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This chapter discusses the history of decision-making theory and the development of dual process theories of cognition. The two cognitive processes involved in those theories are respectively characterized as an experiential/intuitive process, largely rooted in biological and nonconscious elements but shaped by social/environmental factors (Type 1) and a reflective/analytic process that is formal, mathematical, and entirely conscious (Type 2). The character and variety of dual process theories are discussed. Attention is then given to dual process theories of moral judgment, particularly the social intuitionist model of Jonathan Haidt and the dual process model of Joshua Greene. The strengths and weaknesses of these models are argued to reside either in their too great of reliance on Type 2 cognitions or their flimsy characterizations of Type 1 cognitions.

In this chapter, J. Edward Hackett clarifies the ambiguity of Ross’s list of prima facie duties using two components from Scheler’s phenomenology: affective intentionality and the order of preferencing. By showing how integral these two components are to moral experience, Hackett supports and defends intuitionism against the charge that it is unable to reveal basic and derived duties, and argues that Ross’s intuitionism is not arbitrary with respect to duties. Instead, there is a unity that can be experienced, even in cases of conflict, precisely because Ross does not have a full account of the phenomenological structure of moral experience. For Hackett, phenomenology’s future relevance depends on interpreting the non-reductive aspects of experience in terms of the same non-naturalism that is common in both thinkers.

Stage 2 of Kohlberg’s seven stage model reflects moral philosophies dedicated towards improving personal life and gaining personal advantage. For HRM this relates to performance management, performance related pay, and reward management dedicated to gaining a personal advantage. This level is concerned with ethical theories such as ‘moral egoism’ with selfishness as its basic principle and placing subjectivity at the centre.260 Moral egoism is related to the moral philosophy of subjectivism as outlined by David Hume (1711–1776). Subjectivism is linked to ‘intuitionism’ (Brouwer 1951) establishing principles on how to achieve personal advantages and benefits.261 Hume’s ethics is also linked to two other philosophers, Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) and Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844–1900).262 While Hobbes locates the self at the centre, Nietzsche was more interested in how the use of others gains advantage over the self.263 Hence, Nietzsche’s writings drew attention to slave morality, superhuman ideas, the herd mentality, and his work on the moral right of the strong to use the weak for their advantage.264 To outline HRM’s relationship to moral egoism, selfishness, Hume’s subjectivism and intuitionism, as well as Hobbes’ and Nietzsche’s moral philosophies, this chapter will start with the foremost fundamental ethical idea of selfishness.265

The question is how it is possible for a priori intuition to be “of” objects that are not given a priori. Kant’ own solution to the puzzle... appeals to the idea that a priori intuition contains only the form of our sensibility. This evidently removes the causal dependence of intuition on the object. It is a nice question what is left of the characterization of intuition that gives rise to the puzzle. Kant’ solution seems to allow the phenome- nological presence of an object to be preserved, but it is a further question whether what one has is a representation of a physical object, not individually identified and not really present, or a representation of a mathematical object. The former is not ruled out by the a priori character of pure intuition, as the “presence” might be that characteristic of imagination rather han sense. In fact, a number of passages in Kant indicate that just that is his position. Kant’ puzzle may have force for us, but we are not likely to accept the position that pure intuition contains only the form of sensibility, a central part of Kant’ transcendental idealism, at least not as Kant understood it.

Carnap never once mentions Turing in his published writings. From an historical point of view this is unsurprising. For the implications of Turing’s analysis of computability for the foundations of mathematics and physics, artificial intelligence, and the very architecture of science were to be developed and widely appreciated only after Carnap’s death. Perhaps more significant, once Carnap had developed the position articulated in The Logical Syntax of Language his principle of tolerance licensed a form of conciliatory pluralism about positions in the foundations of mathematics. Carnap’s pluralism construed debates over infinitary reasoning, impredicavity, logicism, and intuitionism as rationally tractable, but not through direct reasoning on behalf of truth claims. Rather, he proposed the development of formal axiomatizations of languages and pragmatic assessments of these. In subsequent work Carnap was not inclined to view these particular foundational debates as the primary arena for the articulation of his philosophy1. Instead, he broadened his conception of explication to account for the distinction between analytic and synthetic truth in all areas of science (Carus 2007a).

