2' Intuitionism and the Structure of Morality

1
2. Intuitionism and the Structure of Morality
2
Goals

• Our aim today is to understand
• The difference between attributive and
  predicative uses of good
• What organic unities are
• What is buck-passing about value
• Monism and pluralism about moral principles
• The relationship between prima facie duties, pro
  tanto reasons, and final duties
• Arguments for and against the self-evidence of
  basic moral principles and judgments about
  intrinsic value

3
I What Is Good?
4
Two Uses of Good

• As Peter Geach pointed out, we use the adjective
  good in two different ways
• Predicative uses Knowledge is good
• Attributive uses John is a good farmer
• Geach argued that Moore and others made a big
  mistake in focusing on predicative uses, since
  they are secondary to attributive ones when we
  say that knowledge is good, we could always in
  principle fill in what we are taking it to be
  good for
• Even when good and bad stands by itself as a
  predicate, and is thus grammatically predicative,
  some substantive has to be understood there is
  no such thing as being just good or bad, there is
  only being a good or bad so-and-so. (Good and
  Evil, 33)

5
An Argument for Attributiveness

• A simple argument for this view
• Real predicates can be combined with nouns
  without loss of truth (if x is red and x is a
  car, x is a red car), but good cannot
• If x is good and x is a car, it does not follow
  that x is a good car x could be a good prop for
  a play, for example
• Metaphysical explanation
• Red always names the same quality that anything
  red has (red car, red book, red building), but
  good doesnt (a good car, a good book, and a
  good person need not share any quality)
• The quality that good picks out in good car
  is not non-natural, so we can leave behind
  Moorean worries

6
Attributive Use of Good and the OQA

• Importantly, there are many cases in which the
  OQA, even if otherwise sound, fails to apply to
  attributive uses of good
• This knife fits nicely to the hand, cuts well,
  stays sharp for long, and looks expensive
  But is it good?
• Her students admire her, learn a lot, acquire a
  passion for the subject, and go on to have great
  careers in it But is she a good teacher?
• In these cases, good modifies a functional
  term the function in question sets a standard,
  and a good K just indicates an x that meets the
  standard in question
• If this is the case, to know whether something x
  is a good K, all you need to know is what it
  takes to fulfil the function of K and whether x
  meets those standards no non-natural properties
  are ascribed

7
Against Attributivism

• But on the face of it, not all things we call
  good have a function, as Hare points out in his
  response centrally, actions and human beings
  seem to lack one
• Judith Jarvis Thompson agrees that all goodness
  is goodness in a way, but disagrees that kind
  membership is sufficient to supply the relevant
  standards
• A good book may be such for entertainment,
  insight, showing off to your friends, and so on
  lots of things have no unique function, even if
  they have one
• Philippa Foot has recently defended a
  neo-Aristotelian view according to which human
  beings and by derivation actions do have a
  function. The debate is still ongoing.

8
The Epistemological Problem for Non-Naturalism

• By definition, non-natural properties are not
  within the causal realm, and (so) not observable
  nor amenable to scientific investigation
• So, if goodness is a non-natural property, how
  can we discover when it is instantiated, i.e.
  which things have it? How can we know that one
  thing is better than another?
• Do we need to postulate a special sense-like
  faculty of intuition?
• If we have no other reason to do so, this would
  be entirely ad hoc

9
The Naturalistic Fallacy and Humes Law

• We are, of course, able to perceive natural
  properties, so if we could deduce evaluative
  conclusions from natural premises, we would be
  off the hook
• Helping Ms. Goldwater would maximize pleasure
• Goodness maximizing pleasure (analytical truth)
• So, helping Ms. Goldwater would be good
• But embracing the OQA amounts to rejecting any
  identification of goodness with a natural
  property, and so premises like 2
• Thus, the OQA prevents reaching conclusions about
  value from non-evaluative premises stating
  contingent natural facts and analytic truths
  truths about what is good are all synthetic
• This is embracing the so-called Humes Law (no
  ought from is)

