intuitionism

David Hume is-ought-gap

18th century philosopher, claimed we cannot move logically from a statement about the way the world is to a statement about how we ought to act. is-ought-gap distinguishing between facts and ethics. radical conclusion : there is no such thing as moral facts. demonstrates the illogical jump between fact and value.

Strengths of intuitionism

Thinking how most ethicist/philosophers reach their conclusions. since good cannot be defined, there are no inadequate defintions of good. the theory is straightfoward.

Weakness of intuitionism

Perry: good is an object of favourable interest. it can be defined using natural terms. Even though the naturalistic fallacy claims that you cannot base morality on facts, it can be said that it is perfectly logical to claim that death causes suffering to the victim's family (fact) and therefore we should not kill people (moral).

The Naturalistic Fallacy

'you cannot derive an ought from an is' moore. cannot base morality on facts.e.g. people starving in Nepal cannot be turned into the moral 'we should feed the starving in Nepal.' cannot adopt the naturalistic position of defining what is good by what we observe in the world.

Other thinkers : Pritchard

H.A.Pritchard: argeed more that ethical language is objective. he thought that our intuitions involve more than just goodness, but also a sense of obligation or duty. argeed with the is-ought gap. in order to solve moral dilemmas, we should weigh up our different obligations and work out which is most important.

Moore's problem with good

Moore stated if good and happy meant the same thing then then the 2 sentences would not make sense either. but it does make sense, so there is a difference between goodness and happiness. Moore claims you can try and explain or define good but you will always have this problem.

Moore what open argument showed

Moore stated the open question argument showed one of two things, either: good doersn't mean anything at all and all ethics is totally pointless or: Good is a simple concept which we can't analyse. This is an intutionist position.

The Open question argument:

Moore used the open question argument to prove that good is a simple concept that cannot be broken down.

weakness of intuitionism

Norman says good is self-evident as this makes moral debates impossible. No proof for intutions being correct or proof of how intuition works. cultural relativism claims there is no universal good.

Other thinkers: W.D. Ross

Ross: held similar ideas to Pritchard. believed in the ideas of prima facie duties( Meaning duties that we have at first sight). in any situation, we have duties that are apparemt and we are bound by these. There are seven key prima facie duties: promise keeping, reparation from harm done, gratitude, justice,benefience, self-improvement and non-maleficience. we use our intuition to work out what duties we need to abide by in each situation.

Intuitionists

are cognitivists (good can be known/proven) and non-naturalists ( you cannot define good with other terms).

G.E.Moore

believed morality was not based on facts. stated the main flaw of naturalism is the naturalistic fallancy. facts are based on evidence, morality on values e.g. loyalty, generosity etc.

Simple and complex ideas: Complex ideas

ideas that can be broken down into smaller parts. e.g. 'You can give a definition of a horse because a horse has many different properties and qualities all of which you can enumerate.' a horse is mammal, vegetarian, has four legs etc.

Simple and comples ideas: Simple ideas

ideas that cannot be broken down. e.g. good is simple idea and cannot be broken down. Moore compared good to the colour yellow, the word yellow cannot be broken down to describe the colour. e.g. marrigolds, buttercups we cannot define yellow itself. same with good we have examples but cannot define it. Moore stated: 'if i am asked what is good? i answer "good is good, and that is the end of the matter."

The Open question example:

if we say good means happy( a naturalistic term): we can say: cheryl is happy. then we can say: cheryl is happy but is good? this make sense as a question. but if we substitue good with happy then it would be: Cheryl is happy but is she happy? this does not make sense because happy and happy are the same.

Moore

moral truths were true for all. we should have the same ideas about what good means. when people disagree about what good is, moore stated some people are better than others at working out morality and they should decide arguments.

The Open question argument: open question

one that does not necessarily have the right answer.

G.E. Moore believed

only way to find out good is to use our intuition. did not believe we use our intuition to work out every rule but to decide general things good for us, then decide if a particular action is good for us or not.