Before we begin our deliberation, it would be best to outline the matter in which reason and intuition are not necessarily at odds. We can witness how human beings do not morally blame those who lack a ‘fully functional faculty of reason’ (hereby known as F.R.) - (e.g. the elderly, the mentally disabled, children, animals etc.). If one cannot reason, one cannot come up with rational procedures for solving practical moral problems. Therefore, moral blame cannot be assigned to those who are incapable of reasoning (e.g. we do not prosecute children and adults in the same court). Furthermore, nobody expects a person who is lacking a F.R. to have the right intuitions when facing a practical moral problem (e.g. where one expects a person with a F.R. to intuitively want to save a child from drowning in a small pool in front of them by simply picking them up, one does not expect a person who lacks a F.R. - e.g. mentally disabled, elderly, etc. - to have this same intuition), meaning that individuals who lack having a F.R. also lack having a fully functional faculty of intuition (hereby known as F.I.). This points to the notion that intuition and reason are not really mutually exclusive and that their conflict is not necessarily a dichotomy. This also helps answer why there is a common likelihood for intuition and reason to agree in so many cases and how two people may arrive at the same conclusion when one believes he has done it intuitively while the other believes he has done it rationally. To further the explanation of the above claim, we can observe that the quality of the faculties of reason and intuition are a matter of degree, just as it is with moral blameworthiness (e.g. we assign a higher degree of moral blame on a 10 year old then a 5 year old). Many factors can vary these degrees including the developing phases of human growth, the severity of a mental disability and even the progression of an animal’s evolution.
Not only does moral advancement happen throughout human history, but it happens through the history of all creatures, just as there is a biological evolutionary advancement. Empirical evidence shows actions of supposed intuitive ‘moral behaviours’ from all sorts of animals including monkeys, dolphins, buffalos, hippos and dogs - even towards animals of different species. These are animals who may be viewed as having the capability of reaching the last step of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, striving for some sort of self-actualization. Take for instance the monkey protest: when a monkey finds out that another monkey has been given a higher share of a reward for the same amount of work, the monkey protests by going on strike and not continuing his work or doing something else (Brosnan). It is unlikely that the monkey is actually reasoning out some moral notion of equality, rather it is more probable that it is just recognizing the intrinsic wrongness of inequality within that given situation. These intuitive moral behaviours have most likely formed out of an animals primal survival instincts. Human beings not only recognize the unfairness of the situation as monkeys do but also try to build some sort of theory or justification around it so that their community can be steered towards trying to avoid further situations of unfairness because nobody likes being in that position. Comparing the differences between the mental capabilities of human beings and monkeys with their potentiality for intuitive or rationalized morality indicates that reason may be an evolutionary extension or expansion upon intuition instead of something that has been formed independently.
So far, having disassembled the dichotomy and having shown that reason and intuition are more likely to be mutual inclusive than at odds, we are now in a much better position to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of each method.
The main power of intuition is triggered by forces of emotion. When one witnesses a brutal murder or rape, the sympathy that is felt for the victim creates a moral sentiment which labels that action as being ‘wrong’. This labelling process requires no method of reasoning, rather, it is powered by our emotional faculties. The significance of reason is then devalued since it is not necessarily needed to make moral judgments (Hume 84).
Here we are left with the problem of trying to prove and regain the significance of reason; for this, it would seem necessary to integrate facts and values, otherwise known as deriving an ought from an is. The supposition is that, if we were to look at the real world, we would find nothing that tells us how we ought to act (e.g. a rock that is falling down a cliff does not have a destination in which it ‘ought’ to land) - (Hume 1.1.27). However, we can see that values are only important to living things (i.e. dead people do not have any values) meaning that value only exists because life exists. To keep these values, living things ought to try to survive and this need for survival also becomes of value (Rand 923). If one does not have any values, one is only capable of feeling pain (e.g. if one does not value survival, one may not value food meaning that they can only starve to death). Morality then, comes out of the value one has to survive and can be in the form of intuition or reason; just as the monkey who would rather do something else than work for unequal pay because her work is less valued (explained above). Through evolution, human beings have developed and expanded their faculty of intuition with a faculty of reason, which is more precise, universal and more objective, to help assist them with survival while other animals have found other ways to help them survive and keep hold of their values (i.e. intuition and reason are faculties which help us survive and survival is necessary for the existence of value). Much like intuition and reason, facts and values may also be mutually inclusive.
Another positive feature of Intuition is its ability to, if someone was to somehow justify the permissibility of an immoral act (e.g. rape) through reason, immediately disagree and stump the new proposal from reason. However there are cases where reason has the ability to change intuitive notions. For example, before Columbus sailed to the new world, it was intuitively true that the world was flat. Yet, through the reasoning developed by the ancient worlds, intuition changed from a flat earth to an earth that is shaped more like the moon. A more modern example can be extracted out of the field of economics. In economics, various actions that are deemed to be right are necessarily counter-intuitive - but only counter-intuitive for those who have not studied economics. Even basic capitalistic ideals are counter-intuitive such as the efficiency of a spontaneous and decentralized order.