10
Moores Epistemological Intuitionism

• Moore does think that there is a close
  relationship between a things natural properties
  and its value the value is consequential on the
  natural properties
• This is what is now known as supervenience
• Very roughly, if properties of type A supervene
  on properties of type B, then a) there can be no
  change in A-properties without change in
  B-properties and b) two things that have the same
  B-properties necessarily have the same
  A-properties
• Still, in the absence of a naturalistic
  definition, there is no way for us to infer which
  natural properties form the base for value
  (ascriptions of intrinsic value are incapable of
  proof, as Moore says)
• Instead, we know which things are good
  non-inferentially ascriptions of goodness are
  self-evident, once properly understood

11
Intrinsic and Final Value

• It is clear that some things are good only in
  virtue of their relation to other things that
  is, they are good extrinsically
• The clearest cases of extrinsic value are
  instrumentally good things ibuprofen pills are
  good for relieving headache
• If anything is good, it seems that some things,
  must be good for their own sake they have what
  is known as final value
• Moores term for final value is intrinsic value,
  but insofar as intrinsic value is consequential
  upon the intrinsic properties of something, the
  two kinds of value can diverge
• The intrinsic properties of something are
  non-relational they do not require the
  existence of anything else
• For example, Picassos Guernica and a
  qualitatively identical copy produced with the
  latest technology would share the same intrinsic
  properties, but would they be equally valuable?
• Chisholm a rare stamp may be valuable in virtue
  of its rarity
• Langton a wedding ring may be valuable for its
  own sake

12
The Principle of Organic Unities

• Before we can answer the question of which things
  are intrinsically valuable which things have
  the non-natural property of goodness we must
  take note of the special relationship between
  valuable wholes and their parts
• Moore believes in what he calls the principle of
  organic unities The intrinsic value of a whole
  is neither identical to nor proportional with the
  sum of the values of its parts. (PE, 184)
• That is, if the value of part A is x and the
  value of part B y, the value of the whole AB need
  not equal xy
• For example, suppose that completing a marathon
  has some intrinsic value, and that the pleasure
  that results of having done so also has some
  value it need not be the case that the value of
  being satisfied for having run a marathon is a
  sum of those values were one to get the same
  pleasure for having taken a delusion pill, it
  would have little value, as would joylessly
  completing a marathon
• Note that if something contributes to the
  intrinsic value of a whole as a part, its value
  is not instrumental completing a marathon is
  not a means to the satisfaction for having done
  so, since the satisfaction could not exist
  without its object

13
Examples of Organic Unities

• Compare the following states of affairs
• John robs a bank (bad)
• John robs a bank (bad) and gets 10 years in
  prison (bad)
• Here, the addition of a bad thing seems to make
  the whole better
• Dara is pleased (good) at the thought that Kelly
  is suffering (neutral)
• Dara is pleased (good) at the thought that Kelly
  is happy (neutral)
• Here the value of the whole seems to vary even
  though the value of the parts remains the same

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The Isolation Test

• How can we figure out what is valuable in itself
  and not as a means to something else?
• Moore consider whether the thing would be
  valuable if it existed all by itself
• This way we can sort out things that are valuable
  to us only because they are necessary for
  producing good things in the actual world
• For example, we can see that we
• We can also compare degrees of intrinsic value by
  comparing the value of isolated instances
• This helps to see organic unities
• For example, we can compare the value of the
  pleasure we get from contemplating art and the
  value of enjoying the same art, where enjoyment
  of x entails that x exists, but pleasure doesnt

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Objections to the Isolation Test

• Can we really imagine a world in which nothing
  but, say, democracy exists, and make confident
  assessments of its value?
• Dancy the test fails to distinguish between
  parts of valuable wholes and things that enable
  other things to have value
• A fake friendship would not be valuable, but not
  being a sham is not a feature that contributes to
  the value of genuine friendship it only enables
  the other features of friendship to give it value

