special attention. Ross and many other philosophers have spokenof intuitions mainly as a kind of belief. With intuitions in mind, Ross repeatedlyreferred to the convictions of ordinary people.8 This manifests a doxastic (belief-entailing) conception. Moreover, it remains common for philosophers and othersto report their intuitions about hypothetical cases with a clear implication thatthey believe the propositions in question. In recent work in epistemology, however,intuitions are often treated as intellectual seemingsa phenomenal, attentionalsense of the truth of the proposition in question. This sense often reflects, thoughit does not entail, the propositions being intuitive: having a truth-appearance ofa kind analogous to but distinct from a sensory appearance, such as one has withperceptions of colors and shapes.9 These seemingscall them episodic intuitionsare commonly taken to entail inclinations to believe, but they are not beliefs and,like visual impressions whose accuracy one doubts, do not entail forming beliefs.

Ethical intuitionists have paid too little attention to the phenomenology ofintuitions; intuitionistic epistemologists have tended to focus predominantly on

8For Ross, the moral convictions of thoughtful and well-educated people are the data of ethics, just assense-perceptions are the data of a natural science. Just as some of the latter have to be rejected as illusory,so have some of the former; but as the latter are rejected only when they conflict with other more accuratesense-perceptions, the former are rejected only when they conflict with convictions which stand better the test ofreflection (1930: 41).

9See, e.g., Bealer (1998: 207) and Goldman and Pust (1998: 17997). Of the common modal equivalenceapproach used by Gettier and others to show, by appeal to intuitions, that knowledge is not equivalent tojustified true belief, Goldman and Pust say, Intuitions are mental occurrences . . . with contents about objectsin modal space (Goldman and Pust 1998: 184). But cf. Gopnik and Schwitzgebel: We will call any judgment. . . an intuition just in case it is not made on the basis of some explicit reasoning process that a person canconsciously observe (1998: 77). Similarly, Williamson remarks that so-called intuitions are merely judgments(or dispositions to judgment) (2007: 3). Whether judgmental intuitions entail belief is not settled in the context,but normally what one judges is so one also believes.

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the episodic, phenomenal conception of intuition and (in recent years) to stressthat episodic intuition is not belief-entailing. But how the episodic and doxasticconceptions are related still needs explanation. Discerning that relation requiresexploring phenomenological aspects of intuitions conceived in both ways. A centralquestion here is whether, although intuitive seemings do not entail believingtheir propositional objects, doxastic intuitions nonetheless depend on intuitiveseemings.10 Answering this should help us to explain a difference between moralphilosophers and epistemologists in their main conceptions of intuitionor at leasttheir main appeals to it.

3. The Phenomenology of Intuition

Doxastic intuitions are not occurrences, and their possession does not entailmanifestations in consciousness. As a kind of belief, they are dispositional mentalproperties, and these can be possessed without such manifestations. When doxasticintuitions do manifest themselves in consciousnesssay, by ones having thethought that pthey do have a phenomenal character, but beliefs need not manifestthemselves phenomenally even when doing causal work, as they do in sustainingother beliefs. Still, doxastic intuitions are not merely non-inferential beliefs withintuitive content. To see this, consider whether we can have an intuition that p ifp has never come before the mind. Can we have doxastic intuitions without everhaving episodic intuitionsintuitional experienceswith the same content?

Consider the proposition that if one encounters a wandering toddler on asidewalk adjoining a traffic lane, one should protect the child. The propositionis before my mind and seems true on its own account. I have an episodic intuitionthat it is true. I need no premises for it, think of none at the time, and feel inclinedto affirm it. My sense of its truth is enhanced by my vividly imagining a childwandering near fast-moving traffic; finding this proposition intuitive does notrequire such a mental picture, and people may differ in the kinds of routes bywhich they arrive at intuitionssay, ratiocinative, pictorial, or emotionaland,depending on content and context, we may all differ in these. As it happens, Ialso believe the proposition about the toddler. But this belief need not be what Ireport if my self-ascription of the intuition is about my cognitive relation to theproposition when it is before my mind. What if I see a woman who appears tobe the childs mother some dozen feet away from the child looking in its directionbut also animatedly speaking with someone? I might still have the intuition thatI should protect the child, but this time I might not believe that. I would tend tobelieve it, but the presence of the apparent mother changes the pattern I respondto and makes the need for intervention unclear. An episodic intuition, even of anintuitive proposition, need not lead to a belief.

10 It is possible to have an intellectual impression of something non-propositional, such as an inclusionrelation between two categories; there is no need to discuss those cases separately. They may, like perceptions ofphysical objects, generate inclinations to believe particularly for propositions supported by perception. But, likepropositional intuitive seemings, they do not entail believing the propositions in question.

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These cases may also suggest that a general intuition, such as the conditionalone about wandering toddlers, arises from a singular intuition, of the sort I wouldhave if I encountered such a child apparently alone near a traffic lane. This kindof situational genesis of intuitions with general content seems common, but notstrictly necessary, in their formation. Our intuitive capacity may yield intuitionalexperiences whose objects are generaleven abstractwithout our having hadparallel experiences of what might be called supporting singular phenomena.Indeed, perhaps intuitions as such need have no particular history.

There is, however, some basis for considering the doxastic notion of an intuitionhistorical in implying that we cannot have such dispositional intuitions that pwithout ever having an intuitional experience that p. In avowing a doxastic(dispositional) intuition that psay, that one should protect endangered childrenI normally presuppose that it has an appropriate connection with an episodicintuition. But imagine a perfect psychological duplicate of me. Might my duplicate,at the very moment of creation, have the same relevant beliefs, including doxasticintuitions, that I do, at least given plausible assumptions about the supervenienceof the mental on the physical? I see no conclusive reason to answer negatively, andI leave open whether doxastic intuitionsmust trace back to or be based on episodicones, that is, intuitive seemings. In any event, for the normal cases, we mightplausibly conceive episodic intuitions as the basic kind. How might we do this?

A unified account centered on episodic intuition might, in rough outline, goas follows. Doxastic intuitions embody a disposition to have episodic intuitionswith the same content and normally have a basis in the latter, whether thatbasis is contemporaneous or developmental. Intuitiveness in a proposition is atruth-appearance of the kind manifested in an episodic intuition with the samepropositional content: broadly, evoking a sense of non-inferential credibility.Objectual intuition, when occurrent, is an apprehensional consciousness of theconcept, property, or other object in question with a focus that makes possibleepisodic intuitions about one or more aspects of it and, when dispositional, relatedto the episodic case essentially as dispositional propositional intuitions are related totheir episodic counterparts. Judgmental intuition may be conceived as an assentingcognitive response to an episodic intuition (and, when dispositional, as where it isstored in memory, as having the same kind of relation to such assentings as doxasticintuitions have to episodic intuitions). The faculty of intuition is the non-inferentialrational capacity whose central exercise manifests itself in the formation of episodicintuitions and in the retention of an appropriate range of dispositional cognitionshaving the same propositional or other objects.

This account partly explains why self-ascription of intuitions typically indicatesbelief: we tend to believe what is intuitive for us. It also partly explains the point, im-plicit in the concept of having a doxastic intuition, that if one considers its proposi-tional object, one tends to find the proposition intuitive. Suppose the basis of a dox-astic intuition is episodic intuition. Then it is expectable that, upon comprehend-ingly considering the propositionunless under defeating conditions that eliminateits appearance of truthone will have an episodic intuition with that content.

Two points emerge in the light of these reflections. First, if we adopt the parlanceof much ethical literature since at least Sidgwick, we may say that when one reports

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having the intuition that p, one normally presupposes, but does not assert, thatone believes p. The second point, easily overlooked, is that when a dispositionalintuition is a kind of belief, then although the intuition normally has a basis inepisodic intuition, the belief need not have arisen from any intuition. What we nowintuitively believesay, having reflected on a proposition and found it compellinglyintuitivewe may have previously come to believe through testimony, throughsimply reading it, or indeed by inference. In those cases we may form beliefs inthe normal way we do when we are open to receiving information and our criticalfaculties are, even if ready to block the doubtful, fully open to the flow of theplausible. If a doxastic intuition must be non-inferential and has a basis in anepisodic intuition, the belief constituting the former may arise beforehand and byany of a number of routes. A doxastic intuition, moreoversay, that beneficenceis obligatoryneed not persist even with retained belief of its propositional object.An opposing narrative may undermine ones sense of the non-inferential credibilityof that proposition. But what no longer stands on its own may still be sustained bypremises. Indeed, where intuition fades, philosophical reflection may cast the lightof supporting argument on the formerly intuitive proposition.

Brief as it is, this phenomenological sketch suggests an explanation of thedifference, at least in emphasis, in the way moral philosophers, especially ethicalintuitionists, and epistemologists have tended to view intuition.Moral philosophershave regarded their main normative principles as justifiable and, if not as intuitionsin the sense in which certain propositions are called intuitions, at least as fullyconsonant with intuitive judgments subsumable under the principlesfor instance,principles about specific promises or about cases that, like the wandering toddler,call for beneficence. Moreover, even non-intuitionist moral philosophers haveconsidered intuition to be sometimes needed to determine what one should doin difficult situations. Here, too, it is natural to take the deliverances of onesintuitive rational capacity to be doxastic, as they commonly are. Such doxasticresponses are the more likely where deliverances are cautious, say to the effect thatone probably should do a given thing. Here belief is more readily formed when itscontent carries a lesser commitment.

By contrast, at least since Descartes, epistemologists have been deeplyconcerned with skepticism and perennially preoccupied with the regress ofjustification. Consider this: beliefs admit of justification, and if intuitions are beliefs(convictions, for example), then, particularly if they are fallible, as is common,they admit of justification and may need it. If, however, one takes intuitions withself-evident objects to be unprovable and, like Ross and others, considers singularintuitions to be admissible as data in ethics, and in that way foundational, onemay see no need to justify these cognitions. But if, like many epistemologists,one is concerned with stopping the regress of justification, one will seek, even forperceptual beliefs of a kind moral philosophers typically presuppose, grounds forjustification that can confer it and do not admit of it, hence cannot be attacked aslacking it. Intuitional experiences can play this role. As phenomenal episodes, theyare not true or false. They can be misleading, but not justified or unjustified.

Episodic intuitions, then, can serve as data at the ground levelor some groundlevel: some grounds are harder than others, some higher, offering wider perspective,

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some richer, providing better fruits. We need not take justificatory grounds to beinfallible or indefeasible supports for belief, but beliefs that derive from themreceive prima facie justification.11 Doxastic intuitions, moreover, as non-inferentialcognitions, may rest directly on such grounds. That does not guarantee truth, butit does eliminate defeat by inferential dependence on a false premise or invalidreasoning.

