Ethischer Intuitionismus und moralische Fehlbarkeit

In metaethics, there is a close connection between ethical intuitionism and moral realism that is mostly based on the fact that intuitionism is capable of providing a solution to a philosophical problem, the problem of justification. This close connection, however, is more fragile than it may initially seem because the phenomenon of moral fallibility tends to estrange both views from each other: whereas moral realism is largely motivated by fallibilist presuppositions, ethical intuitionism is tacitly under suspicion of having infallibilist consequences. This charge of infallibilism is, to be sure, prima facie not surprising; nevertheless, its peculiar irony is rarely appreciated and shall, therefore, be analysed in the course of the paper.