The Strengths and Weaknesses of Intuitionism

The Strengths and Weaknesses of Intuitionism

Intuitionism came about as a post-utilitarian perspective, and was

largely developed as an ethical theory by Moore, Pritchard and Ross.

As the name of the theory tells us it is concerned with humans

intuition, Sidgwick came to the conclusion that ethics was not based

on a unifying principle but rather on human intuition. Today, an

intuitionist is thought of as someone who holds particular views about

the way in which we come to find out what actions are right and which

are wrong. Apparently, we group basic moral principles because of our

‘intuition’. Moral principles are capable of being true and known

through a special faculty; ‘moral intuition’. W.D. Ross and Pritchard,

claimed that they are ‘facts’ about what is morally right and wrong

and that our understanding of these is sufficient to deserve the title

‘knowledge’. We know that something is good by intuition: it is

self-evident, “good is something known directly by intuitionism”[1]

G. E. Moore wrote that what is good, or morally good, cannot be

defined by humans, just as yellow also cannot. We all know what yellow

is in sensory terms but the only way to describe yellow is to use

other colours which does not help someone who is colour blind, “Good

can be defined no more successfully than yellow.”[2] However, we know

instantly what yellow is, and we know instinctively what is morally

good; they are both self-evident to us. Moore thought that what makes

an action good or otherwise are the aims of the person in question

when carrying out that action. Moore then went on to make a

distinction between the aims and the consequences of an action: the

aims are decided intuitively before the action and determine its moral

nature. The consequences are determined retrospectively, therefore not

determining morality.

Harold Arthur Pritchard developed Moore’s ideas further, he thought

that “moral obligation just is, and it can be perceived by our

intuition.” This means that moral obligation is something that a

person could just know, it was not quite the same as feeling certain