Given these two patterns of discourse in ethics and epistemology, must weregiment intuitional terminology to avoid ambiguity? In some contexts this isdesirable, but we need not abandon either the doxastic or the episodic conceptionof intuition. The two conceptions, once distinguished, can work side by side,particularly if their intimate relation is kept in mind. A doxastic intuition, as abelief, may be justified not only by appeal to the episodic intuition likely availableto its possessor and commonly a basis for it, but also by argument from premises.An episodic intuition, as an experience, does not stand in need of justificationand may confer it. Like sense experience, it is only a fallible indicator of truth;but much as we cannot navigate the physical world without sense experience, wecannot adequately pursue truth in ethics or elsewhere without intuition.

4. The Intuitive, the Evident, and the Self-evident

The intuitive has been closely associated with the self-evident. The association isespecially close in ethical intuitionism, which has prominently claimed self-evidencefor certain moral principles. Our examples show, however, that (as Ross and otherintuitionists realized) some intuitions have non-self-evident propositions as objects,for example, my intuition that I should protect the wandering toddler even with itsapparent mother in view. Moreover, like visual experience, intuitional experiencemay yield false belief. The self-evident, however, like the evident, is factive. Falsepropositions can seem evident, even self-evident, but not be so. On my view, self-evident propositions are truths meeting two conditions: (1) in virtue of adequatelyunderstanding them, one has justification for believing them (which does not entailthat all who adequately understand them do believe them); and (2) believing themon the basis of adequately understanding them entails knowing them (see Audi2004: ch. 2). To see how something self-evident need be neither intuitive nor evenbelieved upon comprehending consideration, focus on the proposition that a childcan be borne by its grandmother. One may well have an intuition that this is falseuntil one figures out how it can be true. Oddly, the intuition of falsity might persisteven then, at least when the proposition is considered without bearing in mind theinitially misleading contingencies.12

11This view is defended in detail by proponents of phenomenal conservatism, the liberal view that if itseems to one that p, one has some degree of justification for believing p. For extensive discussion see Tucker(2013).

12Some readers maymost readily see the truth here by recallingOedipus Rex.Oedipus unknowingly marriedhis mother. They had children, and she was their grandmother. My example presents an odd possibility, butoddity is no bar to self-evidence.

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Even if one agrees that (true) propositional intuitions need not have self-evidentobjects, one might think that, apart from oddities like our parenting case, the self-evident must be intuitive. Commonly it is, but what of such logical propositions asthis: if p entails q, and q entails r, and r entails s, and s is false, then p is false? Ifind this intuitive, but must everyone who comprehendingly considers it find it so?It may be that once one sees how this is true, it will seem intuitive, but I doubt thatthis holds for the self-evident in logic generally, and it is not true for all candidatesfor the self-evident in ethics.

This logical example shows two other important things about the self-evident.First, contrary to most major ethical intuitionists of the twentieth century, self-evidence is compatible with provability, as the logical example illustrates. Second,adequate understanding of a self-evident propositionthe kind of understandingthat guarantees being justified in believing itmay, for some people, requiredrawing inferences. For example, someone might need to infer from the antecedentof the theorem we began with that p entails s. Inferring this might be howone sees that if s is false, then p is also false (it is luminously true that if pentails s, and not-s, then not-p). This deduction, however, represents an internalinference: its premisesthat p entails q, that q entails r, and that r entails sare supplied (though not asserted) in the antecedent of the target proposition,the original long self-evident proposition. The inference is not external, in thesense that the self-evident proposition justifiedly believable in the light of it isinferred from premises that this proposition does not itself (internally) supply. Self-evidence does not rule out external inferential routes to self-evident propositions,but self-evident propositions, even when provable, are not premise-dependent,in the sense that justification for them requires climbing the ladder of externalinference.

In some cases, then, the kind of understanding that guarantees justification forbelieving a self-evident proposition can be indirect and may arise partly throughdrawing inferences. Understanding need not require inference, but may employit. Indeed, in some cases, many inferential connections between p and otherpropositions must be grasped for p to be adequately understood in the first place.This is one reason why the self-evident need not be obvious.

Far more could be said here about understanding, but enough has been shownto indicate directions for further inquiry and to refute some stereotypes that blockthe appreciation of intuition as important in and beyond ethics and of self-evidenceas an element in most versions of ethical intuitionism. Intuition need not be amomentary snapshot. It may be virtually instantaneous, but that is testimony tohow much the mind can encompass at once, and anyway, it is not the only case.With intuition, as with perception, temporal immediacy does not entail narrowvision. Both can quickly respond to complex patterns. Moreover, the self-evident,even when intuitive, need not be unprovable. But it also need not be intuitive, andcertainly not obvious, in the first place. These points explain how believing it canbe withheld. We can thus reject yet another stereotype blocking the plausibilityof rationalism in ethics and of intuitionism in particular. The self-evident neednot be unprovable, need not be obvious, and need not be rationally beyonddispute.

