GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

Chapter VIII: NATURE OF THE
MORAL FACULTY. CRITICISM
OF OBJECTIVE INTUITIONISM
I. NATURE OF THE MORAL
FACULTY
The Intuitionist Dilemma. The discussion of freedom
in the previous chapter was undertaken not only
because of the importance for ethical theory of the establishment
of at least the possibility of moral freedom, but
also because of its bearing upon the question of the nature
of the moral faculty. The conclusion of the discussion was
for both
briefly that, if the moral faculties ( I use the plural,
will and insight are involved) are feeling or akin to feel-
ing, then the task of vindicating free will is wellnigh
impossible; if on the other hand they are reason or akin
to reason, then moral freedom may be plausibly main-
tained. But if they are reason, or are at least reasonable,
then they declare themselves unable to judge actions to
be right or wrong without taking into account their conse-
quences. Thus the view that some faculty within us pronounces
upon moral issues as the faculty of smell makes
pronouncements upon odours, judging actions to be right or
wrong, characters to be good or bad, independently of
the consequences of the actions or of the effects upon others
of the characters, seems on examination difficult, if not
impossible, to maintain in precisely the form in which
I have stated it. We are, then, it appears, committed to
taking consequence* into account when passing moral
judgments. There is here a dilemma in which most
forms of Intuitionism are involved: if the moral faculty is
feeling or akin to feeling, its operations would seem to be