Rationalist vs. intuitionist views on morality. A sociological perspective

Abstract

Early on, the rationalist perspective characterized the way in which moral judgments should be understood in moral psychology. Now the pendulum has swung in the other direction, and we see the popularity of the intuitionist perspective. In this paper, I argue that neither perspective alone explains morality. Instead, I adopt a dual process approach, and I focus on how we can understand morality as both a conscious and unconscious process. Further, I bring theory to the study of morality and go beyond an analysis of moral judgments by discussing how we need to understand individuals as moral actors who, on the basis of how they see themselves in moral terms, will behave in ways that attempt to verify their self-view along the moral dimension. In general, we should not be focusing on whether the rationalist or intuitionist perspective prevails when making moral evaluations, but on how and why both operate when studying morality within and across situations.