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5. Rational Disagreement in Ethics: The Intuitionists Dilemma

Ethical intuitionism faces a dilemma, indeed one that can beset almost anyintuitionist view. If the self-evident is by its very nature obvious and unprovable, noone who understands it should fail to believe it, and it needs no proof. If, however,it is not the case that the self-evident is by its very nature obvious and unprovable,then rational persons can disagree about its truth, and those who deny or doubt itmay demand proof and may reject it if proof is not forthcoming. The first horn waswielded by Prichard and has led many philosophers to view ethical intuitionism asdogmatic.13 The second yields a challenge that must be met if the new intuitionismnow in development is to be sustained. Having rejected the stereotypes that underliethe first horn, I will examine the second. I will argue that neither dogmatism norskepticism need result from intuitionism that employs the moderate conception ofself-evidence and the associated notion of intuition I have described.

It is not just Rossian moral principles and counterpart epistemic principles thatwe should take into account in dealing with disagreement about the self-evident.Many philosophical theses may be conceived as self-evident if true. Consider a basicepistemic principle: It is not rational to believe something having the form of p andnot-p. We tend to presuppose this, and even if we can think of ways to argue for it,we do not take it to need argument. We can, of course, illustrate this principle byciting propositions of similar statusthat believing that I am reading and I am notreading is not rational, that believing that this paper is white and that is not whiteis not rational, etc. One could call this kind of support of a self-evident propositionintuitive induction, as did Ross, citing Aristotle. But this kind of argument doesnot work, as supporting arguments usually do, by adducing premises knowable,or justifiably believable, wholly independently of the conclusion they are meantto support. It works mainly by enhancing the understanding of the proposition itsupports. Here it may parallel the way certain self-evident propositions are learned.But the order of argumentation need not match the order of learning. Arguing fora proposition we believe by appeal to premises for it does not imply that thesepremises lay on our route to believing it.

To focus the question of how we should conceive rational disagreement on theself-evident, recall a basic point about self-evidence: that adequately understandinga self-evident proposition entails having justification for believing it, but notbelieving it. Given this account, it should be clear how one can understand aself-evident proposition and still comprehendingly consider it without believingit. A central point is that adequacy of understanding goes beyond basic semanticcomprehension. A bilingual person, for instance, could understand a self-evidentproposition well enough to translate a sentence expressing it into another language,yet still fail to believe it. Someone who can immediately translate A child can beborne by its grandmother may still need reflection or even Socratic questioning toachieve understanding of the kind that justifies accepting the claim. Mere semantic

13For Sidgwicks view of dogmatic intuitionism (his term) see (1907: 10001). Prichard (1912) givesthis impression in the way he stresses the mistake of supposing the possibility of proving what can only beapprehended directly in an act of moral thinking. The view that intuitionism is dogmatic is reiterated in pointsmade by Korsgaard (1998: 38, for example).

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comprehension of that proposition need not justify believing it. But seeing its truththrough an adequate understanding of it enables one to believe it non-inferentially,presumably on the basis of apprehending the concepts figuring in it and the relationsamong them in virtue of which the proposition is true.

An adequate understanding of a self-evident proposition, moreover, does imply(at least in a rational person) a disposition to believe it, indeed, one strongenough so that non-belief given comprehending consideration calls for explanation.Two possible explanations are thoroughgoing skepticism and commitment to atheory clearly implying the negation of the self-evident proposition. In the caseof disagreement on a complex proposition, finding such an explanation is oftenpossible, but it may not be easy. Moreover, in some cases it is unclear whethera person lacks adequate understanding. Understanding comes in degrees. WithRossian principles in mind, let us explore how these points about the self-evidentbear on rational disagreement.

If, like the major intuitionists from at least Moore on, one takes moral propertiesto be consequential (hence supervenient) on non-moral properties, one might thinkthat rational persons who directly disagree on a moral proposition either donot share all the relevant non-moral information or do not each see what thatinformation indicates. This view is highly plausible, but its applicability is limitedby the impossibility, in many cases, of specifying all the information relevant: theinformation indicating the non-moral properties on the basis of which there is atruth of the matter in dispute. Recent epistemological work has raised a challengingproblem that does not presuppose our having such comprehensive information:how to deal with possible disagreements one has with someone who seems, in therelevant matter, an epistemic peer: roughly, a person who (a) is as rational andas thoughtful as oneself (in the relevant matter, the assessment of whether p istrue), (b) has considered the same relevant evidencewhich need not be all therelevant evidenceand (c) has done so equally conscientiously (see Audi [2011]and, for further discussion, Christensen and Lackey [2013]). By contrast with mostdescriptions of epistemic parity, this one requires that the parties consider therelevant evidence and do so equally conscientiously. If parity requires only sharingthe same relevant evidence and having the same epistemic virtues (or being equallyrational in the matter, which is a similar condition), nothing follows about howfully these virtues are expressed. Hence, despite possessing the same evidence, theparties might have devoted very different amounts of time or effort to appraisingthe proposition. That disparity is common in philosophical controversies.

Given the complexity and idealization in the notion of epistemic parity, onewould at best rarely be justified in considering a disputant an epistemic peerregarding the disputed proposition. This point alone explains how one mightjustifiedly adhere to a view one knows someone else rationally denies. Suppose,however, that one is justified in believing something weaker and more general:that a disputant is, by and large, an epistemic peer on the relevant subject, such asethics. Rational disagreement still seems possible. This can be seen in relation todisagreement on the status of Rossian principles (Rosss and similar ones). Sincehaving an adequate understanding of a self-evident proposition implies having ajustification for believing it but does not entail believing it, one could rationally

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believe that a disputant can adequately understand a self-evident proposition, bejustified in believing it, yet not believe it.

