Ethical Intuitionism

This monograph presents a robust defense of ethical intuitionism as a metaethical theory, arguing that human beings possess the capacity to directly perceive moral truths through a faculty of moral intuition. Huemer develops a comprehensive epistemological framework that treats moral knowledge as analogous to perceptual knowledge, contending that just as we trust our senses to inform us about the physical world, we should trust our moral intuitions to inform us about moral reality.

The work engages critically with dominant twentieth-century alternatives to intuitionism, particularly emotivism, prescriptivism, and various forms of moral skepticism. Huemer argues that these theories fail to account adequately for the phenomenology of moral experience and lead to implausible conclusions about the nature of moral discourse. He defends the objectivity of moral truths against relativist and subjectivist challenges, maintaining that moral facts exist independently of human beliefs, desires, or cultural practices.

Central to Huemer's argument is his response to the standard objections against intuitionism, including concerns about moral disagreement, the mysteriousness of moral properties, and the epistemological problems associated with claiming direct access to moral truths. He develops a particularist methodology that begins with concrete moral intuitions about specific cases rather than abstract moral principles, arguing that this approach better reflects actual moral reasoning and avoids the artificiality of top-down theoretical systems.

While the monograph does not directly address theological questions, its defense of moral realism and objective moral truth bears significantly on debates about God's existence. The reality of objective moral values and duties features prominently in moral arguments for theism, and Huemer's case for their mind-independent existence provides philosophical support for such arguments, even as he maintains a secular approach to metaethics. His rejection of evolutionary debunking arguments and defense of the reliability of moral intuition challenges naturalistic attempts to explain away moral experience.

The work's contribution lies in its sophisticated rehabilitation of a position many considered philosophically defunct, demonstrating through rigorous argumentation that intuitionism remains a viable option in contemporary metaethics. By defending the existence of objective moral truths accessible through rational intuition, Huemer provides resources for those who see morality as pointing beyond purely naturalistic explanations of reality, though he himself does not pursue these theological implications.