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In this thesis, I explore moral intuition as an epistemological tool for constructing moral systems, focusing specifically on the challenges arising from evolutionary and cultural biases. This thesis will consider and discuss Michael Huemer's Ethical Intuitionism, Peter Singer's critique of moral intuitions, and Sharon Street's Darwinian Dilemma, I consider some possible defenses and counterarguments concerning the reliability of moral intuitions. Furthermore, this thesis examines the potential self-defeating nature of certain arguments against the reliability of moral intuitions, while concurrently discussing the broader implications of these criticisms on other areas of philosophy and the potential ramifications on our other cognitive faculties, such as logic and rationality. Alternative perspectives are briefly considered by presenting the approaches to morality of Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche. Marx's theory of historical materialism and Nietzsche's concept of Will to Power. Presenting their interpretations of moral evolution, these offer contrasts to the debate surrounding moral intuitions. Ultimately, this thesis proposes that we are either compelled to accept moral intuitions as a reliable epistemological tool to construct moral systems or embrace global skepticism because of the biases and limitations inherent in our cognitive faculties. I will explore what I propose is the paradoxical nature of moral intuitions as an epistemological tool and their role in our pursuit of moral truth.

Submitted by JOSIANE SANTOS DE OLIVEIRA (josianeso) on 2018-04-23T14:18:43Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Tiaraju Molina Andreazza_.pdf: 1637018 bytes, checksum: cd926fa9e8d8aa8ed47d0ee55f318e84 (MD5) Tiaraju Molina Andreazza_.pdf: 1637018 bytes, checksum: cd926fa9e8d8aa8ed47d0ee55f318e84 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-04-23T14:18:43Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Tiaraju Molina Andreazza_.pdf: 1637018 bytes, checksum: cd926fa9e8d8aa8ed47d0ee55f318e84 (MD5) Tiaraju Molina Andreazza_.pdf: 1637018 bytes, checksum: cd926fa9e8d8aa8ed47d0ee55f318e84 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-03-14 / CAPES - Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Como devemos conduzir nossas investigações morais para descobrir no que acreditar sobre questões morais? Como a plausibilidade de juízos, teorias e princípios morais deve ser avaliada? Como devemos tentar remover nossas dúvidas quando estamos incertos sobre o que é certo ou errado, bom ou mau, justo ou injusto? Este trabalho é um estudo do método do equilíbrio reflexivo, um método que fornece um modelo para a investigação moral que permitiria responder adequadamente questões como essas. Desde que esse método se tornou popular em filosofia moral após ter sido empregado e defendido por John Rawls em A Theory of Justice (1971), tem sido costumeiro interpretá-lo como um modelo coerentista para a investigação e justificação moral. De acordo com essa interpretação, a investigação moral adequada é em um processo no qual o indivíduo busca a maximização da coerência e a minimização da incoerência entre seus os juízos morais, os seus princípios morais e as suas crenças não morais relevantes, e cujo valor estaria em sua capacidade de garantir para a pessoa que o segue a aceitação de crenças morais que seriam epistemicamente justificadas por essas relações de coerência. Este estudo procura se contrapor a essa interpretação oferecendo em seu lugar um modelo intuicionista para o equilíbrio reflexivo. De acordo com esse modelo, a investigação moral adequada é um processo em que uma pessoa procura descobrir o que é congruente com suas intuições morais, ou o que é plausível à luz daquelas proposições morais que lhe parecem ser intuitivamente verdadeiras, e o valor desse processo estaria na sua capacidade de colocar uma pessoa em posição de aceitar proposições morais com base nas razões que ela tem para sustentá-las, o que é uma parte necessária da crença moral epistemicamente justificada. O estudo defende o equilíbrio reflexivo mostrando como ele, quando interpretado segundo uma abordagem intuicionista, pode ser visto em uso nas investigações morais de filósofos competentes, como John Rawls, Philippa Foot, Judith Jarvis Thomson, Peter Singer e outros. A tese defendida é que uma abordagem intuicionista, e apenas ela, responde satisfatoriamente às principais objeções dirigidas ao método por seus críticos. / How