Take the strong particularist case against Rosss intuitionism (a counterpartcase may also be made for rejecting the self-evidence of certain epistemic principles).Using examples such as promises whose fulfillment would kill innocent people,some have denied that promising to do something entails any prima facie moralreason to do it. One might hold that only in particular cases viewed holistically canone tell whether promising yields any obligation. Suppose that, quite reasonably,intuitionists do not allow that one can be justified both in believing p and inbelieving not-p. They must then deny either that the particularist adequatelyunderstands the promissory principle (where adequate understanding impliesjustification for believing the principle) or that the particularists arguments justifyrejecting it. Intuitionists may deny the latter even while granting that the argumentsprovide some reason to accept strong particularism (this is my strategy in Audi[2006] in responding to a strong version of particularism). Let me explain.

A major point here is that lack of overall justification for believing p does notimply that believing it is irrational. Being sometimes unjustifiedin the sense oflacking overall justificationis common in rational persons in matters requiringrigorous reasoning; irrationality, by contrast, is a lapse they do not often suffer. Inany event, failure to use reason adequately does not entail flying in its face. Thatfailure is compatible with having some degree of justification, but the questionhere is overall justification of the kind that normally suffices for knowledge whenthe relevant belief is true and, in broad terms, appropriately grounded. This pointis important in appraising disagreement. It implies that even justified confidencethat a disputant is unjustified does not automatically warrant considering thedisputant irrational. This implication bears on appropriate reactions to apparentpeer disagreements andthe more realistic caseon disagreements that approachthem: an unjustified but not irrational disputant (or one holding an unjustified butnot irrational position) can give one some reason to doubt the proposition(s) atissue, even if not in general sufficient reason to doubt or withhold it.

6. Two Orders of Disagreement

So far, the depth and resolvability of disagreement on the self-evident have not beenaddressed. These variables are important for understanding disagreements on self-evident propositions of the kind important for ethical intuitionism and indeed forother philosophical positions. We might begin with a distinction between two kindsof disagreement in normative matters. Consider two jurors. They might agree intheir verdict but disagree in their reasons for it. One takes the accuseds standing toinherit a tidy sum to support guilt; the other, believing the accused to be already rich,does not. Or consider two parents who disagree on the appropriate punishment oftheir errant child. One believes, and the other disbelieves, that the offense calls forspanking. Disagreement in reasons concerns one or more elements that are (at leastpresumptive) reasons: it is difference regarding whether, in such contexts as thoseillustrated, the reasons succeed in the supporting role in question. Disagreement

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on reasons concerns reasons conceived as such, typically their epistemic or onticstatus. Parties who disagree in reasons need not differ on any higher-order view ofreasons, such as the thesis that reasons are constituted by evidence. If they do, theirdisagreement at that level is on reasons.

Disagreement on reasons is common in philosophy and is, broadly speaking,theoretical and higher-order. Disagreement in reasons, though also common inphilosophy, is not theoretical but a kind of disagreement in practice, especially inproviding explanations and justifications. It often concerns whether a particularconsideration succeeds as a normative reasonfor example, whether it justifies alie. Disagreement on reasons often concerns the nature of a normative roleforinstance, whether only facts can justify. Reasons are crucial in epistemology andother philosophical fields besides ethics, but let us focus just on ethics.

In ethical discourse, disagreement in reasons is concrete and most often occurs inone or more of three cases. It may concern (1) whether a particular factor, such as aspecific promise to a friend, is a reason or an explanation, say for a specific action,(2) whether a certain normative principle, viewed in the context of someonesgiving a reason in accordance with it, is true (a disagreement closely related to thefirst case) or (3) whether a relevant inferencefor instance to the conclusion thatsomeone did wrong in breaking a promiseis, given the relevant facts, appropriate(above all, valid or adequately probable). Disagreement on reasons is abstract anddoes not entail disagreement in reasons even where the reasons in question are, likepromises, the very factors that figure in the abstract formulationssuch as Rossianprinciplesregardingwhich there is direct disagreement, the kindmanifestedwhereone party affirms the principle and the other denies it. This explains why skepticsabout morality who deny that there are justificatory reasons may, like non-skeptics,in everyday life criticize someone as having no good reason to break a promise.

The practice of giving counterexamples also illustrates the disparity in question:between uses of reasons (or indeed other notions) and views about them. Beyondthis, the practice illustrates a certain fluidity in normative discourse: agreementsand disagreements in reasons about concrete cases may lead to agreements anddisagreements on reasons in general and vice versa. This fluidity can make thedistinction difficult to draw for certain disputes but does not reduce its importance.Reasons are somewhat like tools: knowing how to use them does not imply abilityto describe them, but such know-how can assist description, as good descriptioncan sometimes enhance know-how.

Disagreement in ethics need not derive from adherence to any particular theory.Consider another intuitive moral principle (also affirmed by Ross and others):Injuring other people is (prima facie) wrong. Suppose I am angry at a small boywho jostles me on running into a crowded bus. Imagine that I sharply slap hisface and bloody his nose. You might be shocked by this violence and say that Ioverreacted and should apologize. If I replied, Why? I was angry at him and hadno reason not to strike him, would you assent? Isnt ones first thought to the effectthat there was of course a reason not to slap him? This thought would indicate adisagreement in reasons. Would any normal person doubt that there is some reasonnot to slap him? Much as promising to A is virtually always accepted as a reason toA, the fact that doing something would injure a person is virtually always accepted

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as a reason not to do that. This pattern of response does not depend on any theory,perhaps not even on any implicitly accepted moral principle. The term reason isalso not crucial, nor is any higher-order view of reasons. It is no more likely that Iwould respond to my critic with I like slapping boys who annoy me, and I dontsee why I shouldnt, where this is not to give an excuse or appeal to any theorybut to reject avoiding injury as any reason to abstain.

