Abstract
Walter Sinnott-Armstrong has argued against moral intuitionism, according to which some of our moral beliefs are justified without needing to be inferred from any other beliefs. He claims that any prima facie justification some non-inferred moral beliefs might have enjoyed is removed because many of our moral beliefs are formed in circumstances where either (1) we are partial, (2) others disagree with us and there is no reason to prefer our moral judgement to theirs, (3) we are emotional in a way that clouds our judgement, (4) the circumstances are conducive to illusion, or (5) the source of our moral beliefs is unreliable or disreputable. I take issue with the elements of Sinnott-Armstrong’s argument that centre on (1) to (3) and (5), concluding that his case against moral intuitionism is unpersuasive.
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Notes
E.g., Joyce (2006, p. 218). Michael Huemer believes that the considerations raised by Sinnott-Armstrong (and others) are impressive enough to leave at most a subset of our moral intuitions viable, and advises a revisionary intuitionism where moral theory is built upon that subset alone (Huemer 2008).
For a defence of the foundational status of such beliefs, see Plantinga (1993) which defends foundationalism for a range of different kinds of belief.
As Elga points out, much actual moral disagreement involves participants who believe that they are not epistemic peers (that is, not antecedently as likely to be correct on the issue at hand) because they know that they disagree on other non-moral and moral issues (Elga 2007, p.493–497). However, in such cases, if one judges their interlocutor not to be an epistemic peer because of other moral disagreement, Sinnott-Armstrong might push the challenge back and argue that the belief that one is right in that other moral disagreement (and therefore that one is better than one’s interlocutor at perceiving the moral facts) is itself unjustified.
In this connection, see Elga (2007, p.491) and Christensen (2007, p.193). Both authors discuss an example of two-person disagreement over the calculation of a restaurant bill where each of the participants in the disagreement holds the antecedent view that they are both as good at arithmetic and therefore each as likely to make a mistake as each other. Elga and Christensen agree that the thing to do is suspend judgement and recalculate, at least when it isn’t the case that one of the participants’ totals is clearly wrong—for example, by being significantly above the amount that one would expect a restaurant bill to come to.
For what it’s worth, Elga agrees: “When a friend disagrees about whether 1 + 1 = 2, one may well not count her as a peer. For one’s views on such a simple problem are closely linked to one’s basic reasoning” (Elga 2007, p.500).
Audi (2008, p.490) agrees that another’s disbelieving what appears to one as self-evident provides reason not to consider them an epistemic peer.
I omit discussing the example involving the purported Tom Cruise lookalike, since it seems to me to be badly underspecified. For example, did I get a good look at the man? And how great do I judge the likeness to be? I find it hard to believe that if I had a sufficient look at the man, and judged that he looked virtually identical to Tom Cruise, this belief would nevertheless be undermined by your disagreeing.
As James Lenman has pointed out to me, Sinnott-Armstrong would presumably not want to say that the judge of a piano-playing competition makes unjustified judgements about performances if we discover that he has areas of his brain associated with emotions activated when he makes his judgements; after all, being a good judge of music will involve emotional responses to it. Why couldn’t it be similar in the moral case?
Depending on how one thinks of justification, one might prefer to say that lack of justification occurs when one believes or discovers the source of the belief in question to be unreliable or disreputable. This doesn’t affect the points made in the text.
Admittedly, Sinnott-Armstrong mentions that evolutionary psychology might provide reason to think that moral beliefs have a dubious origin, which—if the explanations are empirically well-supported—may give him what he is after. Joyce (2006) presents a Darwinian argument that moral beliefs are unjustified.
Many thanks to James Lenman and two anonymous referees for very helpful comments on earlier drafts. Thanks also to a graduate audience at Sheffield.
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Smith, J. On Sinnott-Armstrong’s Case Against Moral Intuitionism. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 13, 75–88 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-009-9168-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-009-9168-4