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continues Lecture 07
Could scientific discoveries undermine, or support,
ethical principles?
Phase 2
Identify general arguments against the use of intuitions in doing ethics.
Consider implications for Rawl’s method of
reflective equilibrium.
Phase 1
Find places where a particular philosopher’s ethical argument relies on an empirical claim, and where knowledge of this claim depends on scientific discoveries.
✓
‘a better understanding of the [...] origin of “intuitive” moral judgments might show them to be something other than manifestations of underlying moral competencies or principles.
“moral intuitions” might therefore deserve less deference [...] than they characteristically receive in philosophical [...] moral thought’
(Railton, 2014, p. 832).
So?
‘Intuition is a resource in all of philosophy, but perhaps nowhere more than in ethics’
(Audi, 2015, p. 57).
‘Episodic intuitions [...] can serve as data [...] ... beliefs that derive from them receive prima facie justification’ (p. 65).
‘self-evident propositions are truths meeting two conditions: (1) in virtue of adequately understanding them, one has justification for believing them [...]; and (2) believing them on the basis of adequately understanding them entails knowing them’ (p. 65).
previously
Not-justified-inferentially premises about particular moral scenarios cannot be used in ethical arguments where the aim is knowledge.
plan for today
Evidence for the dual-process theory
Evidence against the dual-process theory
Significance (phase I: reflective equilibrium)