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Intuiting Moral Truth Bernard Hoose Louvain Studies 35 (2011) 53-68 doi: 10.2143/LS.35.1.2084428 © 2011 by Louvain Studies, all rights reserved Intuiting Moral Truth Bernard Hoose Abstract. — In Veritatis splendor, John Paul II made reference to the participation of the practical reason in ethics. Working out the relationship between these two, notes Joseph Selling, is precisely the task of moral theology. This article asks what part, if any, is played in this relationship by intuition. Given the fact that there is a fair amount of confusion, however, it is important to clarify what precisely one means when one refers to intuition. Here the word is used to indicate immediate knowledge, or knowledge that is obtained without any process of reasoning from premises to a conclusion taking place. In the first half of the twentieth century, there was a good deal of debate about the role of intuition in ethics among philosophers who were members of the school of Intuitionism. Early in the second half of that century, however, Intuitionism went out of fashion. Since that time, little attention seems to have been given to the role of intuition in ethics by either philosophers or theologians, in spite of the fact that reasoned arguments about objective ethics always begin with some intuition or other, and some arguments against certain positions amount to nothing more than claims that they lead to conclusions which are counter intuitive. Reasoned argument and intuition, then, should not be seen as opponents. Both, it would seem, have essential roles to play. Access to both, however, can be impeded by ignorance, psychological and cultural conditioning, and structures of sin. In everyday conversation the word “theory” is commonly used sim- ply as an alternative to “hypothesis,” the former word probably being employed more often than the latter. “I have a theory that so and so is the case” often means little more than “I think there is a good chance that so and so is the case.” In the world of science, however, the word “theory” has a more restricted meaning. In the application of scientific method, only a tried and tested hypothesis that satisfactorily answers all the relevant questions (at this point in time) is to be called a theory. Nevertheless, the fact remains that individual scientists make use of everyday language as well as the language of science, and some of them occasionally use the everyday meaning of “theory” even in scientific contexts. Thus we find them resorting to expressions like “I have a theory that” when they are referring to a mere hypothesis. Obviously, the existence and use of two such meanings can lead to misunderstandings on occasions. The word “theory,” however, is by no means the only such cause of confusion in 994531_LouvainStudies_2011_1-2_03.indd4531_LouvainStudies_2011_1-2_03.indd 5533 113/05/113/05/11 112:352:35 54 BERNARD HOOSE academic circles. Another is “intuition.” In everyday language the word is often used to denote a hunch or a feeling about something. The same word, however, is also utilized, perhaps mainly in academic circles, to indicate something much more substantial than a hunch or feeling. It is used to indicate immediate knowledge, or knowledge that is obtained without any process of reasoning from premises to a conclusion taking place. With this meaning in mind, and turning to the world of morality, we can say that: “A moral intuition is (…) one that apprehends some moral object immediately, without there being any reasoning about it.”1 A good deal of debate about moral intuition in this sense took place dur- ing the twentieth century, some of the best known contributions coming from the pens of G. E. Moore, W. D. Ross and H. A. Prichard, who are generally labelled as Intuitionists. In spite of this, in ethical debate, one comes across moral philosophers referring to intuitions not only as imme- diate knowledge about objective morality, but also, at times, as mere feel- ings or hunches. Thus, in one place, Peter Singer writes of intuition in the sphere of ethics as “an immediate intellectual grasp of a self-evident truth.”2 Elsewhere, however, we find him saying: “When we condemn the behavior of a politician, celebrity, or friend, we often end up appealing to our moral intuitions. ‘It just feels wrong!’ we say.”3 It is easy to see how this kind of thing can lead to confusion in ethical debate. The school of Intuitionism referred to above, for instance, can and does become errone- ously identified as a crude form of emotivism, while moral intuitions are placed alongside such notions as the “yuk factor” and “a vague feeling that such and such is the right thing to do.”4 It is important to state clearly, therefore, that, in this article, a moral intuition is as defined above. Intuition in Theological and Philosophical Ethics In Veritatis splendor, John Paul II warned against views of the autonomy of reason which imply “a denial of the participation of the 1. William Lillie, An Introduction to Ethics (London: Methuen, 1948) 131. 