Intuitionism in Ethics (from the History of English Ethical Intellectualism of the Modern Times)

Abstract

The paper deals with reconstruction and analysis of the peculiar features of ethical intuitionism of the Modern Times, mainly on the basis of R.Price’s and H.Sidgwick’s ethical conceptions. The main idea is that intuitionism, being a theory of moral knowledge, in the ethics of the Modern Times was also the way to justify the essential characteristics of morality itself, namely, it’s absoluteness and autonomy. It is this feature that makes difference between the intuitionism of the Modern Times and the intuitionism of the first half of the 20th century, in which moral language analysis is independent of any substantial idea of morality.