16
Knowing What Is Intrinsically Good

• When we understand the question about the good
  correctly and guard against errors due to the
  naturalistic fallacy or neglect of organic
  unities, the answer is obvious or self-evident
  no one will doubt it
• All we can do to convince someone of the truth of
  an intrinsic value claim is to point out as
  clearly as possible what it means and how it fits
  with other propositions that appear to be equally
  true but this is not a matter of providing
  evidence or reasons for the claim

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Moore on the Good

• By far the most valuable things, which we know
  or can imagine, are certain states of
  consciousness, which may be roughly described as
  the pleasures of human intercourse and the
  enjoyment of beautiful objects. No one, probably,
  who has asked himself the question, has ever
  doubted that personal affection and the
  appreciation of what is beautiful in Art or
  Nature, are good in themselves nor, if we
  consider strictly what things are worth having
  purely for their own sakes, does it appear
  probable that any one will think that anything
  else has nearly so great a value as the things
  which are included under these two heads.
  (Principia, 188-189)
• These greatest goods are organic unities

18
II From Good to Right
19
The Priority Question

• Our moral concepts divide into two classes,
  evaluative (good, bad, courageous, lewd) and
  deontic (right, wrong, ought, reason)
• Roughly, we use evaluative concepts to describe
  people, things, and actions, while deontic
  concepts are used to direct action
• What is the relationship between these classes of
  concepts? Are some concepts more fundamental than
  others? Further, what is the relationship between
  the properties they pick out?

20
Moore on the Right

• Moore believed that right actions were those that
  produce most good
• To assert that a certain line of conduct is, at
  a given time, absolutely right or obligatory, is
  obviously to assert that more good or less evil
  will exist in the world, if it be adopted than if
  anything else be done instead. (Principia
  Ethica, 25)
• Thus, in deciding what we ought to or have reason
  to do, we have to make two kinds of judgments
• Causal judgments about the likely consequences of
  available alternative actions
• Judgments about the value of the possible actions
  themselves and their consequences
• Two perspectives deliberation and assessment

21
Natural Properties, Value, and Reasons

• Moores view thus has the following structure
  value is a non-natural property that is
  consequential upon natural base properties, and
  we have reason to care about something because it
  has value
• Contrast Scanlons buck-passing account of value
• Positive thesis for something to be good is just
  for it to have base properties that give us
  reason to care about it goodness is thus merely
  a formal higher-order property
• Negative thesis somethings being good gives us
  no additional reason to care about it
• Thus, the buck gets passed from value to base
  properties that give us reasons to care about the
  object and (thus) make it good
• Thus, we have metaphysical parsimony instead of
  value, natural properties, and reasons, all we
  have to explain are natural properties and
  reasons

22
Arguments for Buck-Passing

• Explaining the openness of OQA the reason why we
  can accept for any N that x has N and yet ask
  but is it good? is that thinking that x is good
  is taking properties N to give us reason to care
  about it, and merely taking something to have N
  is not yet to draw this conclusion
• So, when I wonder whether pleasure is good, I am
  wondering if I have reason to pursue it, and this
  kind of wondering always makes sense
• There is no explanatory work to be done for
  goodness over and above the natural properties of
  the object
• I have reason to go to a holiday resort because
  it is cheap, serves tasty food, favoured by the
  sort of people I like, and so on. Its being good
  gives no additional reason it is these very
  things that make it good.
• There is no single reason-giving property of
  goodness common to all the different things we
  care about rather, reasons to care are given by
  different natural properties in different cases
• If the Moorean view were correct, my reason to
  care about football and abstract art would be
  given by the same property, their goodness

23
Arguments Against Buck-Passing

• Cant we imagine that something is good without
  anyone having any reason to care about it?
• Dancy reasons are always someones reasons, but
  something can be good, period
• Crisp suppose that all reasons derive from
  self-interest in that case, it is implausible
  that we have reason to care about all (morally)
  good things
• Cant we have reason to care about something
  without it being good? (The wrong kind or reasons
  problem)
• Rabinowicz and Ronnow-Rasmussen imagine an evil
  demon tells us to admire it or face endless pain
  you seem to have reason to admire it, but does
  that make it good?