2. Peter Singer, “Introduction,” Ethics, ed. Peter Singer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994) 8. 3. Peter Singer, “Should We Trust Our Moral Intuitions,” www.project-syndicate. org/commentary/singer21/English. Accessed 1/24/2011. 4. Elizabeth Tropman further notes that, “in its everyday usage, the term ‘intui- tion’ sometimes refers to a non-rational and generally unreliable reaction, one that is not subject to further critical evaluation. An intuition is also something that is thought to issue from some special faculty called ‘intuition’.” (“Renewing Moral Intuitionism,” Journal of Moral Philosophy 6 [2009] 440-463, here 444). 994531_LouvainStudies_2011_1-2_03.indd4531_LouvainStudies_2011_1-2_03.indd 5544 113/05/113/05/11 112:352:35 INTUITING MORAL TRUTH 55 practical reason in the wisdom of the divine Creator and Lawgiver.”5 Responding to this, Joseph Selling wrote: “No theologian is going to ‘deny the participation’ of practical reason in divine wisdom but working out the relationship between these two is precisely the task of moral theology.”6 If we take a look at the history of theological ethics to see how scholars have applied themselves to that task, we find that a good deal of what has been said and written about such participation has been in terms of natural law.7 Writing much more recently, numerous moral theologians, Selling included, have opted for a personalist approach according to which “human activity must be judged insofar as it refers to the human person integrally and adequately considered.”8 The utiliza- tion of neither approach, however, necessarily rules out the possibility that some of our ethical knowledge is intuitive. Indeed, in his discussion of natural law, Thomas Aquinas declares that some propositions are self evident to all of us9. With this in mind, he says that the first truth to be thus apprehended by the practical reason is good. The first principle of practical reasoning, founded on the notion of good, is thus “The good is what all things desire.” Good, then, is to be sought after and done, while evil is to be avoided.10 This first precept of law, as Aquinas calls it, is clear, it would seem, to all humans who are of sound mind. If you like, we simply know it. It is possible to claim much the same as Aquinas claims here with- out referring to God at all, and, indeed, a number of other philosophers have discussed the role of intuitive knowledge in ethics without making explicit reference to the divine. G. E. Moore, for instance, claimed that we simply know what good is. We intuit it. As far as he is concerned, however, this is as far as intuition takes us. From this point on, Moore’s ideal utilitarianism is in charge. In his scheme of things, the right action, 5. John Paul II, Veritatis splendor, 40. 6. Joseph A. Selling, “The Context and Arguments of Veritatis Splendor,” The Splen- dor of Accuracy: An Examination of the Assertions Made by Veritatis Splendor, ed. Joseph A. Selling and Jan Jans (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans) 11-70, here 38. 7. The best known example would seem to be that of Aquinas. See Summa theo- logiae, Ia IIae q. 94. art. 2. 8. Louis Janssens, “Artificial Insemination: Ethical Considerations,” Louvain Stud- ies 8 (1980) 4. The work of Janssens has been particularly influential in the sphere of personalist ethics. His ideas have been taken up and engaged with by a number of other scholars, including Selling, Richard Gula and Kevin Kelly. Regarding Selling’s approach to the subject, see, for example, “The Human Person,” Christian Ethics: An Introduction, ed. Bernard Hoose (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1998) 95-109, and “Is a Personalist Ethic Necessarily Anthropocentric?,” Ethical Perspectives 6 (1999) 60-66. 9. Summa theologiae, Ia IIae, 94, 2. 10. Ibid. 994531_LouvainStudies_2011_1-2_03.indd4531_LouvainStudies_2011_1-2_03.indd 5555 113/05/113/05/11 112:352:35 56 BERNARD HOOSE in any set of circumstances, is the one that will produce the greatest amount of good on the whole, “no matter how bad the effects upon ourselves may be and no matter how much good we ourselves may lose by it.”11 W. D. Ross, on the other hand, adopts a rather different posi- tion. Taking “morally right,” to be indefinable, he says that the general truths of ethics are grasped through intuitive induction. We see the prima facie rightness of an act which would be the fulfil- ment of a particular promise, and of another which would be the fulfilment of another promise, and when we have reached sufficient maturity to think in general terms, we apprehend prima facie right- ness to belong to the nature of any fulfilment of promise.
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