Stage 2 is reflective of moral philosophy dedicated towards improving personal life and gaining a personal advantage. In moral philosophy this relates to an ethics called moral egoism that has selfishness as its basic principle placing the subjectivity of an individual at the centre. Hence, moral egoism is related to the moral philosophy of subjectivism that has been outlined by David Hume (1711–1776). A key part of subjectivism is found in its link to intuitionism. The ethics of moral egoism and Hume’s subjectivism and intuitionism lay out foundation principles for selfishness. How to achieve personal advantages and benefits has also been outlined by two other philosophers, Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) and Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844–1900).220 While Hobbes locates the self at the centre, Nietzsche has been more interest in how the self and use others gain advantages over the self. Hence, Nietzsche’s writings drew attention to slave morality, superhuman ideas, the herd mentality, and his work on the moral right of the strong to use the weak for their advantage. To outline moral egoism, selfishness, Hume’s subjectivism and intuitionism, Hobbes’ and Nietzsche’s moral philosophy, this chapter will start at the foremost fundamental ethical idea of selfishness.

In the last two chapters I have given an account of the core theory of intuitionism (Chapter 1) and of different theories that are compatible with the core theory (Chapter 2). In doing so, I have shown that many common objections do not threaten the core theory of intuitionism, either because they are based on a wrong idea of what intuitionism is or because they are directed against specific versions of intuitionism and not against the core theory. In this chapter, I will return to the core theory as explained in Chapter 1 and discuss and reject the major objections that have been raised against it. These objections can be subsumed under the following headings. Intuitionism is dogmatic (section 2), it is simplistic and naive (section 3), and it presupposes an obscure faculty of intuition (section 4). I will consider these objections in detail.

This book has presented a theoretical framework that challenges various broadly accepted dogmas in moral philosophy. These dogmas are (1) intuitionism is a nonstarter; (2) reason is the source of universal, objective moral truths, and emotion is a source of subjective projections; and (3) psychological research is relevant only for naturalists.

In the preceding chapter I defended what I call the core theory of intuitionism, namely, a combination of cognitivism, foundationalism, and nonreductive moral realism. I hope that I have paved the way for a better understanding of the essential features of intuitionism. In Chapter 3, I will discuss the best-known objections to intuitionism, but before doing so, I wish to show that many common objections concern issues that are not part of core intuitionism. In this chapter I will argue that there are as many types of intuitionism as there are intuitionists. Hence, objections to specific forms of intuitionism are not necessarily objections against core intuitionism.

A topic of significant interest among social psychologists today is the extent to which intuitions, as opposed to reasoning, play a role in determining moral judgments (Haidt, 2001; Greene and Haidt, 2002; Pizarro and Bloom, 2003). Labeling the automatic, effortless, rapid process of intuitions as System 1, and the controlled, effortful, slow process of reasoning as System 2, a dominant perspective in developmental psychology — following the works of Piaget and Kohlberg — has been that our moral judgments are the products of System 2 (Piaget, 1932; Kohlberg, 1969). This is the so-called Rationalist Model of moral judgment. Recently, however, some social psychologists have proposed that at least some of our moral judgments are the product of System 1. In fact, some have even argued that moral judgments arise predominantly as a result of the intuitive process, and the purpose of reasoning appears not to generate moral judgments, but to provide a post hoc and biased basis for justification. In particular, in a series of work, Jonathan Haidt and his collaborators have defended the “Social Intuitionist Model” (SIM) of moral judgment (Haidt, 2001, 2007; Haidt and Bjorklund, 2007a, b). According to the SIM, moral judgments are initially the product of non-conscious automatic intuitive processing. Conscious reasoning then takes place and is typically occupied by the task of justifying whatever intuitions happen to be presented to the consciousness in a biased, non-truth-seeking way.

Sidgwick used his philosophical intuition to reach the three fundamental principles, from which he developed his argument about the foundation of utilitarianism. The reason why Sidgwick believed we could rely on these three ‘intuitive’ principles, while dismissing perceptional and dogmatic intuitionism, was because these three principles use clear and definite terms, because their validity can be repeatedly confirmed by reflection, and because these are presumably accepted by most or all people regardless of the differences in the ethical views they usually hold. However, we may question whether his ‘philosophical intuition’ is really common to us all, and on what grounds we can say so. In replying to this problem, the moral philosopher Richard Mervyn Hare (1919–2002) attempted to develop an ethical theory by appealing only to logic and facts, which we would surely accept as our common basis, and which we can ascertain as being universally valid by observing how we actually behave and how we actually use our language. His argument is also important in that it led him to advocate a version of utilitarianism, taking quite a different route from Sidgwick’s. In this chapter, we will examine Hare’s argument for utilitarianism and compare it with Sidgwick’s analyses.