Disagreement on reasons tends to be less deep than disagreement in them,especially in controlling thought and action. Suppose I reject the promissoryprinciple because it conflicts with my desire-satisfaction theory of reasons foraction. An agents desires need not be optimally satisfied bymaintaining promissoryfidelity. Still, in spontaneous self-expression, as where parents chide their childrenfor selfishness, I might criticize someone for breaking a promise and mightunhesitatingly reject the claim that, because a change of desires made the promise-keeping aversive, the agent had no reason to do the promised deed. Spontaneouscritical practice often belies a theory that should explain it.

Reason-giving is a natural part of communicative discourse. It is a commonelement in most adult human lives, but knowing how to give reasons does not implyknowing how to describe how we do it. Even after considerable reflection, one mayeasily formulate a normative principle (or a description of a reason) inadequate toones own practice or reject a principle or description devised by someone else thatis adequate to it. Much the same holds for principles that account for our linguisticusage. There, too, intuition is an essential guide to normal usage but, even asgoverning the concrete cases to which linguistic principles are responsible, maywell not yield an ability to formulate such principles or prevent rejecting correctprinciples formulated by others.

Distinguishing between disagreements on reasons and disagreements in reasonsdoes not depend on any particular terminology, especially reason or anyequivalent; much explanatory and justificatory discourse appeals to the relevantnotions in other terms, and I intend what I say about disagreement in and onreasons to apply to various other normative notions, including that of justification.A crucial element here is norm-guidedness: if, for instance, rational, sensible,or even ok are used in the right critical manner, then noting their applicationscan help us to determine whether people agree or disagree in reasons. Moreover,much agreement is implicit, a matter of such variables as what classifications one isdisposed to make and of what inferences one would draw or reject. An importantinstance is moral reasons. We appeal to such considerations in numerous ways.Just saying, for example, I cantit would hurt her feelings or I wont say that;it would be a lie, implicitly recognizes the status of lying or hurting feelings asproviding reasons.

Agreement with Rossians on the relevance and, especially, the force ofpromissory reasons and other reasons that intuitionists emphasize may be, invarious ways, implicit. Even if I reject the Rossian promissory principle, I maystill virtually always (1) assume that I am morally obligated to do a thing given thatI have promised to; (2) consider wrongor at least wrong if not excusablebrokenpromises I learn of; and (3) infer (or presuppose), when people tell me that they havepromised a third party to do something, that they ought to do it. Here, (1) indicates

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a classificatory response to a reason for action (a reason grounded in promising); (2)illustrates both that response and a judgmental response to acting contrary towhat areason calls for; and (3) indicates an inferential response to promising as providinga reason for action. These responses, in a common, spontaneous pattern, weighheavily against rejecting the promissory principle. Now I submit that such cognitivedisparities between ourin my viewbasic cognitive behavior and our high-levelgeneral beliefs and dispositions to believe are not uncommon and that part of thetask of philosophy is to eliminate such disparities where possible. Here intuitionsabout the classification of cases and about the validity or plausibility of inferencesare important elements in achieving reflective equilibrium. As philosophers knowwell, it takes great skill to formulate principles, or to specify what types of elementsconstitute reasons, in ways that do justice to ones own careful usage and captureones own (non-formal) inferential practices. This is one reason why disagreementon reasons may be resolvable by clarification, often through presentation of casesor through the search for reflective equilibrium.

Disagreements in ethics, then, are easily taken to indicate greater cognitivedifferences than they in fact show. Vague disagreements, whether on or in reasons,may be mitigated or eliminated by clarification, and when deep disagreements areon reasons, they may still be accompanied by a high degree of concurrence in usingand responding to reasons. Kantians and certain utilitarians, for example, oftenlargely agree in reasons important for political decisions and often endorse liberalpolicies. It is quite possible, moreover, to be reasonable in retaining a plausiblycontested conviction when one is respectfully resolved to explore the objections.The reasonableness of adhering to a disputed view may in fact depend on its higher-order context in the mind of the adherent.

It should now be clear how a rational person can understand a self-evidentproposition adequately, acquire justification for believing it, yet find plausiblearguments against it and thereby excusably and, in some at least minimally rationalway, deny it. I leave open the question of conditions under which one can justifiablybelieve that a dissenting interlocutor is in the epistemically undesirable position justdescribed. My concern here is to indicate how rational disagreements can extendeven to the self-evident, to facilitate their resolution by distinguishing disagreementon reasons from disagreement in reasons, and to show how the former is compatiblewith considerable agreement, between the disputants, in reasons. Agreement in rea-sons is often a basis for resolving disagreements on them,much as coincidence in ouruse of tools can lead to agreement on descriptions of them. In dealing with rationaldisagreement, then, I cannot see that intuitionist ethics is significantly worse off thanany other major view in moral philosophy or, for that matter, worse off than philo-sophical views that do not purport to defend substantive self-evident propositions.

