Charles Egan (@charlesegan)

I want to speak up for the perceptual and dogmatic intuitions--or "conventional intuitions" to be less loaded. I'm sympathetic to a theory Shaun Nichols puts forth that social rules which cohere with our affective machinery are more likely to be internalized and preserved, which explains much of what we see in the moral domain. In the present terms, the claim is that the conventional intuitions which cohere with perceptual intuitions are more likely to facilitate social peace. I worry that exclusive reliance on the philosophical intuitions will undermine the affective-backed conventions that make modern societies a nice place to live. If we accept that morality's function is to "[govern] our normative standards of good and bad cooperation," quite a lot of our cooperative tools will be contingent and evolved social practices. I agree with Hume that rights, property, and so forth are artificial instruments, but they are nonetheless very useful devices for peacefully resolving disputes and facilitating cooperation. I can grant that utilitarianism has a theoretical elegance, but I worry that it is too out of sync with the psychology of self-preserving beings like us. Something that balances self-preservation with sociality may be more useful.