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INTUITIONS AND RULES

Let us return to the case of the child who is drowning. It is constructed as follows:¹

1.  It would be monstrous to let a child die if he is drowning in a pond before your very eyes, when you could save him by making the most minimal of efforts, with no risk to your own life.

2.  If you judge that it would be monstrous to let a child die if he is drowning in a pond before your very eyes, when you could save him by making the most minimal of efforts, with no risk to your own life, you ought also to judge that it is monstrous to let a child die of hunger in a country stricken by drought, when you could save him simply by sending a check for twenty dollars to an organization combating famine.

 

The first proposition expresses a moral intuition.

The second proposition, which is longer and more complicated, appeals to rules of moral reasoning. Completely developed, it would have the following appearance, which could serve to discourage readers allergic to sentences that are a little too abstract (let us hope that they are not all allergic to them): “If you judge it to be monstrous to do A, you should judge it to be monstrous to do B, for A and B are alike, and like cases must be treated alike" In other words, it assumes the plausibility of a comparative judgment (A and B are alike), and the acknowledgment of a rule of moral reasoning (“like cases must be treated alike”). The combination of the two allows us to grant moral intuitions a hypothetical status that could be to their advantage.

Peter Singer begins in fact by soliciting the reader’s approval by means of the following assertion: “It would be monstrous to let a child drowning in a pond before your very eyes die, when you could save him by making the most minimal effort and without any risk to your own life”

But it is above all else with a view to convincing us that this is exactly how we behave when we refuse to devote a certain part of our income to combating famine.²

The issue, for Singer, is not that of knowing if everyone thinks that it would be monstrous to let a child drowning in a pond die when it would be easy to save him, or whether it is only the better educated or those who have received a religious education.

Nor is the issue that of knowing if the reasons why we think that it would be monstrous to let a child drowning in a pond die when it would be easy to save him are skewed by nonrational, psychological factors, such as natural empathy toward persons floundering in icy water. Peter Singer’s argument simply says:

“If you judge it to be monstrous to let a child drowning in a pond before your very eyes die, when it would be easy to save him, you should also judge that it would be monstrous not to devote a certain part of your income to combating famine”

It is in this sense that the argument is hypothetical.

Of course, we can go further and wonder as to the validity of the assertion. Is it true that it is always monstrous to let a child drowning before your very eyes in a pond die, when it would be easy for you to save him? But that’s another story.

On the basis of these examples, we can in any case advance the hypothesis that every conceptual analysis of ethics proceeds by way of the examination of these two ingredients:

 

1.  moral intuitions;

2.  rules of moral reasoning.

 

I have evoked them in an informal fashion. It is time that they were analyzed more systematically.

THE PLACE OF MORAL INTUITIONS IN THE CONSTRUCTION, JUSTIFICATION, AND CRITIQUE OF MORAL THEORIES

For philosophers concerned with normative ethics in an analytic perspective, the chief problem nowadays is the place of moral intuitions in the construction, justification, and critique of moral theories.

They have observed that “political and moral philosophers frequently appeal to ‘moral intuitions’ in their reasonings. They regard moral theories and moral principles as doubtful if they contradict their intuitions. And they have a tendency to mobilize ‘intuitions’ in the elaboration and defense of their own theories”³

They think that, in order to advance in ethical reflection, what we must first of all examine is the value of this Method (with a capital M, to signify its importance in moral philosophy), which was inspired at the outset by John Rawls’s idea of “reflective equilibrium,” but which since then has taken on a life of its own.⁴ The questions raised by the Method are of the following kind: To what extent can we trust our own moral intuitions, if we have them, with a view to knowing what is good or just? How are we to distinguish between the “good” moral intuitions, those we must take into account if we wish to avoid our moral theories being of no relevance to our lives, and the “bad” ones, those we would do better to drop in order to avoid saying any old thing? Can certain of the causes of our moral intuitions be discounted outright? If, for example, we learned that our moral intuitions in favor of the rights of animals have no other cause but our feelings of undeclared love for the character of Bambi, should we take it into account in moral debate?

THE VALUE OF THE RULES OF MORAL REASONING

It is good to take a slightly closer interest, from an analytic perspective, in moral intuitions. But that should not make us forget that a great number of difficult questions are also raised in relation to the rules of moral reasoning.

Are they well formed?

Are they redundant?

Are they consistent?