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- NO STANDARD SUBCONCIOUS CRITERION
- MORAL REALISM
NORMATIVE INTUITIONISMOne of the most important things to note is that Prichard advocated the more normative form of Intuitionism. That is, he believed that certain duties were prima facie and thus had to be considered ahead of the general comparative advantage. That is, while in one set of circumstances there may be a lesser net-benefit than in another, if the lesser one maintained a certain issue such as truth, or trust, than that would be the more “moral” group of circumstances. It is important to consider the way in which these prima facie duties were defined. While individual motivations can vary drastically from one person to another, prima facie duties allow us to compare acting on duties. They give us a mechanism to draw distinctions between actions and weigh which ones were more moral. It must also be pointed out, however, that Prichard is not contradicting his previous contention that morality cannot be evaluated. Instead, Prichard is saying that while the concept of moral evaluation is not universal, that doesn’t mean that there can’t be created a method of distinguishing which acts are morally good or bad. That is, though a comparative advantage criterion may not be inherent to our moral thought patterns, that does not mean that we cannot choose to use such a weighing mechanism in conscious evaluation. We just don’t use something universal in subconscious evaluation. When the weighting of actions becomes conscious, however, we can also make conscious the way to consider the action. The decision to adopt a weighing calculus of morality must be conscious. It cannot be universal, it is not natural, and individuals must choose to use it. The other form of Intuitionism claims that the net-benefit is intrinsically prima facie itself, because it affords the greatest good. Moore, for example, argues that breaking trust in order to save a greater number of lives is, of course, more moral, and that the net-advantage is superior in order of precedence. This, as opposed to Prichard, would believe that the universal weighing of values does not have to be a conscious choice. Prichard discredits this by arguing that a moral precedent must hold a high position on the order of precedence. That is, trust has itself a net-benefit, if intangible, which can ideally be given a value if we look at the harm associated with setting or breaking a precedent when it comes to truth. This means that if we assume that truth has no inherent value, than all “net-beneficial” scenarios would trump it and it would no longer be considered moral to tell the truth. Therefore, a moral precedent has to be afforded a very large benefit if it is to compete with the more tangible concepts. Truth as a concept will never outweigh tangible concepts and impacts that people can visualize in their lives. It is, however, necessary for society to continue to value truth. This means adapting a decision-making paradigm so that the mere telling of the truth is given such a high value that it is able to outweigh other impacts. That is one reason why it is a conscious decision to use the weighing calculus of morality, to enable such value to be placed on the telling of truth. NO STANDARD SUBCONCIOUS CRITERIONWhat Prichard vehemently points out in several of his essays, however, is that the subconscious does not use a standard mechanism in evaluating which acts “feel” right. In “Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?” Prichard points out that while we do not have such a standard mechanism, we do have an intuitive sense of what is right and what is wrong. He writes again in “Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?” “The sense that we ought to do certain things arises in our unreflective consciousness, being an activity of moral thinking occasioned by the various situations in which we find ourselves. At this stage our attitude to these obligations is one of unquestioning confidence. But inevitably, the appreciation of the degree to which the execution of these obligations are really obligatory, i.e. whether our sense that we ought not to do certain things is not illusion. We then want to have it proved to us that we ought to do so, i.e. to be convinced of this by a process which, as an argument, is different in kind from our original and unreflective appreciation of it. This demand is illegitimate.” It is on this argument that Prichard bases his theory that moral philosophy is likewise an illegitimate entity. Attempting to create a tangible system of evaluation for something that is inherently intangible doesn’t work, he claims, and thus trying to figure out what it is that causes individuals to believe one thing to be correct and another to be wrong is a contradiction in and of itself. MORAL REALISMThe concept that good is something intrinsic, perceived by intuition, can be labeled Moral Realism, and is largely the basis for several branches of applied philosophy that have the same name. Prichard believed that in order for something to be morally good, human intuition had to perceive it to be such, otherwise labeling it “good” would be artificial. The label is meaningless unless the mind and intuition are convinced that the item being discussed is actually good. In this sense, morality is defined by whether or not we consider it to be good intuitively instead of defined by some actual goodness that is measurable. Thus, “goodness” is something real, not something simply perceived, and it can only be perceived by another “real” phenomenon - intuition. The very concept of creating a standard system for evaluating whether or not something was good would undermine the very point that is being stressed: that the goodness comes before the process, and that it must be found, not that the process is the end-all. That is, something is intrinsically good if it is so. That goodness is not dependant on a process finding it to be good, instead, a process that doesn’t find it to be so is simply flawed. The evaluation we should engage in is of the process and not of our calling things good. For example, Prichard believed that truth held intrinsic goodness. Should moral theorists contrive a process that indicates truth to be good, then that process should be given validity and is great. If, however, that process doesn’t find truth to be good then that doesn’t change the fact that truth is good. Instead, the process is flawed. By knowing that truth is always good, we can test all of our processes to see if they also find truth to be good. Directory: uploads uploads -> 587 Return function, r i(X) r i(0) r i(1) r i(2) r i(3) 1 0 2 4 6 Thermal Station, I 2 0 1 5 6 3 0 3 5 6 10 uploads -> Department of science and humanities department of mathematics part-a questions and answers uploads -> The Case Against the nypd’s Quota-Driven ‘Broken Windows’ Policing What Is It? uploads -> For want of a nail uploads -> Ownership Models There are two different types of ownership models uploads -> Police Militarization uploads -> City of rising star regular meting thursday, july 14, 2016 uploads -> Township of winfield uploads -> Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act of 2014 uploads -> The Black Panther Party’s Ten-Point Program What We Want Now! Download 5.81 Mb. Share with your friends:
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