David Kaspar: Intuitionism.
Fischer, Robert William
David Kaspar
Intuitionism.
New York: Bloomsbury 2012.
225 pages
$95.00 (cloth ISBN: 978-1-44111-446-4);
$29.95 (paper ISBN: 978-1-44117-954-8)
According to intuitionism, there are objective, non-natural
evaluative facts. Moreover, many of them are known: as a result of
having grasped these facts, we justifiably believe various general moral
truths: e.g., that murder is wrong and that we ought to keep our
promises. Kaspar's Intuitionism is a fast-paced, opinionated
introduction to this theory.
In the Introduction and Chapter 1, Kaspar provides a quick overview
of the intuitionist approach. From the outset, Kaspar's aim is to
show that intuitionism can reply to a serious challenge: namely, that it
lacks explanatory power. To the contrary, he argues, intuitionism can
shed light on the content of commonsense morality, the nature of our
moral reasons, the existence of both persistent agreement and
disagreement in ethics, and much more. In Chapter 2, Kaspar sketches the
rise, fall, and revival of intuitionism in the twentieth century. This
involves outlining Prichard and Ross's accounts, some objections
thereto, and the moves by Rawls, Audi, and Shafer-Landau that put
intuitionism back on the map. Chapters 3-6 address epistemological
problems for modern intuitionism. How, exactly, can intuition provide
epistemic justification? To answer this question, Kaspar takes up a wide
range of issues, including the notion of moral proof, the synthetic a
priori, the supervenience of the nonnatural on the natural, and the
problem of disagreement. Chapter 5 then offers a speculative
metaphysical framework that's designed to show how moral knowledge
is possible. In short, Kaspar maintains that moral actions are instances
of moral kinds, which he takes to be intelligible abstract objects -
i.e., universals. We grasp them through our experience with their
instances, and are thus able to appreciate various self-evident moral
truths. (According to Kaspar, a proposition is self-evident 'if it
provides all the evidence necessary for believing it is true' (19).
To understand a general moral claim, like 'Murder is wrong',
we need to grasp the relevant moral kind; in so doing, we grasp the
truthmaker for that claim, and thus have all the evidence we require.)
Chapter 6 completes Kaspar's reply to the epistemological challenge
by showing how intuitionists can use moral kinds to give an account of
moral facts, including their relationship to the natural facts to which
they are intimately related.
In Chapter 7, Kaspar argues that intuitionism is superior to
Kantianism, utilitarianism, and virtue ethics. By rehearsing some
well-known objections to these views, he argues that their alleged
advantages are just that: alleged. (Intuitionism can indeed provide
moral explanations; intuitionism is no worse at providing action
guidance.) Moreover, he contends that intuitionism is superior in that
it is not vulnerable to moral counterexample: if an action seems wrong,
that's evidence that it is wrong; the point of the view is that
intuition (subject to reflection) is our only guide to those moral
principles that we ought to adopt. So, while there might be a
counterexample to a candidate principle, that wouldn't be a strike
against intuitionism in the way that it would be, say, against
utilitarianism. Chapter 8 concludes the book. It contains a rapid-fire
discussion of several remaining issues: the true moral principles; the
need for prudence in ethical reflection; the problem of moral
motivation; an evolutionary challenge; and the relationship between
ethics and theism (namely, that there isn't one).
It is difficult to know how to evaluate this volume. On the hand,
Kaspar pitches the book to students: it is 'something of an
introduction to the intuitionist outlook' (7); he writes in an
admirably accessible style; he concludes each chapter with a summary of
the main points; he refrains from interacting with minor figures in the
literature; and he generally opts for breadth rather than depth. But the
book has some unusual features for a student-oriented text: Kaspar
doesn't spend any time on pre-twentieth century intuitionism; he
doesn't offer general summaries of the views with which he engages
(so, for example, you don't finish the book having an understanding
of Audi's brand of intuitionism, though you might be able to
reconstruct much of it from the various discussions of Audi's
ideas); and, by the end, it's hard to avoid the thought that the
entire volume is an attempt to establish intuitionism (or perhaps
Kaspar's own brand of intuitionism) as the best available moral
theory. Admittedly, this last assessment is in tension with what we
might infer from Kaspar's stated methodology. He writes: 'The
question guiding my approach is, what if intuitionism is true? I am
seeking to find out what a completed moral theory would be like'
(7). These sentences suggest that, rather than arguing for intuitionism,
Kaspar is assuming it. If so, then the volume constitutes an exploration
of that assumption's consequences. But then consider the triumphant
conclusion: 'Our real thoughts about what's right, our
experience of morality in our lives, and the persistence of our core
moral beliefs are best explained by the self-evidence of the intuitive
moral principles. The case for intuitions of self-evident propositions
is strong' (188). If the book takes intuitionism's truth for
granted, where is that assumption discharged?
This confusion matters because it affects how we interpret a number
of his arguments. Take, for example, his reply to the conventionalist.
According to intuitionism, we have a priori knowledge of moral kinds:
'complex, relational, mind-independent, generic, non-natural
abstract wholes' (99). Kaspar's stock example of a moral kind
is promising. The conventionalist complains that there is no such
universal: the norms governing promising are constructed in response to
local historical circumstances. Kaspar responds in two ways. First, he
insists that it would be absurd to ask, 'What is a lie in
Bangladesh?' On this basis, we're supposed to infer that lies
could not be contingent social creations. Second, he maintains that the
conventionalist's story fails the 'Experience Test':
'I certainly was never taught the essential rules of promising. And
I cannot imagine in what kind of teaching environment I could be taught
them. So I possess the concept of the promise a priori. Being expose to
some instances of promises was all I needed to understand the essential
structure of promising' (115).
On the face of it, neither response works. First, I'm not sure
that it's absurd to ask, 'What is a lie in Bangladesh?'
But even if it is, that should be cold comfort to the intuitionist,
since the conventionalist can explain cross-cultural agreement without
positing universals: she can say that cross-cultural similarities
between norms are evidence of circumstantial similarities (and, of
course, similarities between the convention-makers themselves). Second,
since the conventionalist denies that there are essential rules of
promising, there's no need for her to explain when we were taught
them. At any rate, just as we were never explicitly taught most
linguistic norms, which are obvious fabrications, we need not be
explicitly taught the conventions that sustain our local customs.
If Kaspar intends for these responses to show that intuitionism is
safe from the threat of conventionalism, then they are unsuccessful. But
if they are supposed to show what's wrong with conventionalism from
the perspective of intuitionism, then perhaps more charitable
evaluations are possible. It simply isn't clear which we should
prefer. And this interpretative problem crops up throughout: in his
discussion of concepts that can and can't be grasped by intellect
alone (17-18); in his response to the problem of moral disagreement
(44-48); in his challenge to the skeptic (72); in his distinction
between 'right' and 'ought' (134); in his challenge
to theories that posit a supreme principle of morality (148f.); and in
most of Chapter 8.
All that said, the book's constructive project is worthy of
attention. Kaspar uses the many objections to intuitionism to pare the
theory down to its essentials; then, he develops a framework that
promises to solve the explanatory and epistemological puzzles that the
view faces. His account of moral facts deserves further discussion; his
observations about the centrality of moral relations to ethics are quite
compelling; and his diagnosis of moral disagreement (in terms of
different weightings of known prima facie duties) seems promising.
Because of the volume's organization, I can't see using it in
an undergraduate course to supplement primary texts. However, I
certainly can see using it as a primary text. It's an engaging and
accessible work, and if it raises some meta-level interpretative
questions, all the better for classroom discussion.
Robert William Fischer
Texas State University
