problems.  The science casnistry has been developed in great detail to supply this lack, to apply the well-recognized deliverances of a certain accepted type of conscience to the various possibilities of situation.  These systems, however, reflect the idiosyncrasies of their makers, and have never won wide approbation.  Morality must remain largely experimental, individual.  Conscience will play a very useful role in spurring us to our recognized duty in the commoner situations, but for all the more delicate decisions we need a more ultimate touchstone.  We must grasp the underlying principles of right conduct, and weigh the relative goods attainable by each possible act.  A well-balanced and normal conscience will save us the recurrent reasoning out of typical perplexities, but it must be supplemented by an insight into the ends to be aimed for and kept rather strictly in its place.

What is the plausibility of moral intuitionism?

It is never wholly satisfactory merely to refute a theory; we must see its plausibility and understand its appeal if we are to be sure of doing it justice.  In the case of the intuition-theory it is easy to discern the reasons that have kept it alive? though it has never been at all widespread among thinking men? in spite of the obvious objections that can be raised to it.

(1) Perhaps the original source of the doctrine was a certain sort of religious faith; it follows easily as a corollary to the belief in God.  If God commands us to do right, it is felt, He must have given us some way to know what is right.  The inner voice of conscience may be just such a God-given guide; therefore it is such a guide; therefore it is infallible.  A natural piece of a priori reasoning, on a par with the Christian Scientist’s syllogism:  God is good; a good God would not permit evil to exist; therefore there is no evil.  Unfortunately a priori reasoning has to yield to actual experience.  Since we see that conscience is not infallible and evil does exist, there must be some fallacy in the arguments.

(2) Another source of the doctrine’s strength lies in its simplicity.  It is a great mental relief to drop the tangle of confusing considerations, to stop trying to reason out one’s course of action, and follow a supposedly reliable guide.  The intuition-theory goes naturally with a moral conservatism which dreads the chaos and uncertainty that follow upon the doubt of established moral habits.  It is so much more comfortable to feel that one has already the one divine and ultimate code, that one has always done right because one has steadily obeyed the inner light!  It is reassuring to divide the world into the sheep and the goats? if one can believe one’s self a sheep.  But what O dismay! what if one were after all a goat!  A great deal of mental anguish has been caused by the pseudo-simplicity of this dichotomy.  There is no such clean-cut and clearly visible line between right and wrong; there is instead a bewildering maze of goods.  Hardly any choice but involves a sacrifice, hardly any ideal but has its disadvantages.  One learns with experience to be wary of these simple theories, these closet theories which collapse when they are brought out into the light of day.