Central and East European
Society for Phenomenology

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The pre-theoreticality of moral intuitions

Christopher B. Kulp

pp. 3759-3778

Abstract

Moral intuitionism, once an apparently moribund metaethical position, has seen a resurgence of interest of late. Robert Audi, a leading moral intuitionist, has argued that in order for a moral belief to qualify as intuitional, it must fulfill four criteria: it must be non-inferential, firmly held, comprehended, and pre-theoretical. This paper centers on the fourth and seemingly most problematic criterion: pre-theoreticality. The paper begins by stipulating the defensibility of the moral cognitivism upon which moral intuitionism turns. Next, the paper develops the distinction between semantic and epistemic pre-theoreticality, and goes on to explore and reject the putative ubiquity of the theoreticality of first-order moral discourse: it argues that on a defensible understanding of theoryhood, both semantic and epistemic pre-theoretical moral belief is not only possible, but in fact frequently realized. The paper then briefly explores and rebuts objections to (epistemic) pre-theoreticality issuing from (i) the “Cornell Realists” and (ii) considerations of the epistemic relevance of the epistemic/valuational background of moral belief. The paper concludes that, so far as the pre-theoreticality criterion is concerned, moral intuitionism remains in the running as a viable thesis regarding foundationally justified first-order moral belief and knowledge.

Publication details

Published in:

(2014) Synthese 191 (15).

Pages: 3759-3778

DOI: 10.1007/s11229-014-0497-z

Full citation:

Kulp Christopher B. (2014) „The pre-theoreticality of moral intuitions“. Synthese 191 (15), 3759–3778.