we should conduct our moral inquiry to discover what to believe about moral questions? How the plausibility of judgments, theories and moral principles should be evaluated? How we should try to remove our doubts when we are uncertain about what is right or wrong, good or bad, just or injust? This is a study about the reflective equilibrium, a method that offers a model for the moral inquiry which answers these questions. Since it became popular in moral philosophy following its use and defense by John Rawls in A Theory of Justice (1971), the reflective equilibrium has been interpreted as a coherentist model for the moral inquiry and justification. According to this interpretation, the proper moral inquiry it is a process in which one tries to maximize coherence and minimize incoherence between his moral beliefs, moral principles and relevant nonmoral beliefs, a process that it is valuable by ensuring that the person who follows it ends up accepting moral beliefs which are epistemically justified by these coherence relations. This study intends to argue against this view developing in its place an intuitionist model for the reflection equilibrium. According to this model, the proper moral inquiry it is a process in which one tries to discover what its supported by his moral intuitions, or what is plausible from the point of view of those moral propositions that intuitively appears to be true, a process that it is valuable because it makes the person following it able to hold its moral beliefs based on the reasons that she has to believe them, which is a necessary part of the epistemically justified moral belief. The study argues in favor of this view by showing how the reflective equilibrium, when interpreted as a intuionist method, can be seen as the method used in the moral inquiry of competent moral philosophers, such as John Rawls, Philippa Foot, Judith Jarvis Thomson, Peter Singer and others. The study defends the thesis that only an intuitionist approach can deal with the main objections to the reflective equilibrium presented by its critics.

This study is a contribution to the bioethical debate about new and possibly emerging reproductive technologies. Its point of departure is the intuition, which many people seem to share, that using such technologies to select non-disease traits – like sex and emotional stability - in yet unborn children is morally problematic, at least more so than using the technologies to avoid giving birth to children with severe genetic diseases, or attempting to shape the non-disease traits of already existing children by environmental means, like education. The study employs philosophical analysis for the purpose of making this intuition intelligible and judging whether it is justified. Different ways in which the moral problems posed by reproductive technologies are often framed in bioethical debates are criticised as inadequate for this task. In particular, it is argued that the intuition cannot fully be made sense of in terms of harm to the children that such technologies help create. The study attempts to elaborate an alternative to that broadly consequentialist approach, by drawing on Martin Heidegger’s philosophy of technology, Hans Jonas’s ethics, and Aristotle’s practical philosophy, as it has been received and developed in the hermeneutical tradition. It is suggested that reproductive choices, unlike decisions for already born children, are characterised by a peculiar one-sidedness: the future child appears to the parents as something wholly theirs to decide about, not as a concrete other with whom they must interact in a responsive and attuned way. This is problematic because it means that such choices cannot call upon the particularised moral understanding only gained in interpersonal encounters. In particular, it makes them easily shaped by various tendencies, to which parents are always susceptible, to relate to children in instrumentalising ways, and at risk of reinforcing such tendencies. However, this does not mean that all uses of reproductive technologies are equally troubling. When selecting against severe disease the parents can rely on a widely shared illness experience to escape the dangers that one-sidedness involves. It is concluded that the intuition under discussion, thus explicated and in some ways qualified, makes sense morally. / Avhandlingen är ett bidrag till den bioetiska debatten om olika reproduktionstekniker som antingen nyligen blivit tillgängliga eller som kan komma att utvecklas i framtiden. Utgångspunkten