A theory of Justice: Revised Edition

Principia Ethica,
ch. VI. The intuitionist nature of Moore’s doctrine is assured by his
principle of organic unity, pp. 27–31.
21. See W. D. Ross, 
The Right and the Good,
pp. 21–27.
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7. Intuitionism

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tinctive feature, then, of intuitionistic views is not their being teleological
or deontological, but the especially prominent place that they give to the
appeal to our intuitive capacities unguided by constructive and recogniz-
ably ethical criteria. Intuitionism denies that there exists any useful and
explicit solution to the priority problem. I now turn to a brief discussion
of this topic.
8. THE PRIORITY PROBLEM
8. The Priority Problem
We have seen that intuitionism raises the question of the extent to which
it is possible to give a systematic account of our considered judgments of
the just and the unjust. In particular, it holds that no constructive answer
can be given to the problem of assigning weights to competing principles
of justice. Here at least we must rely on our intuitive capacities. Classical
utilitarianism tries, of course, to avoid the appeal to intuition altogether. It
is a single-principle conception with one ultimate standard; the adjust-
ment of weights is, in theory anyway, settled by reference to the principle
of utility. Mill thought that there must be but one such standard, otherwise
there would be no umpire between competing criteria, and Sidgwick
argues at length that the utilitarian principle is the only one which can
assume this role. They maintain that our moral judgments are implicitly
utilitarian in the sense that when confronted with a clash of precepts, or
with notions which are vague and imprecise, we have no alternative
except to adopt utilitarianism. Mill and Sidgwick believe that at some
point we must have a single principle to straighten out and to systematize
our judgments.
22
Undeniably one of the great attractions of the classical
doctrine is the way it faces the priority problem and tries to avoid relying
on intuition.
As I have already remarked, there is nothing necessarily irrational in
the appeal to intuition to settle questions of priority. We must recognize
the possibility that there is no way to get beyond a plurality of principles.
No doubt any conception of justice will have to rely on intuition to some
degree. Nevertheless, we should do what we can to reduce the direct
appeal to our considered judgments. For if men balance final principles
22. For Mill, see 
A System of Logic,
bk. VI, ch. XII, §7; and 
Utilitarianism,
ch. V, pars. 26–31,
where this argument is made in connection with common sense precepts of justice. For Sidgwick, see
The Methods of Ethics,
for example, bk. IV, chs. II and III, which summarize much of the argument
of bk. III.
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Justice as Fairness

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differently, as presumably they often do, then their conceptions of justice
are different. The assignment of weights is an essential and not a minor