Moral Intuition and Moral Reasoning

Chapter 2 uses a dual-process theory of moral judgment to explain empirically how conflicting moral judgments can create the experience of a dilemma, and how impossible moral requirements that are not due to dilemmas can arise. There are some requirements that are typically possible to fulfill; but even in circumstances in which they have become impossible, one may retain the intuitive judgment that they are still in effect. In contrast, the reasoning process can eliminate impossible moral requirements, either (for consequentialists) through a cost-benefit analysis that admits only possible options for consideration or (for deontologists) through a logical exercise with “ought implies can” as a premise. The chapter also examines a particular type of intuition that is experienced as a potent feeling that certain values are sacred and that one must protect them; values that have been sacralized can be betrayed through the mere act of reasoning about them.