Now I would like to address the risk involved when using intuition to come up with moral judgments. The biggest problem intuition has to face is itself; two people can have two different views on what is intuitively correct. Also, intuitions are likely to change depending on certain circumstances. In the trolley case, where one must decide to save five people by killing one, people have different conclusions as to what actions they would take depending on various factors (e.g. whether they are actively doing it - flicking a switch versus pushing someone in the way of the trolley) even when these factors do not alter the result. Through this, we have recognized that human beings have different reasons and intuitions on what they should value (e.g. consequences, intentions, etc.). Another example is the case of abortion, where one person may intuitively think that killing an innocent person is wrong and the other may intuitively think that taking away a person’s right to choose is wrong - this is an argument that may arise from the different intuitions people have on what a person actually is. Furthermore, it is normal for intuitions to change depending on emotion. One study shows that people are more likely to cheat and steal when someone from their own group cheats and steals and people are less likely to cheat and steal when someone in another group cheats and steals. Intuitions actually change depending on ‘group think’ pointing to the notion that intuitions are culturally/collectively relative. In the same study, it was found that it is more likely for more people to cheat a little rather than for some people to cheat a lot. The theory is that people like to think of themselves as being ‘good’ so if someone from their own group does something wrong, they are more inclined to do it because they recognize that person as being apart of them (and vice versa when they are not apart of their group). In the same way, stealing a lot is viewed to be ‘bad’ while stealing a little is viewed to be trivial so more people are inclined to do trivial bad actions so they would not think of themselves as being ‘bad’ (Ariely). This is why intuitions of good and bad vary depending on their feelings at the time. As a result, we can see that conflicting moralities for certain dilemmas cannot be solved using intuition alone as they rely solely on emotional experience; alternatively, rationality has a much better method to resolve disputes and relativity, using an objective method of science and logic. In fact, it makes intuitive sense for us to use rationality to debate controversial issues rather than use arguments from intuition or emotion as there is no way to prove one person’s emotion to be ‘more right‘ than another. We intuitively want to find a true answer (an answer where there can be no dispute) so our intuition actually tells us to use reason. Only rationality can bring us closer to truth as what it tries to find is testable, evident and universal. Truth, whether or not it exists, becomes increasingly valuable, as there are less controversies to debate, the closer we get to it. An act should be deemed right because of the right reasons - as their validity can be debated - not because of some preconceived intuitions of what the property of rightness holds (Korsgaard 3).
Reason, however, cannot contest intuition on all fronts. Although reason is more trustworthy than intuition, we cannot assume that reason is always the right answer (i.e. it has its limits and truth may not always be reachable). Ultimately, even if our feelings come from some sort of evolutionary survival instinct, passions are what constitute our moral behaviour. Take for instance the feeling of moral resentment; if a mentally disabled person who had seemingly no will of her own was to kill someone I love, it would not make sense for me to assign any moral blame (whether through reason or intuition) but I would probably still have intuitive feelings of moral resentment (Strawson). This feeling of resentment highlights the immorality of the actions committed regardless of their intentions which gives us a much fuller view of ethical theory; if this feeling did not exist, it would diminish the significance of striving for morality as a whole. Intuition may be subjective and untrustworthy but without it we would not be able to steer our reason in the right directions. If our faculty of reason told us to declare war, our intuitions could still recognize the immorality of the situation; however, declaring a war based on intuition alone is obviously dangerous and even counter-intuitive. This sets up the notion that the more significant our actions are (however significance is defined -more people involved, how long it lasts etc.), the more we are inclined to use reason to justify our actions, yet, at the same time, intuitions have some sort of innate power to overrule the findings of reason. A good analogy would be that of a courtroom within the mind, where if lawyers were to be represented as reasons, who debate for moral truth, while the judge can be represented as our intuition, who gives the final verdict on a moral action. A good lawyer can sometimes change the judges mind (as with economic theory or the flat earth mentioned above) which sets the precedent for any future court cases (i.e. moral cases) but the judge always has the power to overrule decisions (as with moral resentment and attempts to justify immoralities with reason - war). In addition, reason is much slower method when compared to Intuition, which helps in cases of emergency where there is no time to think (e.g. nobody stops to think whether it is moral to save a drowning child in front of them, they just act immediately through intuition).
In conclusion, it is not useful to use reason and intuition exclusively to help us come up with practical moral answers; both these faculties exist within us so that we may use them to deal with the world. Where one faculty may have a limited explanation, the other faculty can fill the void; when we cannot find valid reasons, we will use our intuitions while when our intuitions disagree, we find the answer through rational debate. These two faculties have been created, through evolution, to assist us in our never-ending endeavour to retain our values and strive for survival. It is just as dangerous to use reason alone, where one can come up with an excellent argument to prove an immoral action as moral, as it is to use intuition alone, where our intuitions can lead us to act inconsistently or irrationally. Throughout this essay, we have gone through the relationships between reason and intuition, compared and contrasted their methods and came up with the conclusion that these two faculties must both be used at their full capabilities to have any hope in finding moral truth.
Works Cited
Ariely, Dan, George Loewenstein, Niklas Karlsson, and Uri Simonsohn. "The tree of experience in the forest of information: Overweighing experienced relative to observed information."
Bergson, Henri. The Creative Mind An Introduction to Metaphysics. New York: Replica Books, 1999.
Brosnan, Sarah F., and Frans B.M. De Waal. "Monkeys Reject Unequal Pay." Nature (2003).
Hume, David. Treatise of Human Nature. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1984.
Korsgaard, Chris. "Normativity, Necessity, and the Synthetic a priori: A Response to Derek Parfit." Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Rand, Ayn. Atlas Shrugged. New York: Plume, 1999.
Strawson, P. F. "Freedom and Resentment."
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