Intuitionism and the Secondary-Quality Analogy in Ethics

Abstract

In the work of John McDowell we find the promise of a new meta-ethical position that illuminates a possible middle-way between moral intuitionism and noncognitivism. This novel account of moral thought is sometimes referred to as sensibility theory, and it is motivated, in large part, by certain similarities McDowell sees between moral properties and secondary qualities. In the hands of a sensibility theorist like McDowell, the so-called secondary-quality analogy in ethics suggests a way in which the motivational force and mind-dependence of moral features might sit happily with the objectivity and cognitive character of moral judgment. While such a novel resolution would be exciting, it will be argued that McDowell ultimately offers us a view that is closer to moral intuitionism than initially supposed. Upon closer scrutiny, the much-discussed secondary-quality analogy seems to be doing little new meta-ethical work for McDowell, or at minimum, the comparison fails alone to do all the work that McDowell sets out for it. A moral intuitionist can avail herself of each of the relevant comparisons McDowell draws between moral value and secondary qualities.