Phil 306, Professor Hanoch Sheinman, Jiayi Monika Sun

The Reliability of Ethical Theories

Innate in the plethora of human characteristics is the strange ability of individuals, when confronted with a situation, to pursue one direction of action without analyzing it but instead, going with a “gut sense”.  This is what is known as an intuition.  But how are human beings to tell whether this intuition is ethical or correct for the arising dilemma?  From here, one must use other methods that are better analyzed to determine the rightness of their intuitions.  Ethical theories such as moral absolutism and moral relativism are developed by individuals who have thought and analyzed long and hard about reactions to situations or the right way to live one’s life.  Therefore, the degree to which individual intuitions correspond with ethical theories must be an indication of their correctness, right?

This is chain of thoughts that seem reasonable.  Intuitions are not completely ambiguous.  They make up a summary of an individual’s past experiences or even morals that the society around that individual hold as a set of rules to the actions of its individuals.  Even if an individual does not necessarily follow those intuitions, nevertheless, they exist within every person.  Therefore, these intuitions are well calculated, reasoned ideas of what is right in a particular situation.  Ethical theories on the other hand are ideas that people have come up with, disregarding their initial intuitions perhaps as naïve or merely impulsive emotions, as the way to determine what is the right thing to do.  However, there is no doubt that our moral intuitions arise from real human experiences and therefore, have meaning and if a specific moral theory completely contradicts that our intuition, then our direct intuition is that this moral theory is corrupt.

The reason why at first, many may find it hard to trust their own intuition is because it is one hundred percent originated from a human who has not analyzed the situation.  It is easily to, after knowing about the fallacy and impulsiveness of humans, to disregard intuitions simply as small fancies—emotions not worth considering. Human emotions can change from one day to the next with relatively little significance or though on the individual’s part.  Thusly, how can intuitions be trusted at all?  There is one important fallacy in this reasoning and that is the difference between intuitions and emotions.  Emotions are completely internal.  The emotions that arise are prompted by some sort of chain of events within one’s mind after experiencing something external.  Intuitions on the other hand are completely reactions to external events.  Therefore, there is very little room for them to be influenced by fickle or rash thoughts.  Moreover, they are immediate reactions acting similarly to the situation as the effect of a cause and effect pair.

Considering all of this, we must also take the time to examine moral theories.  Moral theories are beliefs about the way things are in the whole world, developed by people who have thoroughly, or believed they have thoroughly examined many situations.  After considering factors such as the nature of human beings or the variety of situations that may pop up, individuals develop moral theories as a basis to the way they believe all individuals should act like.  In our world however, there will always be exceptions to situations and objections as well.  However, when a moral theory is compared to a human intuition and confirmed similar or aimed towards the same means, it adds to the soundness of that theory.  If a theory resembles a human intuition and if most humans have similar first-order morals, then we can not but agree that that moral theory has some basis or credit. After all, these theories are all based upon real existence and what more is indication of that than a human being.

A good example of this is in the Killing, Letting Die, and the Trolley Problem.  There are two doctors, David and Donald.  David has the option to cut one patient up and give those parts to five other individuals that will have their lives saved by this.  Donald on the other hand only has to cut his patient up.  This will then incite a process that will cure his other five patients.  The question at stake here is whether it is permissible for either or both of them to do this or if it is not permissible for anyone in this situation to cut up that one unlucky man.
          
After initially looking at the situation beginning with David, the intuition is that he is not allowed to take something from someone to give it to someone else, even if the ‘someone else’ is a group of people.  Afterwards, when examining Donald’s situation, even though he isn’t giving anything up, he may not do anything similarly to David.  This second decision may be related to the attempt of humans to be consistent with their decisions.  However, the moral theory that Thompson offers here is that as long as the parts of that human being don’t belong to him, then David can cut him up and distribute his parts just like Donald can cut his specimen.  The central idea here is that as long as an individual is not taking from one individual and giving it to another then he is free to do whatever he needs to complete his goal.  This is quite contrary to what normal human beings’ intuitions.  Whether or not those parts belong to whom, it is not right for someone to kill an innocent individual to save others.  When faced with the possibility of saving a group of individuals however, our intuitions sometimes fail.  Some people believe that for the sake of quantitative meaning, it is right for one individual to die in order to save many more.  This indicates that this particular theory corresponds with the intuitions of human beings when the number of people saved goes up.  As long as things aren’t taken from one person to be given to another then all is well.
          
The difficulty when examining these particular situations is that there is almost an endless set of circumstances and many things to consider in each.  For example, after determining the previous theory of taking and giving, one must also face if it is right to kill an innocent person.  Therefore, for a theory to completely support a particular intuition is very difficult.

All along, we have been assuming that intuitions are completely correct.  Once again, intuitions are based on experience and knowledge.  However, take for example if one’s experience is not complete; outside what an individual experiences first person, other things may also happen unbeknownst to him or her.  Flawed knowledge also leads to an incorrect intuition.

One example similar to the slaveholder example presented by Kagan in Normative Ethics is an individual who has an intuition that any food that is not organic is processed and therefore, chemically contaminated.  She also does not believe in the vaccines that a baby must get to prevent diseases. She believes in the concept of corporate American and sees it only as a way for companies to earn easy money.  Therefore, her theory is to only feed her baby organic food and refuse to bring her baby to any of the vaccinations that have been set up.  Consequently, the baby suffers malnutrition and becomes sick and must be taken to the hospital if he is to survive.  This is a good example of an individual who, having these particular intuitions develops a theory that fits.  However, her intuitions must first be example for validity.  Is the only reason that babies are automatically scheduled for vaccinations and parents are made to pay ludicrous amounts of health insurance for them so that these companies can make money?  The truth lies behind the fact that these vaccinations are vital to a baby’s health and therefore, companies charge high prices because they assume parents know that there is no other way to insure a baby is kept healthy.  Moreover, organic food does not have nearly enough nutrition that a new born baby requires.  Therefore, her intuitions are once again proven false.

In the end, a good moral theory will reflect an individual’s moral intuitions.  Because human beings have this innate sense of right and wrong, a theory’s association with individual intuitions is a prominent example of its soundness.  However, factors must be taken into account before one can completely rely on those intuitions to be a good example for the development of a moral theory.  A flawed or incomplete intuition will lead to a similar theory.  Therefore, only a moral theory that supports a valid intuition can be reliable.