Principles and Intuitions in Ethics: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives

This essay situates some recent empirical research on the origin, nature, role, and reliability of moral intuitions against the background of nineteenth-century debates between ethical naturalism and rational intuitionism. The legitimate heir to Millian naturalism is the contemporary method of reflective equilibrium and its defeasible reliance on moral intuitions. Recent doubts about moral intuitions-worries that they reflect the operation of imperfect cognitive heuristics, are resistant to undermining evidence, are subject to framing effects, and are variable are best addressed by ethical naturalism as part of a broad dialectical equilibrium.