är en intuition som många verkar dela, nämligen att användningen av sådana tekniker i syfte att välja icke-sjukdomsegenskaper – som kön och känslomässig stabilitet – hos framtida barn, är mer moraliskt problematiskt än både att forma sådana egenskaper hos redan existerande barn genom exempelvis utbildning och att använda teknikerna för att undvika att barn föds med svåra sjukdomar. Studien är ett försök att genom filosofisk analys begripliggöra denna intuition och avgöra om den är berättigad. Olika sätt på vilka man i den bioetiska debatten ofta gestaltar de moraliska problem som reproduktionstekniker ger upphov till kritiseras som otillräckliga för denna uppgift. I synnerhet framhålls att intuitionen inte helt kan förstås som en oro över att de barn som sådana tekniker sätter till världen kan komma till skada. Med avsikt att utveckla ett alternativ till detta konsekvensorienterade synsätt söker sig författaren till Martin Heideggers teknikfilosofi, Hans Jonas etik och Aristoteles praktiska filosofi, som den tolkats och utvecklats i den hermeneutiska traditionen. Med hjälp av dessa teorier betonas hur reproduktiva val, till skillnad från beslut gällande redan existerande barn, kännetecknas av en slags ensidighet. Det framtida barnet framstår för föräldrarna som föremål för beslut som är odelat deras, snarare än som en konkret andre som de måste interagera med på ett lyhört, noga avpassat sätt. Detta är problematiskt eftersom det innebär att sådana val inte kan ledsagas av det slags partikulära moraliska förståelse som bara uppnås i möten mellan människor. I synnerhet innebär det att valen lätt formas av, och i sin tur riskerar att underblåsa, olika för föräldraskapet karaktäristiska tendenser som ständigt riskerar förmå föräldrar att förhålla sig till sina barn på ett instrumentaliserande sätt. Men detta betyder inte att alla användningar av reproduktionstekniker är lika problematiska. Val som syftar till att undvika svåra sjukdomar kan undgå de faror som ensidigheten öppnar för genom att åberopa en gemensam mänsklig sjukdomserfarenhet. Avhandlingens slutsats är att intuitionen som diskuteras är berättigad, med vissa reservationer, om den förstås på detta sätt.

La présente thèse a une vocation à la fois descriptive et prospective. Descriptive, d’une part, en ce qu’elle entend mettre au jour les fondements juridiques actuels de la responsabilité criminelle tout en déterminant l’étendue des rapports qu’ils entretiennent avec la notion philosophique de libre arbitre. Prospective, d’autre part, en ce qu’elle entend évaluer les chances de survie de ces fondements à la lumière de la nouvelle vision de l’homme qui se dégage des avancées récentes en neurosciences. Nous aurons pour ce faire à soupeser la vraisemblance de deux grandes prophéties concernant l’avenir de la responsabilité criminelle : l’une, que nous qualifierons de « scientiste », prétend que le concept juridique actuel de responsabilité criminelle est voué à tomber en désuétude en raison de son incompatibilité avec notre connaissance du cerveau. L’autre, que nous qualifierons de « légitimiste », prétend que c’est plutôt en modifiant les intuitions populaires en matière de responsabilité que les neurosciences bouleverseront l’édifice pénal. Dans les deux cas, nous découvrirons qu’une erreur de diagnostic quant au fonctionnement juridique et psychologique des jugements de responsabilité conduit à une erreur de pronostic. / This doctoral dissertation is both descriptive and prospective. Descriptive, on the one hand, by seeking to identify the current legal foundations of criminal responsibility and by trying to determinate the extent of their relationship with the philosophical notion of free will. Prospective, on the other hand, by seeking to evaluate the chances of survival of these foundations in the light of the new vision of man that emanates from advances in neuroscience. To this end, two great prophecies concerning the future of criminal responsibility will have to be weighed: one, which we will call ‘‘scientist’’, claims that the current legal concept of criminal responsibility is incompatible with what neuroscience teaches us and is, therefore, destined to fall into disuse. The other, which we will call ‘‘legitimist’’, claims that it is rather by altering the popular intuitions about responsibility that neuroscience will threat the penal edifice. In both cases, we will discover that a misdiagnosis concerning the legal and psychological functioning of the judgments of responsibility leads to an error of prognosis.

