Contemporary investigations of moral intuition in epistemology and cognitive science

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis and comparison of theories of moral intuition, actively discussed in epistemology and cognitive science in the first two decades of this century. At the beginning of the twentieth century intuitionism was a popular position in ethics. However, already in the middle of the last century this position was rejected by philoso­phers. At the beginning of the new century, we can see a return of interest in the study of in­tuition and its role in ethical decision-making. The main disciplines in which there is an in­crease in the number of studies of moral intuition are primarily cognitive science and epistemology. Approaches to the phenomenon of moral intuition in these disciplines are dif­ferent. Cognitive science, moral psychology, is primarily focused on understanding intu­ition as a psychological process characterized by a specific cognitive role. Epistemology is interested in moral intuition as an epistemic state, in what role it plays in justification of our knowledge of moral facts. However, despite the fact that moral intuition is understood dif­ferently in these disciplines, we can nevertheless highlight common points. The paper notes that the revival of interest in moral intuition is associated largely with the development of research in the field of decision theory, namely the development of a theory of ethical deci­sion-making. Another area of research, with which the study of moral intuition is closely re­lated, is the problem of moral uncertainty.