One principle of general epistemology tells us: “Hypotheses consistently contradicted by the facts should be rejected”
Certain philosophers would wish there to be a correspondence between this general principle and a specific principle of moral epistemology: moral principles consistently contradicted by our moral intuitions should be rejected.
1It is in the name of this last principle that utilitarianism is presumed to have long been refuted. In actual fact, almost all thought experiments seem to show that utilitarian principles are counterintuitive. The experiments of The Utility Monster and of The Furious Crowd were even specially invented to prove it. Yet utilitarianism still flourishes. Is it because there are some particularly stupid moral philosophers? This is a hypothesis that we cannot obviously dismiss out of hand, but I do not believe that the resistance of philosophers to antiutilitarian intuitions would provide a proof of it.
We must first of all say to ourselves that, if it seems irrational to preserve empirical hypotheses that have been systematically belied by the facts, it does not seem at all irrational to retain moral principles that have been consistently contradicted by our moral intuitions.
2This is an asymmetry that speaks in favor of the utilitarians. They could perfectly well maintain that where there is a conflict between their principles and ordinary intuitions, it is the intuitions that should be rejected. But we must not conclude from this that the utilitarians care nothing for intuitions. In reality, they only reject the intuitions that place them at a disadvantage. They do not complain when they find
intuitions that speak up for their point of view. There are in fact enough moral intuitions to satisfy everyone. Thus, the following intuitions speak in favor of utilitarianism:
1. People have a tendency to seek pleasure and to avoid pain.
2. If we have a choice between two actions, we must choose the one that maximizes the good or minimizes the evil.
3. It is irrational, and even immoral, to cling fanatically to principles when their consequences are disastrous.
The deontologists proceed in exactly the same fashion. They reject the intuitions that place them at a disadvantage. But they do not complain when they find intuitions that speak up for their point of view, such as the one that would debar us from thinking it permissible to push a fat man onto a track in order to stop a runaway trolley.
What, moreover, thought experiments show is that every moral intuition is liable to be interpreted in several different ways: the utilitarian is never automatically excluded.
Hence the pair of spontaneous judgments passed by the majority of people:
1. “It is morally permissible for a trolley driver who is about to crush five trolley workers to divert it onto a loop upon which just one trolley worker is working.”
2. “It is not morally permissible to push a fat man onto the track with the same aim in mind.”
The philosophers offer three different interpretations of these judgments:
1. People spontaneously apply the deontological principle so as not to treat a person simply as a means.
2. People spontaneously apply the deontological doctrine of respect for fundamental rights.
3. People suffer because they remain intellectually loyal to their utilitarian line and are
emotionally led to neutralize it.
What strikes me as really important from an epistemological point of view is the imperative never to confuse an intuition, the justification for this intuition, and its interpretation by psychologists and philosophers.
In the thought experiment of The Killer Trolley, this classification corresponds to the following data:
WHAT IS INTUITION?
It is the (raw) fact that people spontaneously produce when answering “it is morally permissible to throw the points lever” and “it is not morally permissible to push the fat man.”
WHAT IS JUSTIFICATION?
It is the answers given by the subjects of the investigation to the psychologists and the philosophers who ask them to justify their spontaneous judgments. It is of the sort “we should not take ourselves for God and decide who is to live and who is to die,” or “diverting a threat to five trolley workers and creating a new threat to the fat man are not the same thing” or, more often, “I cannot explain why!”
WHAT IS INTERPRETATION?
It is the explications of the intuitions and justifications advanced by psychologists or philosophers: “people spontaneously apply the principle of double effect” or “irrational emotional reactions inhibit rational consequentialist judgments.”
We completely change our point of view when we pass from intuitions and justifications to interpretations. We pass from the gaze of the agent to that of the interpreter.
When psychologists or philosophers say that people have “deontological intuitions” or “consequentialist intuitions,” they are expressing themselves in a clumsy or inappropriate fashion.
The “it is not morally permissible to push the fat man” intuition is a raw fact, which is neither deontological nor consequentialist. It is not delivered to us with its deontological or consequentialist interpretation. It is the interpretation of the psychologists or the philosophers that allows us to stick this sort of label on it.
If a Kantian says that “it is not morally permissible to push the fat man” is a deontological intuition, this is an abuse of language. He should say, “My interpretation of the intuition is deontological”
If a consequentialist asserts that “it is not morally permissible to push the fat man” shows that our consequentialist intuitions are inhibited by irrational emotions, this is an abuse of language. He should say, “My interpretation of the intuition is consequentialist.”
We must therefore be careful not to confuse the intuition with its interpretation, if we wish not to commit this kind of abuse.
But respecting this distinction can pose a serious problem for those who seek to justify their moral conceptions or to refute a moral conception by appealing to intuitions.
These intuitions do not by themselves say anything. For them to acquire this function of refutation or of justification, they have to be interpreted. Since we can interpret them in several different ways, we should not be astonished by their capacity to endorse different theories.
A deontologist can perfectly well interpret the pair of judgments “it is morally permissible to throw the points lever” and “it is not morally permissible to push the fat man” in such a way as will allow him to assert that they refute consequentialism.
A consequentialist can certainly interpret the pair of judgments “it is morally permissible to throw the points lever” and “it is not morally permissible to push the fat man” in such a way as will allow him to assert that they refute deontology.
Given these conditions, how could intuitions help us to decide between these two great rival moral theories?
