A Handbook of Ethical TheoryFullerton, George Stuart
Philosophy
A Handbook of Ethical Theory
Fullerton, George Stuart
Ethics
Even so, it is difficult to draw a sharp line between Dogmatic
Intuitionists and Philosophical, or to regard Dogmatic Intuitionists as a
clearly defined class of any sort. A man may accept it as self-evident
that a waiter should receive ten per cent of the amount of his bill; a
woman may find it obviously proper that an old lady should wear purple.
Those little given to reflection may accept such maxims as these without
attempting to justify them by falling back upon any more general rule. We
all find about us human beings who have their minds stored with a
multitude of maxims not greatly different from those adduced, and who
find them serviceable in guiding their actions. But thoughtful men can
scarcely be content with such a modicum of reason, and they distinguish
between ultimate principles and minor maxims which stand in need of
justification by their reference to principles.
The intuitional moralists by profession draw this distinction. We find
them setting forth as ultimate a limited number of ethical principles of
a high degree of generality. It is obvious that, the more general the
principle, the more room for conscious reasoning in its interpretation
and application. The man to whom it appears as in the nature of things
suitable that the waiter should receive his ten per cent is relieved from
many perplexities which may beset the man who feels assured only of the
general truth that it is right to be benevolent.
A glance at a few of the moralists who are treated in the history of
ethics as representative intuitionists reveals that they are little in
harmony as touching the particular moral intuitions which they urge as
the foundation of ethics.
Thus, John Locke maintains that from the idea of God, and of ourselves as
rational beings, a science of morality may be deduced demonstratively; a
science: "wherein I doubt not but from self-evident propositions, by
necessary consequences, as incontestible as those in mathematics, the
measures of right and wrong might be made out to anyone that will apply
himself with the same indifferency and attention to the one, as he does
to the other of those sciences." [Footnote: _Essay Concerning Human
Understanding_, Book IV, chapter iii, Sec 18.]
Among Locke's self-evident propositions or moral axioms we find: where
there is no property there is no injustice; no government allows absolute
liberty; all men are originally free and equal; parents have the power to
control their children till they come of age; the right of property is
based upon work, but is limited by the supply of property left for others
to enjoy. [Footnote: See above, chapter iii, Sec 10.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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