Moral Repugnance, Intuition, and Compassion: Not Enough for Moral Justification
There are times when what is right or wrong seems so obvious that no explanation is necessary. Those times are misleading. The problem is not always that whether something appears to be right or wrong is inconsistent with the truth, though. Rather, the problem is always whether some explanation, aka justification, is still necessary.
That obviousness, that immediate sense that something is morally laudable, tolerable, or contemptible, can take different forms. But inevitably it collapses into some kind of moral intuitionism. Intuition is simply knowledge without justification. So moral intuition is an awareness of what is right or wrong prior to or separate from justification for the moral judgment in question. For an intuitionist like W.D. Ross, for instance, the awareness that a person ought to keep his obligations is prima facie right. Saying something is known prima facie or intuitively is a lot like saying some truth is self-evident. It really means nothing more than one of two things: either “I feel so strongly about this issue that I cannot even consider the possibility that I am not right” or “since I know everyone that matters already agrees with me I have no reason to explain myself on this issue.”
Moral repugnance works precisely that way. Repugnance is an extremely strong sense of aversion to something—a visceral reaction to reject it. The presumption, for instance, is that exposure to images of the mutilated bodies of small children, pictures of aborted fetuses, should provoke a moral repugnance regarding the act of abortion. (My own informal polls in secular classrooms indicate to my thoroughgoing surprise, by the way, that it actually is not an entirely wasted effort—students have told me they changed their minds about the issue based on those huge protest pictures.) But here is the problem. Repugnance can be based on moral aversion, or on other things as well; emotional aversion, for example.
And, in fact, that possibility, that moral repugnance could be nothing more than emotional repugnance, gets to the heart of the issue. The point here is not at all that moral repugnance is not or could not be a reality. It makes perfect sense that God would create man with an intuitive, even innate sense of right and wrong. But that sense must be accompanied by some means of moral justification or it simply collapses into what is known as emotivism.
Emotivism, described for instance by Alasdair MacIntyre in After Virtue, is the lamentably subjective state of morals in the context of the modern (fully Enlightened or post-Enlightenment) world. It is the world in which the strongest moral claim is “I believe X is right, and you should too,” even though it is impossible to explain why.
Now it is perfectly sensible to believe that moral intuition exists. But it is completely unacceptable for a moral realist, a person who believes morality is something real, to rely on that intuition to make a moral claim. At that point, moral intuitionism is no better than—indeed, is at best indistinguishable from and at worst identical with—emotivism.
But the one appealing to intuition will say, “Well what is a person supposed to do when it is intuition which has provided moral awareness?” The answer is simple: seek for and provide justification beyond intuition. In practical terms that justification can come from two sources: reason, or divine command (compatible sources on my reckoning, by the way, since both—reason, and moral commandments—are gifts created and bestowed by the same Author). Without that extra reckoning, without the work to seek out why it is that a sense of repugnance is an expression of moral aversion, then a person cannot know whether their aversion is moral or simply emotional. “Do I now loathe abortion (based on the pictures of fetal dismemberment mentioned above) because of my innate moral sense, or for the same reason I would loathe open-heart surgery, because of my emotional aversion to open thoraxes?”
If something is known only intuitively, then its status as moral, emotional, or flat-out psychopathic, cannot be determined. But if something encountered intuitively is then pursued and justified either rationally or scripturally (to be blunt about it), then it can have moral weight, rather than the purely subjective and morally vacuous consistency of the claim that because “I feel-think-believe it and I’m bigger-smarter-older than you, you must also learn to feel-think-believe it.” Morality is as real as the justification of its claims is possible.
Two quick parallel items:
- The Old Testament edict to act compassionately, out of pity for the poor, for instance, informs much moral discourse in both Jewish and Christian thought ever since. And there is no dispute to be had that God has instilled an innate sense of empathy in people—that He has given us an intuitive sense of pity. But that pity is not always moral, as Deuteronomy 19:21 points out (among many other passages): “Thine eye shall not pity, but life shall go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.” The point is that what would surely pass for moral intuition (pity) is not moral at all until it has the justification of being in conformity with divine command.
- The argument of this post addresses the same issue Immanuel Kant does when he uses common sense as the term for what claims to need no justification. From Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics:
They found a more convenient method of being defiant without any insight, viz., the appeal to common sense. It is indeed a great gift of God, to possess right, or (as they now call it) plain common sense. But this common sense must be shown practically, by well-considered and reasonable thoughts and words, not by appealing to it as an oracle, when no rational justification can be advanced. To appeal to common sense, when insight and science fail, and no sooner-this is one of the subtle discoveries of modern times, by means of which the most superficial ranter can safely enter the lists with the most thorough thinker, and hold his own. But as long as a particle of insight remains, no one would think of having recourse to this subterfuge. For what is it but an appeal to the opinion of the multitude, of whose applause the philosopher is ashamed, while the popular charlatan glories and confides in it?
Common sense is something like “corporate” intuition, but is no more related to truth than it is able to be justified by rational analysis and argumentation.
This is a wonderful post! It is so energizing for me to learn how to say what I have always known but could never clearly communicate. I’m always trying to equip myself to wield the Truth better and learning from you and others I am glad to say that I have advanced from using “the blunt rock of truth” to maybe “the pointy stick of truth”. I may never hold a Light Saber as you do but by God’s grace and guidance I will mimic your swings and place my feet in His footsteps and press on. Thank you.