Why Moral Intuitions are Not Emotions: A Critical Examination

Abstract In this paper we argue that moral intuitions, understood as non-doxastic mental states, should not be reduced to emotions. We reject the moral-intuition-as-emotion view by arguing that having an emotion is neither necessary nor sufficient to have a moral intuition. In particular, we deny the necessity claim by stressing the existence of dispassionate moral intuitions, which lack emotional phenomenology, and by claiming that some moral intuitions have no corresponding emotions, as no emotion apprehends objects in terms of the same moral features. We then argue that moral intuitions and emotions consist of different mental attitudes towards their moral contents, a difference which explains why experiencing an emotion is not sufficient to have a moral intuition. Our arguments have significant implications for current debates on the epistemic function of moral intuitions and the roles of emotions in moral lives, and we take our view to be able to explain important features of these mental states without neglecting their differences.