Thomas Reid (1710–1796) was one of the founders of the Scottish common sense school in philosophy. Reid’s thoughts about ethics can mainly be found in his Essays on the Active Powers of the Human Mind (1788). In that book, he defends philosophically controversial ideas such as agent causation, moral knowledge, intuitionism, realism, moral sense, and the idea that conscience is a reliable source of knowledge. Reid’s moral philosophy is unduly neglected. Despite the recent revival of Reid-scholarship, there are relatively few scholars working on Reid’s moral philosophy. This volume aims to stimulate greater interest in this aspect of Reid’s work. By bringing together leading experts on Reid’s work on ethics, this volume demonstrates the richness and uniqueness of Reid’s moral philosophy to a wider philosophical audience. In the following introduction, I will discuss some essential features of Reid’s moral philosophy. I will conclude with a short overview of the book, putting the various contributions in context.

Despite Bergson’s immense fame,1 Bergson never produced a movement;2 Bergson never produced a Heidegger. The lack of a movement explains why Husserl’s phenomenology continues to overshadow Bergsonism. Phenomenology looks to be so much more important than Bergsonism that Derrida, in his 1967 study of Husserl, mentions Bergson only in passing, implying that that his criticism of Husserl should be able to strike at Bergson as well.3 Foucault does the same, as early as 1963 in The Birth of the Clinic and as late as 1984 in an essay called ‘Life: Experience and Science/4 Derrida and Foucault are able to subordinate Bergson’s thought to phenomenology not only because phenomenology virtually dominated twentieth-century thinking. They can do this also because Bergsonism seems to be conceptually similar to phenomenology. Bergsonism is an intuitionism, and Bergson’s central concept of ‘the duration’ (la duree) looks to be equivalent to Husserl’s concept of Erlebnis (lived-experience). In 1965 however, Deleuze asserted that Bergson holds a unique position — different from Husserl and even from Heidegger — in the Western philosophical tradition.5 This assertion distinguishes Deleuze from Derrida and Foucault. Indeed, Deleuze might be Bergson’s Heidegger. In What is Philosophy? for instance — a text co-authored with Guattari — Deleuze says that Bergson is the only philosopher who was mature enough for the inspiration Spinoza gives us.

Gilles Deleuze, Alfred North Whitehead and Henri Bergson have each been recognized as among the leading philosophers of our age, definitively marking both ends of the twentieth century. At the start of the century Bergson’s thought was hailed as ‘the beginning of a new era’ and yet, under the weight of criticisms which labelled his thought ‘intuitionist’ or ‘irrationalist’, he virtually disappeared for most of the middle decades of the twentieth century, only to reappear again in new guise in the 1990s.1 For his work during the early decades of the twentieth century, especially as co-author of Principia Mathematica with Bertrand Russell, Alfred North Whitehead’s place in the history of twentieth-century philosophy, and the ‘imaginary’ of analytic philosophy, is already secure.2 Yet, in ways that resemble the ‘forgetting’ of Bergson, Whitehead’s later thought has been regarded by the majority of professional philosophers for much of the latter half of the twentieth century as simply an irrelevant anachronism, a sort of nineteenth-century or even pre-Kantian speculative metaphysics with little or no redeeming merit. Towards the end of the twentieth century Michel Foucault infamously claimed that the century would be known as ‘Deleuzian’ (Foucault, 1977, p. 165). Whatever that might mean, a good deal of the early Anglo-American readings of Deleuze’s thought, and some of the continuing interest, rely on ‘ready-made’ codes for the reception of ‘French thought’ including postmodernism, poststructuralism and continental philosophy generally.

At the turn of the twentieth century, philosophers of mathematics were predominantly concerned with the foundations of mathematics. This followed the so-called “crisis of foundations” that resulted from the apparent need for infinitary sets in order to provide a proper foundation for mathematical analysis, and was exacerbated by the discovery of both apparent and actual paradoxes in naive infinitary set theory (most famously, Russell’s paradox). Philosophers and mathematicians at this time saw their job as to place mathematics on firm, and indeed certain, axiomatic foundations, so as to provide confidence in the new mathematics being developed. Thus, the “big three” foundational programmes of logicism, formalism, and intuitionism were established, each providing a different answer to the question of the proper interpretation of axiomatic mathematical theories. Notes