24
Radical and Moderate Anti-Mooreanism

• The buck-passing account is a radical rejection
  of defining the right in terms of the good
• A moderate rejection asserts merely that there
  are other grounds of duty than promoting value
• Methodological intuitionism is moderate in this
  sense

25
Two Senses of Intuitionism

• Epistemological intuitionism
• The foundationalist view in moral epistemology,
  according to which basic moral propositions are
  self-evident
• Both Moore and Ross were epistemological
  intuitionists
• Methodological intuitionism
• The normative view according which there is a
  plurality of moral principles that cannot be
  derived from a more basic principle
• Ross is a methodological intuitionist, but Moore
  isnt
• A better term for methodological intuitionism is
  pluralism

26
Three Levels of Moral Judgment

• Particular judgments
• Ascriptions of moral properties to particular
  objects of evaluation John is an honest man
• General judgments
• Ascriptions of moral properties to act- or
  situation-types Stealing money from the
  collection box is wrong
• Moral principles
• Rules that ground other types of judgments and
  cannot themselves be derived from anything more
  fundamental Right actions are those that
  maximize the good

27
The Role of Moral Theory

• One way to understand the business of normative
  moral theorizing is to see it as an attempt to
• systematize and explain our particular judgments
• by constructing more general rules and principles
  that
• help resolve conflicts in particular cases
• Monists like Moore, Sidgwick, and Kant believe
  that we end up with one fundamental moral
  principle, while pluralists like Ross think that
  we are left with a plurality of fundamental
  principles
• Moore was, of course, a pluralist about value,
  since he thinks more than one kind of property
  grounds intrinsic value

28
Ross Against Consequentialism

• The basic objection for consequentialists, the
  only morally relevant relationship is that
  between a benefactor and recipient
• In their desire to systematize, consequentialists
  oversimplify the structure of morality
• Rossian pluralists thus do not reject the project
  of systematizing ethics, as some claim they
  just think monism simplifies at the expense of
  truth Loyalty to the facts is worth more than a
  symmetrical architectonic or a hastily reached
  simplicity. (The Right and the Good, 23)
• But there are other morally relevant
  relationships, and correspondingly other
  obligations
• Others may also stand to me in the relation of
  promisee to promiser, of creditor to debtor, of
  wife to husband, of child to parent, of friend to
  friend, or fellow countryman to fellow
  countryman, and the like and each of these
  relations is the foundation of a prima facie
  duty (19)
• Duties have a highly personal character (22)

29
The Case of Promises

• First objection the binding force of promises is
  backward-looking, not based on the consequences
  of carrying it out
• Even if it were always the case that keeping
  promises would maximize the good, that would be
  the wrong kind of reason to do so
• Suppose the following is the case
• I have promised Jane to take her to the airport,
  and that all things considered, this would
  produce 1000 units of the good
• However, I could also play with some orphans,
  which would, all things considered (including the
  harm caused to Jane by having to call a taxi),
  produce 1001 units of the good
• Ross To produce the 1001 units of good for B
  rather than fulfil our promise to A would eb to
  take, not perhaps our duty as philanthropists too
  seriously, but certainly our duty as makers of
  promises too lightly. (35)

30
Prima Facie Duties and Final Duty

• Ross distinguishes between
• prima facie duties, which are factors weighing in
  potentially different directions in a particular
  case, and ones
• actual duty in a particular case, which is what
  one ought to do on balance
• It turns out that prima facie duty is a
  misnomer it would be better to speak of pro
  tanto duties or reasons
• The difference is that a prima facie duty is only
  an apparent duty, while a pro tanto reason is a
  real reason that may just be overridden in a
  particular case without ceasing to be in force
• Thus, if you have promised to return an essay by
  Saturday and you end up having to take care of a
  sick friend, you may have done the overall right
  thing, but you still owe an explanation and maybe
  an apology the promissory obligation is
  outweighed, not cancelled
• Since pro tanto duties are also actual, a better
  term for Rosss actual duty is final duty

