Do we have any good reasons to trust our moral intuition?
Moral intuition is a self-evident moral proposition which means that we do not need to think about a moral decision to know if the decision is right or wrong. Intuition is something that is known without argument (Stratton-Lake). Because we are born with an intuition on how to be good - with some exemptions like those with antisocial personality disorders more commonly known as “psychopaths” - we have a good reason to trust our moral intuition. Philosophers have argued about what the definition of “good” is resulting in theories ranging from perfection (good is the optimal quality of being) to happiness (good is what makes one happy). However this essay argues that all “good” qualifies, so no matter the definition, as long as we are attempting to be good because of our impact on society, we can trust our intuition.
This essay applies to readers who are questioning whether they have good reasons to trust their moral intuition. If you are questioning yourself, you are thinking about your actions and their impacts on others. It would be shortsighted not to admit that there are those out there who entirely believe what they are doing is right when in fact it is not. For instance, school shooters and those who commit genocide, or just those who have questioned their moral intuition and found themselves - even in these extreme cases - to be doing a good deed. But these cases are rare and it would be unfair to use them against my arguments.
Philippa Foot, an Oxford theorist, believed that “all living things should have ideals and be our best selves as much as we can” (Plaisance). Foot puts forward another way of qualifying a good than relying on perfection or wellness. The Trolley Problem, created by Foot, is a famous thought experiment where you are driving a trolley and the brakes don’t work, so you either have to go left and kill one person or go right and kill five people. She poses the question, “Is it morally permissible for you to turn the trolley (if it will kill only one person)?” (Plaisance). Foot explains that most people would save the five people as it would result in a fewer number of deaths, but she asserts that saving more people does not mean this answer is morally correct. Foot urges us not to judge situations like The Trolley Problem in a utilitarian way, meaning “the most good for the most people,” as society usually does, because the consequence will remain the same for that one person, which in this case is death. The Trolley Problem shows how even the “right” decision can vary depending on the way we perceive the consequences.
1 (finalize)
We can trust our own moral intuition because even philosophers question contrasting morals on how to be a good person (Youpa). But whatever ethics or moral intuition you use, it doesn’t matter because you are trying to do good in most situations; therefore, if you trust your moral intuition, some type of good will come out of it - either for yourself or others. Immanuel Kant synthesized early moral rationalism and asserted that the highest good is to do what is right regardless of whether or not it would make you feel good. He writes, “A good will is not good because of what it effects or accomplishes, because of its fitness to attain some proposed end, but only because of its volition, that is, it is good in itself” (Kant). The reason we should trust our moral intuition is because if we do, some good will come out of it, which then makes the reason a good reason because good is, well, good. And good is inherently good no matter the outcomes or the reason.
Suppose you had a billion dollars. Using your moral intuition, you decide to use the money to help animal shelters, but the people around you believe the billion dollars should be spent on something else. It is irrelevant if the “something else” could lead to more overall good (if we could even quantify such a thing) because donating to the shelter is already good, in your moral intuition. So as long as, from your perspective, you are doing the right thing, how others perceive your actions is meaningless compared to the good that came out of your billion dollars. Aristotle said that “when the good person chooses to act virtuously, he does so for the sake of the “kalon”—a word that can mean “beautiful”, “noble”, or “fine”, or in other words, a good person acts good for the sake of being good” (Kraut). The “good” thing is qualified differently by different people, similar to the plethora of philosophers arguing on the theory of good, but really what matters is that YOU have a GOOD reason to trust your moral intuition if you are using your intuition for good. Even if what you do is only good for you, there is “good” in the end result. Even if you were a supervillain who used your moral intuition to murder a group of people out of revenge, that is still good for you because you did what was right for you. My assertion is that it does not matter if other people agree that the outcome of your moral decisions are good, as long as you care about your actions because you know they have value.
2 (finalize)
Admittedly, moral intuition can be unreliable because morals are not immutable. Sometimes there is spontaneous moral judgment, meaning that decisions may not be based on intuition but judging immediately that something is morally wrong based on the action, not your intuition. Intuitive judgment arises from reasoning, not from a person’s beliefs. If I consider torturing an animal, I can judge immediately that, in the circumstances, torturing the animal would be wrong. I don’t need to consult my beliefs or intuition in order to arrive at this judgment. (McMahan) In the case of torture, moral judgment is unlike intuition because the judgment does not technically come from your thoughts or beliefs, it simply comes with the instantaneous understanding that what you are doing is wrong, independent of your intuition. These reasons point to the problem of morals being inconsistent, and therefore unreliable.
If a person judges that it is morally wrong to lie because honesty is a moral value, then that person should continue to value honesty and believe that it is wrong to lie in varying contexts. The stability of moral judgments matters here, because if moral judgments are often not stable over time, then this speaks against the idea that moral values generally structure moral judgments. Stable moral values are important because they are the very essence of human interactions. Most ethical systems both reflect and foster close human relationships and mutual respect and trust, and it would be “rational” for a self-interested person to be moral, because his or her self-interest is arguably best served in the long run by reciprocating the moral behavior of others (Britannica).
3 (finalize)
What people may fail to realize, with the argument that morals can be unreliable because they change, is that changing your morals is not necessarily bad, and it would be reasonable to assume that someone would have changed their morals to serve another type of good. For example, perhaps you used to only donate to food banks but then you adopted a stray cat. In turn, your morals would shift from focusing on people to focusing on stray animals. It doesn’t matter if what you believe is good changes, because more likely than not, your new moral opinions are still aiming for some sort of good. Morals changing over time is expected. Moral understanding is not the only thing that changes as people mature, your values change as well. Morals and values that suited you as a child change as you become a young adult, form relationships and make your way in the world (The University of Melbourne).
Con (finalize)
You can trust your morals because if you are questioning yourself, then you are reflecting on your actions and their impacts on others, which is the very foundation of morality and altruism. After all, to question oneself implies a level of self-awareness, and in this case, awareness of the consequences of your actions. It’s also safe to presume that you evaluate whether or not you can trust your intuition because you do not want to harm others. In The Good Place, Chidi Anagonye was committed to doing everything “philosophically” “right” in his life. He questioned Kantian ethics and Aristotle and a multitude of other philosophers to reason if his actions were justified, but in the end, he still ended up hurting people due to his overthinking. He never knew for certain whether his actions were right or wrong, and you may be wondering that, too. But, at the core of all of the moral philosophy in the show, according to the creator, is the book What We Owe To Each Other. The point of morality, in this view, is not to accumulate goodness points, as in the elaborate point system of the organizers of The Good Place, but rather to live up to our duties to each other (“The Good Place”). What We Owe Each Other emphasizes the consideration of others in your actions and inactions and posits that this is how we should approach our decisions. “You ought to design rules that couldn’t be rejected by the people that you’re having to share the world with” (Schur). If you wonder if you should trust your moral intuition, you already have an exponentially better moral intuition than those who do not question themselves. You are thinking about others so you have good reason to trust your moral intuition.
Bibliography
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Works Cited
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cockburn/
https://www.jstor.org/stable/26452160
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/intuitionism-ethics/
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals