We may conclude then that the moral judgments which the present method attempts to systematise are primarily and for the most part intuitions of the rightness or goodness (or the reverse) of particular kinds of external effects of human volition, presumed to be intended by the agent, but considered independently of the agent’s own view as to the rightness or wrongness of his intention; though the quality of motives, as distinct from intentions, has also to be taken into account.
§ 4. But the question may be raised, whether it is legitimate to take for granted (as I have hitherto been doing) the existence of such intuitions? And, no doubt, there are persons who deliberately deny that reflection enables them to discover any such phenomenon in their conscious experience as the judgment or apparent perception that an act is in itself right or good, in any other sense than that of being the right or fit means to the attainment of some ulterior end. I think, however, that such denials are commonly recognised as paradoxical, and opposed to the common experience of civilised men:--at any rate if the psychological question, as to the _existence_ of such moral judgments or apparent perceptions of moral qualities, is carefully distinguished from the ethical question as to their _validity_, and from what we may call the ‘psychogonical’ question as to their _origin_. The first and second of these questions are sometimes confounded, owing to an ambiguity in the use of the term “intuition”; which has sometimes been understood to imply that the judgment or apparent perception so designated is _true_. I wish therefore to say expressly, that by calling any affirmation as to the rightness or wrongness of actions “intuitive,” I do not mean to prejudge the question as to its ultimate validity, when philosophically considered: I only mean that its truth is apparently known immediately, and not as the result of reasoning. I admit the possibility that any such “intuition” may turn out to have an element of error, which subsequent reflection and comparison may enable us to correct; just as many apparent perceptions through the organ of vision are found to be partially illusory and misleading: indeed the sequel will show that I hold this to be to an important extent the case with moral intuitions commonly so called.