31
Prima Facie Duties According to Ross

• Duties based on my previous actions
• Duties of fidelity based on promise or analogous
  commitment
• Duties of reparation based on having done
  something wrong
• Duties based on actions of others
• Duties of gratitude based on the good others
  have done for me
• Duties based on the possibility of changing the
  distribution of good and bad things
• Duties of justice based on the need for rewards
  to be proportional to merit
• Duties based on the possibility of bringing about
  good or bad things
• Duties of beneficence
• Duties of self-improvement
• Duties of non-maleficence

32
Prima Facie Duties and Moral Conflict

• Understanding prima facie duties as pro tanto
  ones is essential to understanding moral conflict
• When two prima facie duties conflict, it is
  possible that the outweighed one gives rise to a
  derivative duty and proper regret
• When we think ourselves justified in breaking,
  and indeed morally obliged to break, a promise in
  order to relieve some ones distress, we do not
  for a moment cease to recognize a prima facie
  duty to keep our promise, and this leads us to
  feel, not indeed shame or repentance, but
  certainly compunction, for behaving as we do we
  recognize, further, that it is our duty to make
  up somehow to the promisee for the breaking of
  the promise. (28)
• This is hard to make sense of on monistic
  accounts why should we feel compunction for not
  doing something that we believe would have
  brought about less good anyway?

33
Knowing Prima Facie Duties

• Prima facie duties are self-evident
• That an act, qua fulfilling a promise, or qua
  effecting a just distribution of good ... is
  prima facie right, is self-evident not in the
  sense that it is evident from the beginning of
  our lives, or as soon as we attend to the
  proposition for the first time, but in the sense
  that when we have reached sufficient mental
  maturity and have given sufficient attention to
  the proposition it is evident without any need of
  proof ... It is evident just as a mathematical
  axiom, or the validity of a form of inference, is
  evident. (The Right and the Good, 29-30)
• So, Ross believes that anyone who genuinely
  understands the propositions concerning prima
  facie duties and focuses on them is justified in
  believing in them
• Compare a line is the shortest distance between
  two points if p, then q, p, so q

34
Intuitive Induction

• Although Ross believes that verdicts on
  particular cases are not self-evident, he also
  thinks that one may come to see a self-evident
  principle of prima facie duty on the basis of
  cases
• What comes first in time is the apprehension of
  the self-evident prima facie rightness of an
  individual act of a particular type. From this we
  come by reflection to apprehend the self-evident
  general principle of prima facie duty. (33,
  emphasis AK)
• Verdicts on particular cases may be temporally or
  genetically prior without being logically prior
• What is meant to be self-evident is that a
  particular aspect of a particular action gives a
  pro tanto reason for or against doing it

35
Knowing the Final Duty

• Final duty is a result of the interaction of the
  prima facie duties bearing on the situation
• Since the kind and stringency of prima facie
  duties varies with situation, final duty isnt a
  priori knowable or self-evident in the end,
  the discernment rests with perception
  (Aristotle)
• These judgments are neither self-evident nor
  deductible from self-evident premises
• There is no priority ordering among the prima
  facie duties that is, it is not the case that
  duties of justice, say, are always weightier than
  duties of beneficence
• Compare to assessing a poem even if we know that
  naivete is always bad and insightfulness always
  good (and are able to tell when these obtain), we
  cannot calculate its value on the basis of such
  contributory principles

36
Limits of Moral Theory

• A basic objection to intuitionism it only
  mirrors the complexity of ordinary moral thought
  and offers no help in resolving conflicts
• McNaughton this is an unrealistic expectation
  The job of a moral theory is simply to see which
  general account of the nature of our duties (and
  of goodness) gives the best overall picture of
  our moral thinking. There is no question of
  theory revealing answers to moral questions that
  cannot otherwise be answered. (An Unconnected
  Heap of Duties?, 90)

