'People know within themselves what is right or wrong/bad or good' Discuss
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Oxford A Level Religious Studies for OCR
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r‘Ppl just know in themselves what is right or wrong’ Discuss
Intro: outline what this essay questions is asking. This question is asking whether intuitionism is
convincing. Outline what intuitionism is and signpost ur argument.
People do not know if something is intuitive as our concept of right or wrong is simply an
outburst or expression of beliefs. Mankind's inability to share a concept of what is good and bad
suggests that people do not know within themselves what is right or wrong. Whilst maintaining
that morality is cognitive, intuitionists assert that moral facts are self-evident and are known
intuitively. G.E Moor proposed that ‘good is good…[and] that it cannot be defined’. He argued
that intrinsically good things exist for their own sake and they cannot be broken down or
analysed but can be recognised. Moore, particularly concerned with rejecting utilitarians, argued
that goodness could not be defined, measured and quantified. Such attempts to define good for
example by defining good as that which produces the most pleasure is committing the
naturalistic fallacy. Good cannot be broken down into constituent parts. He likened good to the
colour yellow. We can demonstrate our knowledge of the colour yellow by pointing at the colour
yellow but any attempt to define the colour will fail. Good and bad are thus intuitively known. Yet
this is problematic as morality cannot be cognitive and intuitive if people have different intuitive
understandings of good and bad.(Freidrich) Nietzsche convincingly raised the issue of ethical
colour blindness to highlight how different intuitions may point to different ideas of right and
wrong; what one may see as yellow another may see as green. If knowledge of good and bad is
a priori and cannot be proven by outside criteria, then there is no way to prove whose
interpretation of moral dilemma is correct. If a murderer thought murder was right and killed
someone who thought it was wrong there would be no way of discerning who had knowledge of
moral truth. If no terms can be proved or disproved they are merely a matter of expression.
Therefore, it seems as though moral expressions do not come from within but are merely
emotional responses. Therefore, it is clear that people do not just know what is right or wrong in
themselves because our intuitions can lead us astray.
People do not know within themselves what is right or wrong rather they just learn through their
experiences of the world. H. A Prichard, an intuition, argued that in every situation, reason
collects the facts and intuition determines which course of action to follow. For example, when
deciding whether to give to charity, reason collects all of the data on the charity and the various
possible outcomes and intuition determines what we should do. In every situation, intuitionism
helps us make a decision and carves out what is right or wrong within every situation. Prichard
further argues that moral disagreements occur because some are less morally developed than
others. Yet Prichard's argument is without flaws and seems to be suggesting that our intuitions
cannot be solely relied on suggesting that people do not know within themselves what is right or
wrong. Prichard argued that morals often differ and concepts of right and wrong differ because
some people have more clarity around moral intuitions as they are more enlightened. The
pope, the Dali Lama and Peter singer could all be considered very developed individuals yet
their intuition would differ. It seems more convincing to argue that our sense of right and wrong
comes from our culture and our upbringing rather than a non-natural reality as it is clear that we
have different concepts of right and wrong. We as humans don't innately know what is right and
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