7. Intuitions without Intuitionism, Intuitionism without Realism

I have refuted some common misconceptions of intuition, intuitionism, and theself-evident. I have also shown how natural it is to appeal to intuitions in seekingevidence for philosophical views and even in supporting some everyday moral

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propositions. If I am right, we should expect to find appeal to intuitions, sometimeswithout the name, in many fields. Here are four historically significant cases drawnfrom philosophers not generally considered intuitionists.

Aristotle might be seen as providing intuitive anchors for virtue theory whenhe said that not every action or feeling admits of a mean. For some have namesimmediately connected with depravity, such as spite, shamelessness, envy, and,among actions, adultery, theft, homicide (Nicomachean Ethics 1107a [2000: 31]).Aquinas, in one place (Summa theologiae Iallae Q 91, Art 2), referred to naturalreason, whereby we discern what is good and what is evil as if he took naturalreason to be what I have called the faculty of intuition. He affirmed, as the firstprecept of natural law, good is to be done and promoted, and evil is to beavoided . . . so that whatever the practical reason naturally apprehends as mansgood (or evil) belongs to the precepts of the natural law as something to be doneor avoided. These precepts he said (earlier in the same article) are self-evidentprinciples (Summa Iallae Q 94, Art 2). Third, might we not see Kants ringingaffirmation, Now I say that man, and in general every rational being, exists as anend in himself, not merely as a means for arbitrary use by this or that will as anexpression of an intuition? (Kant [1785]1948: 95). EvenMill, who disparaged whathe called the intuitive school, apparently regarded two of his important claims asintuitive: The only proof . . . that an object is visible is that people actually seeit. . . . In like manner, I apprehend, the sole evidence it is possible to produce thatsomething is desirable is that people do actually desire it (Mill [1861]1979: 34;italics added). Nothing said here implies that these philosophers lacked or couldnot find premises for the propositions in question. My point is that they took thesepropositions to be plausible, perhaps indeed knowable, in their own right, as iscommon with propositions that, on considering their content, one finds intuitive.

Clearly, we need not regard the philosophers just quoted as intuitionists.Philosophers in any field can make essential use of intuitions without beingcommitted to intuitionism. May we go so far as to say that, as Ross implied,intuitions are data not only of ethics but of philosophy, much as sense perceptionsare data of science?14 Consider the analogy to perception. My seeing a copperbeech tree about 100 feet from where I am seated is an orienting perception. I havea perceptual belief that it is about 100 feet away and must take it into accountin certain activities. When I go inside, I cease to have this perceptual belief butremember the proposition that was rendered a datum by perception. I can normallytrust this memory even if I cannot perceptually confirm it. Without trusting memoryin such cases, we cannot function normally.

Now compare the case of intuition. I have an intuition that one should actprotectively toward the wandering toddler I described. The proposition is beforemy mind, and I find it highly credible in its own right, independently of thinking of

14Ross (1930: 41); cf. Williamsons point that If philosophical intuitions are simply beliefs, they fallwithin . . . Epistemic Conservatism . . . one has a defeasible right to ones beliefs (2007: 242). Intuitionistsneed claim no more than this regarding doxastic intuitions, and I find nothing in Williamsons qualified defenseof armchair philosophy (2007: 7) inconsistent with the idea, prominent in the new intuitionism, that episodicintuitions tend to confer prima facie justification on their doxastic counterparts.

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any premises for it. Granted, the sense of looming danger is a factor in my findingit so, but this no more implies an inference than does my analogous sense of goodlydistance as a factor in coming to believe that the copper beech is about 100 feetaway. There is also a difference from the perceptual case: if I look at the tree andconsider whether it is about 100 feet away, I normally must form the belief that itis, whereas I can often resist belief formation when an intuitive proposition comesbefore my mind.15 This does not by itself imply that intuitional impressions areless reliable than perceptual ones: it is not inconceivable that the world be suchthat the probability of truth given the former is higher than that of truth giventhe latter. This is apparently not our world, however, and that point is one reasonwhy perception tends to be more trusted than intuition. Human knowledge as weknow it depends on both perception and intuition. Philosophy does not depend onperception in the way or to the extent that it depends on intuition. For philosophy,intuition has at least this advantage: we can at will call propositions before themind to subject them to appraisal, whereas nature must cooperate in ways it oftendoes not if we are to produce or reproduce perceptions. Reflection has wings andcan go where it will. Perception is imprisoned in our bodies and depends on oursurroundings.

The important point here, too rarely appreciated by philosophers, is that episodicintuitions evidence propositions in a non-inferential way that bears importantsimilarities to the way in which perceptions evidence propositions essential forscientific inquiry and indeed for ordinary navigation of the world. In both casesthere is conferral of a degree of justification and there is reliance on memory forretention of the propositions so evidenced. To be sure, there are differences. Whenbeliefs arise from intuitional experiences and are retained inmemory, we tend to callthem intuitions, but when beliefs arise from sense perception and are memoriallyretained, we do not call them perceptual beliefs. That is probably because, whereasthe very thought of the propositional object of an intuition tends to evoke the (ora) grounding intuitional experience, the parallel point plainly does not hold forpropositions believed on the basis of perception and then recalled from memorywithout the same occasion for sensory confirmation. Granted, where a belief isoccurrently based on perception, as is my visual belief about the copper beechwhen I view it, we can speak of seeing (hence perceiving) that it is about 100 feetaway. This is a propositional perception based on seeing the tree. But for beliefsarising from perception and retained in memory, we cannot revisit their groundsjust by calling their propositional objects to mind; for beliefs arising from episodicintuition, we commonly can do this. This is epistemologically significant. In thecrucible of reflection, we can review, reappraise, and, often, confirm.