37
III Intuitionism as Foundationalist Moral
Epistemology
38
What is Justification?

• There are many different notions of
  justification, of which the following two are
  most pertinent to moral epistemology
• Agent justification When an agent A has agent
  justification for believing p, she is
  epistemically blameless for taking p to be true
• Demonstrative justification A has demonstrative
  justification when she can present grounds that
  can rationally convince others that she has agent
  justification for p
• It is possible to have agent justification
  without demonstrative justification
• For example, a child who sees an ice cream truck
  may be justified in believing that there is an
  ice cream truck in front of her, even though she
  is not able to present grounds for believing so
  (such as cite the reliability of eyesight in
  detecting middle-sized objects)
• On realist views, justification doesnt entail
  truth
• That is, we may be justified in holding false
  beliefs

39
Inferential Justification

• As belief that p is inferentially justified when
  p is supported by the content of As other
  justified beliefs, say q and r
• For example, my belief that Jacob is at home is
  justified when I hold it on the basis of
  believing that Jacob just answered the phone and
  believing that if someone picks up the phone,
  they are at home
• Views about the sort of support needed for
  justification vary on strictest views, p must
  deductively follow from q and r
• On less stringent views, making p probable is
  enough
• q and r are, in one sense of the term, reasons
  for believing p

40
Foundationalism and the Regress Argument

• The aim of the Regress Argument is to show that
  not all justification can be inferential
• Assume that all justification is inferential
• Then q can justify p only if q itself is
  justified by some further proposition r
• But r, in turn, must be justified by some yet
  further proposition x, and so on ad infinitum
• As finite beings, we cannot complete an infinite
  chain of justification, so we are not justified
  in believing anything including the proposition
  that all justification is inferential. But this
  is absurd.
• Thus, there must be beliefs that are
  non-inferentially justified

41
Non-Inferential Justification

• The essential thesis of foundationalism is thus
  that there are some justified beliefs that do not
  derive their justification from other justified
  beliefs there is nothing further we could cite
  as a reason for them
• This leaves open several sources of justification
• Direct acquintance with facts
• Non-conceptual sense data
• Reliable subpersonal information-processing
• Self-evidence
• The main alternative response to the regress
  argument is denying that inferential
  justification must be linear that is,
  justification doesnt always derive from some
  further belief, but can be a matter of mutual
  support
• Well return to this in Lecture 8

42
The Idea of Self-Evidence

• A proposition is self-evident when understanding
  and attentively considering it is sufficient for
  being justified in believing in it, and for
  knowing it if one believes it on the basis of
  such understanding
• Note the following consequences
• One is justified in believing in the truth of the
  proposition, which is different from believing in
  its self-evidence a child who lacks the concept
  of self-evidence can still be justified in
  believing that 224
• This definition of self-evidence does not rule
  out that one has also inferential justification
  for the proposition it simply says that
  inferential justification is not necessary

43
Experience and Self-Evidence

• Although experience does not play an evidential
  role in justifying self-evident beliefs, it can
  still play an enabling role
• That is, one may not adequately understand a
  proposition without suitable experience
• For example, one may not count as grasping a
  proposition like Breaking a promise is pro tanto
  wrong simply by being able to put the words
  together in some simple contexts
• Nothing rules out that emotions might play an
  evidential role in adequate understanding

44
Conclusions of Inference and Conclusions of
Reflection

• A conclusion of inference is made on the basis of
  reasons that support the judgment
• For example, one concludes that a painting is by
  Picasso as a result of examining the paint used
  and the characteristic hand movements visible on
  the surface
• A conclusion of reflection emerges from thinking
  about a whole and the relationship between its
  parts
• For example, one concludes that a painting is
  moving after carefully examining and
  contemplating it
• Conclusions of reflection are responses to
  patterns in things that defy codification in
  terms of rules (A painting is moving if it
  employs sharp contrasts between dark and light
  colours)
• Audi an intuitive judgment may be a conclusion
  of reflection, which means that it may take time
  and effort and so fail to seem self-evident or
  true to the agent

