Compelling Reasons to Trust Our Moral Intuition
Moral intuition is the immediate, unconscious emergence of moral judgments accompanied by the affective valence of good-bad or like-dislike.1 Moral intuition is undeniably a significant player in the shaping of human behavior and social interactions. However, the legitimacy of moral intuition as a guide for human behavior remains an intense topic of debate. Thus, the major influences, and consequences, of moral intuition beg the question: Do we have any good reasons to trust our moral intuition? To explore this question, this essay will focus on the origin, strengths, and limitations of moral intuition, concluding that various fundamental psychological and social reasons exist to support moral intuition’s reliability and trustworthiness.
Moral intuition originates from three main components: evolutionary factors, societal pressures, and cognitive processes that underlie ethical judgments.2 To understand moral intuition, one must first delve into evolutionary factors originating from two elements: an evaluative mental state and a feeling of rightness (FOR).3 As humans developed an analytic system of judgment, by extension came a psychological system generating feelings of rightness. The dual process theories, developed by psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, state that two types of thinking exist: Type 1 and Type 2. The Type 1 thinking process is fast, innate, and autonomous while Type 2 thinking involves slow, deliberate, and conscious effort. As affirmed by postdoctoral fellows Christine Clavien and Chloë FitzGerald, Type 1 thinking works closely with FOR, creating responses that come smoothly and naturally from people's minds. In the evolutionary perspective, the progression of Type 2 thinking, created from an instinctive need for communication, reasoning, and collaboration naturally called upon a need for Type 1 thinking. Quick decisions for day-to-day complex problems based on fragmented knowledge allowed Type 1 thinking, and hence moral intuition, or FOR, to thrive.
Correspondingly, neuroimages from the National Library of Medicine further assert moral intuition’s cognitive processes, showing increased activity in the “visual, premotor and orbitofrontal cortex and the temporal lobe” when participants experienced intuitive moral judgments. Moral intuition’s connection to automatic systems inside our brain allows for fast, reflective moral processing, which proves to be an essential tool for decisions and judgments. Neuroscientist John Allman and Professor Jim Woodward at the California Institute of Technology emphasize fast, moral processes as necessary for proper interactive and complex social situations. Similarly, postdoctoral fellows Clavien and FitzGerald emphasize the impact of Type 1 (fast, immediate processing) in the development of human decision-making, allowing for strong bonds to form as immediate FOR judgments are made upon loved ones. For example, a mother is likely to have a distorted, positive view of her child compared to others thanks to the quick FOR, or moral intuition, judgment in play. For instance, a mother is likely to believe that her child is the most beautiful in existence. Although this belief is false, mothers with this perspective form a closer bond with her child and thus are more supportive of her child’s needs for survival. Such needs include social and emotional well-being, brain growth, and maternal love, all of which are helped by a mother’s moral intuition when addressing her child. Therefore, the inconstancy and particular needs of life make moral intuition particularly useful, especially in circumstances where immediate thinking is needed.
In addition to the evolutionary and cognitive factors that contribute to moral intuition, societal pressures exist that aid in its ability to keep individuals in check and differentiate us from our ancestral apes. When comparing moral decisions with that of parametric ones, one can see that moral decisions differ mainly in the fact that actions are made based on how they will impact others.4 Actions backed by moral intuition are therefore guided by a sense of duty in performing goodness for society.5 Socially-conscious ideologies formed by moral intuition include the idea that lying is bad and that being selfish is a negative trait. However, such characteristics are not inherently wrong. As animals, it’s in our human nature to want to self-preserve and survive. Male horses target foreign foals in an attempt to mate with the mother horse and pass on their genes. Lions kill the offspring of other lions to allow their babies a better competitive chance in the wild. Although it’s extremely unlikely for humans to murder the offspring of their competitors, we do spend a majority of our time as evolved primates competing against one another. Whether it be for work, academics, or social recognition, people have a natural tendency to gravitate towards what will be most beneficial for themselves. Despite the fact that we all have an innate sense of self-preservation, we seem to work against that in the case of moral intuition, when we are grasped with a natural, unconscious tendency to throw ourselves into danger, or do things that will not benefit us, for the sake of performing goodness. This train of thought follows the principle of utility, otherwise known as utilitarianism, where the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines it as when individuals act so as to produce “the greatest good for the greatest number” even if it means sacrificing one’s own happiness. Socially, moral intuition allows individuals to become selfless and be guided by a sense of utilitarianism, which can be beneficial for the greater good of society. In this sense, moral intuition is a special evolution that makes us different from that of other mammals.