I claim to have refuted, in the last four chapters, four of the five theories in metaethics: non-cognitivism, subjectivism, naturalism, and nihilism. As is usual in philosophy, the ‘refutations’ are provisional: those theories have been shown to face grave problems that justify rejecting them as long as any plausible alternative exists. Ethical intuitionism is the remaining alternative. But the received view in the field has long been that intuitionism is a hopelessly naive idea that can be dismissed in a few sentences. ‘I propose to ignore this theory’, writes Brandt of a related thesis; but most authors simply ignore it with no prior announcement. Ethics textbooks now contain one-paragraph ‘refutations’ of the doctrine, if they discuss it at all. All of this evidences the esteem in which intuitionism is held these days.1 So, the naive onlooker might conclude, contemporary philosophers must know some obvious and decisive objections to the theory. What are they?

Poincare is often called a ‘pre-intuitionist’ or a’ semi-intuitionist’ because he influenced the foundations of intuitionism in the philosophy of mathematics. Intuitionism is a form of constructivism; and constructivism is the general view that mathematical objects (numbers, domains and so on) are mental constructions. That is, it is the view that mathematical objects have no existence independent of the minds of mathematicians. Poincare was certainly a constructivist, but whether or not he can be grouped with the intuitionists needs to be made clear. And this leads to the further question: if he cannot be grouped with the intuitionists, is his ‘constructivism’ coherent and defensible?

Poincare’s theory of predicativity is a central and exciting component of his general philosophical position. As is well known, his philosophy of mathematics was foundational for intuitionism. It is also well known that he was concerned about the set-theoretic paradoxes, and that he was one of the first to write about the ‘Vicious Circle Principle’ (VCP). Just what constitutes Poincare’s version of the VCP, the theory of predicativity which underlies it, and his contribution to the solution of the contradictions of classical mathematics, is much more obscure. To be sure, his work in this area ought to be regarded as ancestrally related to modem programmes in predicative analysis and predicative set theory. However, just as it is wrong to consider a modern formalised intuitionism as a natural extension of his general philosophical views, so is it a mistake to consider a predicative version of axiomatised set theory as a programme he would have unequivocally endorsed. In fact, in view of the formality of both of these programmes, he probably would have opposed them.

Moral claims must be grounded on a normative perspective. Current philosophical discussion offers several candidates for this foundation, including intuitionism, virtue-based ethics of various stripes, several varieties of rights theories and, finally, utilitarianism. A quick scan of these reveals that an iteration of utilitarian theory is best suited to the requirements of multinational commerce.

Although John Rawls is a persistent critic of intuitionism where intuitionism is taken to be the thesis that there is a plurality of first principles in morality and that there is no rationally defensible way of establishing priorities among these principles, the suspicion persists that Rawls’ own theory of justice is closer to intuitionism than Rawls recognizes. Even if Rawls has succeeded in lexically ordering the two principles of justice so that liberty is prior to equality, except in situations where the very survival of society is at stake, Rawls’ success is seriously qualified if it is confined to the choice of principles for the design of social institutions and does not extend to the choice of principles for actions by individuals. Here Rawls’ indictment of intuitionism as ‘but half a conception’ of justice (TJ, 41) appears to haunt his own conception of justice, especially since Rawls himself acknowledges that principles for individual actions are ‘an essential part of any theory of justice’ (ibid., 108).

In their consideration of Intuitionism and Associationism, Mill and Carlyle moved beyond the confines of a philosophical debate about logical methods. Firstly, the logical problem raised questions about such issues as the historical process, the individual’s political, moral, and religious positions, and, centrally, the nature of perception. Secondly, both writers brought to bear upon philosophical problems insights afforded by literature and, in Carlyle’s case, by religion. Thirdly, their attempt to extricate themselves, for psychological reasons, from the destructive sectarianism of the debate, led them to attempt a merging of logical methods, and also to have recourse to other writers who were working towards similar ends. By 1840, Mill and Carlyle were speaking of reality as resisting doctrinaire interpretations of the world, and of the mind confronting reality in a way which refuted the formulas of philosophers who attempted to define how the mind apprehended the world. From 1840 onwards, Mill’s and Carlyle’s intellectual efforts were also diffused. Carlyle produced works which cannot be categorised as to genre, such as Chartism and Past and Present. Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History repeated, more dogmatically, insights contained in his earlier works.

