Q&A Seven Question Two

Q:Is intuition a valid tool for investigating morality?

To clarify, I mean valid as in relevant and useful, not like the term used in logic.

My desire for universalisation on the one hand tends to support the usefulness of intuition and on the other really want to deny its usefulness. While there are moral claims that we can come to a near consensus on almost universally, it's still slippery. Where do these intuitions even come from? Where is the solid basis for morality?

My intuition (see what I did there?) is that these moral intuitions, that 'yuck' at the sight of a 'wrongness,' is a consequence of ingrained moral systems rather than some independent a priori sort of pointer to what morality is. Strangling mothers is a particularly bad crime because we agree that we should respect, love and protect our mothers.

Fundamentally, morality is only created out of consensus, and while I really want to banish relativism, I don't see how morality-as-consensus can be challenged. Maybe there is room to challenge another's moral beliefs not because they're 'wrong' but because it is consistent with your beliefs to challenge the others beliefs for not being consistent with your own.

Q&A Seven Question One

Q: How to prove or measure what moral status animals have?

Even if we give animals moral status it's very hard to tell what that status means on the ground and how much of a status they have in relation to the wants and needs of a presumably higher morally statused humanity. We need to clearly define what the origin of moral status is.

Most often the determiner is whether an animal can feel pain and pleasure. A more complex determiner which I prefer is whether an animal can value. What the process of valuing is is not very clear, but maybe it is simply preference and the active attempt to actualise that preference. Even if a dog does not have the ability to conceptualise 'value' it can still prefer certain things and thus give those things value.

This process of preferring cannot be done in degrees, the animal prefers or does not prefer. There is gradation though between humans through animals that are more or less capable of human-like cognitive function. We can determine the degree of moral status based on how much animals are like humans in sociability, conceptualization, ect., and only after the basic test of preference.