45
Candidates for Self-Evident Propositions

• Nothing can be both red and green all over
• The existence of great-grandchildren is
  impossible without at least four generations of
  people
• If p, then q not-q so not-p is a necessarily
  truth-preserving inference
• Other things being equal, pleasure is a good
  thing
• Other things being equal, that an arrangement
  would benefit cheaters is a reason to oppose it

46
Objections to Moral Intuitionism I

• I dont find these propositions self-evident!
• Reply to disagreement about self-evidence
• The claim isnt that anyone who understands that
  propositions finds them self-evident, but that
  they are justified in believing in them
• Believing that a proposition is self-evident is a
  second-order attitude toward it that requires
  grasping a further concept, namely the concept of
  self-evidence itself

47
Objections to Moral Intuitionism II

• But I dont even believe in these propositions,
  even though I perfectly understand them! In fact,
  I think theyre false!
• Reply to lack of belief and disagreement about
  truth
• One need not believe a self-evident proposition
  even on understanding it the definition simply
  says that one is justified if one so believes
• People may reject self-evident truths because
  they are in the grip of a view that is
  incompatible with them
• You cant convince everyone
• J R Lucas If I was arguing with a man, and he
  did not allow that causing pain was a reason for
  an actions being wrong, that is, he did not see
  the relevance of that fact that the action caused
  pain, I think I should break off the argument
  with him... Sadists need to be cured rather than
  convinced. (Ethical Intuitionism II, 9-10)

48
Objections to Moral Intuitionism III

• But it is dogmatic to just ignore anyone who
  disagrees and thump the table!
• Reply to the dogmatism charge
• An intuitionist can grant that the existence of
  disagreement among reasonable people gives reason
  to doubt a proposition that seems self-evident
  (or just true) one needs to go back and check
  if one has really understood it correctly, if it
  really is basic, and so on
• Thus, intuitionism doesnt entitle one to be
  dogmatic
• At the same time, the difference between agent
  justification and demonstrative justification
  means that one may not be able to demonstrate
  justification that one nonetheless has

49
Objections to Moral Intuitionism IV

• But it is intolerably conservative to just
  certify our existing moral convictions as they
  stand!
• Reply to the conservatism objection
• Propositions that seem self-evident can lose
  their justification on further reflection, but
  here, as elsewhere, appearances can be rejected
  only on the basis of further appearances of the
  same kind
• We have no more direct way of access to facts
  about rightness and goodness and about what
  things are good, than by thinking about them the
  moral convictions of thoughtful and well-educated
  people are the data of ethics just as
  sense-perceptions are the data of a natural
  science. (Ross, 40-41)
• 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 are in
  conflict with other more accurate
  sense-perceptions, the former are rejected only
  when they are in conflict with other convictions
  which stand better the test of reflection. (41)

50
Objections to Moral Intuitionism V

• Im an instrumentalist about practical reason,
  so I think we only have reason to take the best
  means to any given end of ours. Therefore, I
  reject the claim that everyone has a pro tanto
  reason not to injure others!
• Reply to the objection from instrumentalism
• But what, then, is the status of the instrumental
  principle (rationality requires taking the
  necessary means to ones ends) itself?
• It is not an empirical truth but a normative one
• Audi Unless reason has sufficient power to make
  principles like Rosss candidates for truth, then
  it is not clear that instrumentalist principles
  are candidates either (Moderate Intuitionism,
  34)

51
Skepticism and Partners in Crime

• Shafer-Landau If you reject the self-evidence of
  basic moral propositions, youll have to reject a
  lot more
• The same arguments would apply to philosophical
  intuitions as well
• Audi distinction between rebutting and refuting
  skepticism we can do the former
• Rebutting skepticism is showing that the grounds
  for it are unsound removing justification from
  skepticism itself
• Refuting skepticism is showing that it is false
  by providing positive justification for the
  original view