Moral Intuition and Methods in Normative Political Theory
Year: 2017
Type: dissertation
Abstract: The subject matter of this thesis is methods in normative political theory (and moral philosophy more generally) and moral intuitions. I am concerned with two set of questions, where the former set is implied by the latter. First, I aim to clarify the concept of intuition. Intuition may be studied philosophically and empirically. With the emergence of experimental philosophy it has become common to inform the philosophical debate with findings from empirical studies. Therefore, I ask the following questions: Are those who approach the question of what intuitions are philosophically and those who approach it empirically studying the same phenomenon when they study intuitions? (For simplicity I refer to the members of the latter group as psychologists.) And if yes, do they differ with regard to how they understand this phenomenon? I argue that philosophers and psychologists agree on where intuitions are to be found, but not on how to understand the phenomenon. The second set of questions is the following: How do Rawls, Kamm, and Singer’s methods differ in their view on the justificatory role of intuition? And what kinds of intuitions, if any, have a justificatory role? I argue that Rawls, Singer, and Kamm differ in their view on what kind of intuitions are relevant for the process of justifying moral theories, and that they differ in their view of what kind of process is necessary for making intuitions ultima facie justified. Moreover, I argue that the methods imply different models for justification.
Author: Sebastian J. Conte
Language: English
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2752220873