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Nominalists and realists, intuitionists and empiricists, idealists and materialists, represent different forms of a fundamental antithesis which appears to run through all philosophy. Each thinker is apt to take the postulates congenial to his own mind as the plain dictates of reason. Controversies between such opposites appear to be hopeless. They have been aptly compared by Dr.
It is from their views on the question of the standard of value, or the criterion of morality, that it claimed, and that it received, the name Utilitarian . On both these points the Utilitarian School was opposed by an energetic but less compact body of writers, known as Intuitionists.
The reasons, however, which Reid and Stewart alleged for not performing that feat took a special form, which I am compelled to notice briefly because they set up the mark for the whole intellectual artillery of the Utilitarians. Reid, in fact, invented what J. S. Mill called 'intuitions. To confute intuitionists and get rid of intuitions was one main purpose of all Mill's speculations.
The Utilitarians no more than the Intuitionists sought to make any fundamental change in the content of right and of wrong as acknowledged by modern society. Their controversies were almost entirely of what may be called an academic kind, and, however decided, would have little effect upon a man's practical attitude.
I must confess that I have never been able to understand why there should be such a bitter quarrel between the intuitionists and the utilitarians.
On the other hand, the follower of nature, like other intuitionists, may easily be thrown into perplexity by the fact that what seems to him natural, and, hence, right, may not be approved by other men. He cannot prove that he is right and they are wrong. He appears condemned to take refuge in subjective conviction, that is, in mere dogmatism.
This limitation of scope, which I venture to select as the leading characteristic of last century's ethical enquiries, may be further seen in the large amount of agreement between the two schools regarding the content of morality. The Utilitarians no more than the Intuitionists were opponents of the traditional as we may call it the Christian morality of modern civilisation.
The Intuitionists maintained to put the matter briefly that the moral consciousness of man could not be entirely accounted for by experiences of the kind laid stress on by the Utilitarians. They maintained that moral ideas were in their origin spiritual, although they might be called into definite consciousness by the experience of the facts to which they could be applied.
I must confess that I have never been able to understand why there should be such a bitter quarrel between the intuitionists and the utilitarians.
It is not unnatural that some thoughtful intuitionists, dissatisfied with a considerable number of independent moral principles, should aim at a further simplification. Whether their doctrine may be called philosophical in a sense implying commendation is matter for discussion. ARGUMENTS FOR INTUITIONISM. What may be said in favor of intuitionism?
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