Conversely, doubters of moral intuition’s importance in behavior and decision-making state its unreliable nature established in social standards, emotion, and unconscious deliberation. For instance, philosopher H.A. Prichard states in his novel, Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake? The flaws of intuitive moral judgments in developing defendable, grounded conclusions. Prichard states that actions driven by moral intuition are motivated by the pressure to conform and be accepted by doing what is right. Thus, without the pressure of conforming to societal standards, individuals would not exhibit moral judgment, or at the very least, feel compelled to act upon circumstances with ethical outcomes in mind. Furthermore, moral dumbfounding, a term coined by psychologist Johnathan Haidt, is used to describe situations where individuals come to conclusions on what is right and wrong without proper justification to support their claim. While intuition is naturally fast and automatic, reasoning is slower and requires deliberate awareness of thought. Moreover, in cases such as college admissions, policies like quotas for racial minorities spark debates about fairness and justice. Using race as a compromise for historical injustices generates further tension between already existing tensions and creates growing resentment with racial parties, in turn becoming counter-intuitive for what it’s trying to achieve in the first place. As such, opponents of moral intuition’s legitimacy argue that intuition is not concrete enough to present any theoretical reconstruction.
However, there are viable reasons for doubt against this case. Intuition for the most part is automatic, but it is based on fragments of past knowledge and experience that, when compared with analytic thinking, can prove to be more helpful. Cognitive psychologist Gary Klein presents an example of this exact case in his novel, The Power of Intuition. In it, Klein studies a real-life scenario: two NICU nurses are on duty, one an experienced pro and the other a novice. The novice, taking care of a premature infant, sees no problem with her condition, though the infant is lethargic, has constant falling temperatures (albeit still within the normal range for babies), is bloated, and appears mottled, the novice nurse is able to justify these problems using her deductive reasoning. However, as the experienced nurse passes by, she is able to intuitively note something “funny” about the baby, immediately ordering antibiotics and demanding a blood test, worried that the infant might be in “big trouble.” A day later, the blood test revealed that the baby had sepsis. Had they delayed giving the infant the antibiotics until after the results of the blood test, it likely would have been too late. In this case, the experienced nurse can distinguish what healthy and unhealthy infants look like thanks to her prior years of knowledge in handling babies. As such, her intuition automatically processes what appears to be healthy babies and what appears to be infants in danger. Unlike the novice nurse, who does have training and knowledge, but lacks the intuition to put them into action, the experienced nurse relied on her intuition instead of analytic reasoning to arrive at the correct conclusion.
Further, the use of moral intuition in decisions and thinking is not fault-proof. In the case of college admissions, racial bias does exist in which individuals seek to compensate for disadvantaged groups against groups viewed as advantaged. For this reason, moral intuition should be used with, and not against, deductive reasoning. To achieve the goal of moral intuition, to deduce what is right and wrong efficiently and effectively, one needs to have a proper balance between reasoning and thought. Ultimately, moral intuition is a trustworthy source for decisions and thinking, when paired correctly with deductive reasoning and prior knowledge, one can fully achieve the beneficial impacts of following one’s moral intuition.
Endnotes
1. Allman, J., & Woodward J. (2008). What are Moral Intuitions and Why Should We Care About Them? A Neurobiological Perspective. Philosophical Issues. Retrieved July 8, 2024, from https://sci-hub.ru/10.1111/j.1533-6077.2008.00143.x
2. Kamm, F.M. (2007). Moral Intuitions, Cognitive Psychology, and the Harming-versus-Not-Aiding Distinction. The University of Chicago Press. Retrieved July 8, 2024, from https://academic.oup.com/book/26256/chapter-abstract/194476651?redirectedFrom=fulltext
3. Clavien, C., & FitzGerald, C. (2017). The evolution of moral intuitions and their feeling of rightness. Routledge. Retrieved July 8, 2024, from https://philarchive.org/archive/CLATEO-40
4. Allman, J., & Woodward J. (2008). What are Moral Intuitions and Why Should We Care About Them? A Neurobiological Perspective. Philosophical Issues. Retrieved July 8, 2024, from https://sci-hub.ru/10.1111/j.1533-6077.2008.00143.x
5. Prichard, H. A. (2002). Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake? Oxford University Press. Retrieved July 8, 2024, from https://sites.pitt.edu/~mthompso/readings/prichard.pdf
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