§ 1. The object of the present Book is to examine the method of determining reasonable conduct which has been already defined in outline under the name of Egoism: taking this term as equivalent to Egoistic Hedonism, and as implying the adoption of his own greatest happiness as the ultimate end of each individual’s actions. It may be doubted whether this ought to be included among received “methods of Ethics”; since there are strong grounds for holding that a system of morality, satisfactory to the moral consciousness of mankind in general, cannot be constructed on the basis of simple Egoism. In subsequent chapters1 I shall carefully discuss these reasons: at present it seems sufficient to point to the wide acceptance of the principle that it is reasonable for a man to act in the manner most conducive to his own happiness. We find it expressly admitted by leading representatives both of Intuitionism and of that Universalistic Hedonism to which I propose to restrict the name of Utilitarianism. I have already noticed that Bentham, although he puts forward the greatest happiness of the greatest number as the “true standard of right and wrong,” yet regards it as “right and proper” that each individual should aim at his own greatest happiness.

Mill’s more important contributions to ethics occur in Utilitarianism (1863, from Fraser’s Magazine, 1861), Bentham (1838), Coleridge (1840), Dr Whewell on Moral Philosophy (1852), Professor Sedgwick’s Discourse on the Studies of the University of Cambridge (1835), and in the brief discussion in the System of Logic, bk VI, chap. 12. Although he was concerned to reject Intuitionism, and although in the Logic he noted some differences between ordinary factual statements and statements concerning obligations, Mill did not develop a meta-ethic, his major concern being, in spite of a brief, qualified anti-Benthamite period, to state and defend a utilitarian normative ethic. Estimates of the value of Mill’s contributions here have varied greatly, G. E. Moore observing that ‘This [Utilitarianism] is a book which contains an admirably clear and fair discussion of many ethical principles and methods’ (Principia Ethica, p. 64), while more recently J. Plamenatz has expressed a much less favourable, although also widely accepted, estimate.

Mill holds a metaphysical theory about the nature of things which is of the sensationalist or phenomenalist variety, and which he derives admittedly from the idealism of Berkeley, This metaphysical theory is introduced into a discussion in which he is attempting something different, namely, to offer a rival psychological account to Hamilton’s intuitionist one of how it is that men possess that familiar but complex conception, Nature or the external world. It will be convenient to consider his psychological theory first. References J. S. Mill, Bailey on Berkeley’s Theory of Vision, Dissertations and Discussions, Vol. 2 (London, 1859); Examination of Sir W. Hamiltons Philosophy, ch. 11, appendix to chs. 11 and 12 (3rd ed., London, 1867); Berkeley’s Life and Writings, Dissertations and Discussions Vol. 4 (London, 1875); R. P. Anschutz, Philosophy of J. S. Mill, ch. 10, secs. 7–10 (Oxford, 1953); A J. Ayer, Foundations of Empirical Knowledge, ch. 5 (London, 1940); “Phenomenalism,” Philosophical Essays (London, 1959); I. Berlin, “Empirical Propositions and Hypothetical Statements,” Mind, Vol. 49 (Edinburgh, 1950); K. Britton, J. S. Mill, ch. 6, secs. 3–5 (London, 1953); R. J. Hirst, Problems of Perception, ch. 4, ch. 9, sec. 2 (London, 1959); D. G. C. MacNabb, David Hume, ch. 8 (London, 1951); H. H. Price, Perception, pp. 260 ff., 282 ff. (London, 1932); G. Ryle, Concept of Mind, ch. 7 (London, 1949); L. Stephen, The English Utilitarians, Vol. 3, ch. 6, sec. 3 (London, 1900); H. H. Price, “Mill’s View of the External World,” Aristotelian Society Proceedings, Vol. XXVII, 1927.

Since Moore’s Principia Ethica moral philosophy, at least in Britain and to a large extent in the English-speaking world, has passed through three phases. In the first Moore’s own combination of a consequentialist theory of right action with an intuitionist account of the indefinable property of goodness prevailed. Because of its definition of rightness in terms of consequences it was sometimes called ‘ideal utilitarianism’. But, given the strenuousness of Moore’s opposition to hedonism, the label is less naturally applicable to him than to the position of Rashdall, set out in his thorough and judicious Theory of Good and Evil (1907), a book superior to Moore’s by reason of its author’s notably greater capacity to understand, and, indeed, actual knowledge of, the history of ethical speculation. Rashdall includes pleasure, along with knowledge and virtue, among the ideal ends of conduct. The Moorean view was given a brilliantly concise expression in Russell’s ‘The Elements of Ethics’ (four essays first published in 1910 and brought together in his Philosophical Essays of that year).