Much more could be said about the strength of the analogies and disanalogieshere. But it should at least be clear that only a thoroughgoing skeptic would deny

15 I would not say one can always resist believing p given an episodic intuition that p. Maddy apparentlytakes such intuitions to be even more like perception than I do here: Intuitions can be false, so no matterhow obvious they seem, they must be confirmed like any theory, and . . . can be overthrown. Their status asintuitions, the fact that they force themselves upon us, is some evidence in their favor to begin with, but sufficientdisconfirming evidence can outweigh this initial advantage (1980: 18788).

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that some degree of rational support is implied by clear and steadfast sensoryappearances, and I see no reason to consider intuitive experience different in kindon this point. Descartes, preoccupied with defeating skepticism, used the metaphorof the light of nature for the faculty of intuition operating at its best: deliveringclear and distinct ideas. The metaphor is good if we include the deliverances ofsense experience among the beams of light. Here I am content to hold that withoutthe light of intuition there are both objects and propositions that we either cannotsee at all or cannot see clearly enough for justification and knowledge. The sameholds, of course, for the light of perception.

If, in philosophical and other thinking, intuition has the pervasive role I havesketched, and if intuition is similar to perception in the ways I have described, thenit should be evident that recognition of this role does not foreclose the possibility ofnaturalism in ethics, even intuitionist ethics. Given that, historically, intuitionistshave opposed naturalism, one might wonder how this can be so. A short answeris that neither the role of intuition regarding singular moral propositions nor evenits role in providing justification for self-evident generalizations implies that theproperties in question are non-natural. A priori relations can hold among natural aswell as among non-natural properties. What is round, for instance, is not square.16

As to anti-realism, Berkeley provides a historically important example of anti-realism about the objects of perception together with no less reliance on intuitionthan one would expect in philosophy. Might noncognitivist anti-realists in ethicsdo as well? They cannot take assertive moral sentences to ascribe propertiesand thereby be truth-apt, but they may still take moral judgments and themoral attitudes they express to be non-inferential when their basis is of the kindintuitionists have posited, such as the perception of an apparently endangeredtoddler. Such attitudes may also be understood as norm-guided in much theway linguistic behavior is norm-guided: in neither case is one compelled to positnon-natural properties as essential to explaining the critical practices the normsprescribe. Moreover, acceptable claims of self-evidence can be conceived in termsof reasonable assertibility on the basis of understanding. Philosophical ingenuitycan salvage all the accoutrements of truth value even while it jettisons the propertiesusually considered essential to its basis.

Ethical intuitionism explicitly gives intuitions a major evidential role regardingboth singular moral judgments and moral principles. But this role is not one thatintuitions cannot play in other ethical theories, other branches of philosophy, andindeed in aspects of scientific inquiry. Moreover, although ethical intuitionism iscommitted to countenancing non-inferential justification, it may be adapted to anempiricist epistemology and to ontological naturalism. It may even be adapted toa noncognitivist, anti-realist moral ontology by taking non-inferential justificationto apply to judgments viewed as expressions not of propositions but of attitudes,stances, plans, or other non-truth-valued elements. Such noncognitivist views canincorporate the normative standards Ross and other intuitionists have articulated,

16For an indication of the range of intuitionist positions, including response intuitionism, which sheattributes to Roeser (2010), and appearance intuitionism, which is possible in empiricist versions, see Tropman(2014).

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and they can account for the way in which, both in content and through evokingmotivation, those standards can guide conduct. My own ethical intuitionism ismoderately rationalist, realist, and uncommitted to ontological naturalism. Myprimary aim has not been to defend my own ethical theory but to clarify the notionof intuition and to show its overall importance in moral inquiry. If I have been right,intuitionism must be counted among the major kinds of ethical theory adequateto guiding theoretical reflection in ethics and relevant to guiding moral conduct ineveryday life.

May we conclude, as Ross did, that intuitions are the data of ethics? Whether intheir doxastic or even their episodic forms, they are not the only data of ethics, butin both forms they are often durable strands in the fabric of moral sensibilityand indispensable supports for moral judgment. They are essential for ethicalreflection. They are crucial for serious reflection of any kind. They are startingpoints for philosophical theories even if the structures we initially build from themultimately need other foundations. What we build philosophically goes beyondthe deliverances of intuition, but intuitions are unavoidable in the appraisal andreappraisal of our results. This conception of philosophy does not in the leastimply that scientific findings and theories are irrelevant to its work. Far fromit: accounting, in a certain way, for scientific knowledge and indeed empiricalknowledge in general is a major task of philosophy. The larger philosophicalquestion is the power of reason: the question of the kind and extent of justificationand knowledge possible through reflection. Here data must come from objects ofintuition as well as from sense perception. Intuitions, even when their objects areself-evident, do not put those objects beyond rational dispute. Intuitions provideideas for exploration, evidence for judgment, and guidance for action. If intuitionsnever preclude disagreement on substantive matters, they also do not undermineour routes to rational resolution. Philosophical reflection, whether or not it isintuitive, is not isolated from common experience or scientific progress, not evenon its normative side, but the role of intuition and a priori reflection portrayed hereremains a central element in both the pursuit of knowledge and the autonomy ofphilosophy.

robert audiuniversity of notre dame

Raudi@nd.edu

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