Situé à l’intersection de grands mouvements en philosophie morale, comme la renaissance du réalisme non naturaliste et l’affirmation d’un scepticisme épistémologique moral, ce mémoire se propose d’interroger la fiabilité des intuitions morales à la lumière des récentes découvertes effectuées en neuroscience, psychologie morale et théorie de l’évolution. Ne pouvant recouvrir l’intégralité des conceptions de l’intuition et de la justification morales, ce mémoire se penchera prioritairement sur l’intuitionnisme éthique prôné par Michael Huemer. Solution alléguée au scepticisme épistémologique moral, l’intuitionnisme de Huemer garantit une justification prima facie aux énoncés moraux, une propriété conférée par le principe du conservatisme phénoménal. Profitant aux intuitions morales de tous niveaux de généralité, cette justification prima facie peut toutefois être défaite, comme le supposent les arguments étiologiques proximaux et distaux. Au cours de ce mémoire, je défendrai l’idée qu’une majorité d’intuitions morales, telles que conçues par Huemer, sont effectivement défaites par la voie étiologique. D’une part, je tenterai de montrer que l’hypothèse du double système, bénéficiant désormais d’un vaste soutien empirique, n’est pas compatible avec la conception huemérienne des intuitions morales. En l’occurrence, la « trolleyologie » de Joshua Greene, le « Modèle intuitionniste social » de Jonathan Haidt ainsi que les procédés heuristiques seront mobilisés à des fins argumentaires. D’autre part, je tenterai de montrer que la critique généalogique évolutionnaire de Street jette le doute sur une grande partie des intuitions morales, principalement les intuitions morales substantives (non formelles). Comme le soutient Street, l’incapacité du réaliste à rendre compte de la relation entre les vérités évaluatives postulées et les pressions évolutives constitue une raison convaincante d’abandonner le réalisme moral. Ayant présenté deux types d’arguments étiologiques, l’un psychologique et l’autre évolutionnaire, je conclus que seules les intuitions morales formelles et métadiscursives sont réellement susceptibles d’éviter la charge du sceptique épistémologique. / Located at the intersection of a great many philosophical movements, such as the rebirth of non-naturalist realism and the affirmation of moral epistemological skepticism, this master’s thesis interrogates the reliability of moral intuitions in light of recent advancements in neuroscience, moral psychology and evolutionary theory. While there are various ways to conceive of moral intuition and justification, this thesis will prioritize a version of ethical intuitionism defended by Michael Huemer. Put forward as a solution to moral epistemological skepticism, Huemer’s intuitionism guarantees prima facie justification to moral propositions, a property conferred by the principle of phenomenal conservatism. While intuitions of every level of generality can benefit from such prima facie justification, this very type of justification is susceptible to defeat, as suggested by proximal and distal debunking arguments. Throughout this master’s thesis, I will defend the claim that a majority of moral intuitions, as conceived by Huemer, are effectively defeated by means of debunking arguments. On the one hand, I will try to demonstrate that the dual-process hypothesis, which is widely supported, is not compatible with Huemer’s conception of moral intuitions. In order to substantiate this view, I will draw from Joshua Greene’s “trolleyology”, Jonathan Haidt’s “Social Intuitionist Model” and recent work on moral heuristics. On the other hand, I will attempt to show that Street’s evolutionary debunking argument throws significant doubt on a large portion of moral intuitions, mostly the ones which are substantial (non-formal). As Street purports, the realist’s incapacity to explain the relation between posited evaluative truths and evolutionary pressures constitutes a strong reason to reject moral realism. Having presented two types of debunking arguments, one psychological and the other evolutionary, I conclude that only formal and metadiscursive moral intuitions are really susceptible to avoid the charge of the epistemological sceptic.