Intuitions, experiments, and armchairs

Nikil Mukerji

pp. 227-243

in: Christoph Luetge, Hannes Rusch, Matthias Uhl (eds), Experimental ethics, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2014

Abstract

Most ethicists agree that moral doctrines should fit our moral intuitions. They disagree, however, about the interpretation of this evaluative criterion. Some predominantly draw on low-level intuitions about cases (e.g., Foot, 1978; Kamm, 2007; Thomson, 1976). Others believe that we should rather trust our high-level intuitions about moral principles (e.g., Hare, 1981; Singer, 1974; Singer, 2005). In this paper, I examine and reject three empirically informed arguments against the former view: the argument from disagreement, the argument from framing effects, and debunking explanations. I will not argue that we are immediately justified to accept our low-level intuitions about cases as moral beliefs. I merely want to dispel doubts about a considerably weaker claim, viz. that at least some of our low-level intuitions can count as evidence for (or against) a moral theory.