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

ETHICAL THEORY SURVEYED
investigation can, in other words, be treated by reason
just as the raw material of any science is treated by reason,
the function of reason being to clarify this raw material,
and to derive from it principles of conduct. But it does not,
therefore, follow that the raw material or subject matter of
ethical reasoning, that, in other words, about which reason
reasons, is itself provided by reason. It does not even follow
that it is in the strict sense of the word reasonable. The raw
material of ethics is provided by the deliverances of man's
moral consciousness; these are the subject matter for
theorizing in ethics, just
as the behaviour of matter is
the iuBject matter for theorizing in physics. Consequently,
we can neither ignore ethical intuitions, nor is there any
court of appeal other than the deliverances of the moral
consciousness of mankind to which we can turn for a
decision on matters of conduct which are in dispute.
The utilitarians do not in fact ignore intuitions. It is, for
example, as we have seen, 1 to the popular consciousness
that they turn for their first premise that pleasure, and
pleasure alone,
(ii)
is desirable.
THAT OBJECTIVE UTILITARIANISM MAKES
USE OF UNAVOWED INTUITIONS. Hence, our
second criticism of Objective Utilitarianism is that although
it explicitly disavows them, Utilitarianism no less than
Intuitionism, entails the acceptance of intuitions. The
fact, explicitly recognized by the most clearheaded of
the utilitarians, Sidgwick, is admitted grudgingly, or not at
all, by Mill and JBentham, who look askance at intuitions
as the source of lazy thinking and obscurantist conclusion.
But if the validity of ultimate and, as I have ventured to
call them, indefensible intuitions is to be admitted, what
justification is there for limiting our intuitions to thote which
are explicitly or implicitly recognized by the utilitarians? I
have just drawn attention to the existence ofwhat appears to
be a widespread intuition to the effect that certain attitudes
of mind and the actions proceeding therefrom are valuable
See Chapter IX, pp. 344, 345*