Steering a Course Between Haidt’s Intuitionism and Singer’s Austere Rationalism

In earlier chapters we argued that all our moral beliefs are subject to the ‘Tribunal of Reason’. But we also claimed that the position supported by most self-styled rationalists and cognitivists including Greene and Peter Singer—consequentialism and its popular version, utilitarianism—are open to serious objections. Yet Singer is famous for claiming that he merely follows the argument where it leads, which seems to express an unshakeable commitment to reason and rationality. So how do we avoid some of the unappealing roads down which Singer and his allies seem willing to travel because of that commitment? In answering this question we subject some of the main claims of Singer’s utilitarianism to critical scrutiny. In particular, we show that many of his rejections of commonsense beliefs rely on the evolutionary debunking arguments that we have already shown to be flawed. By tracing his reliance on evolutionary debunking back to some of the misconceived claims made by Sharon Street, we explain both why Singer’s rationalism has become so austere, and why it is unnecessary. We also reject his claim that some intuitions (such as the intuition that five deaths are worse than one) are "different from the intuitions to which Haidt and Greene refer”. Singer is thus unable to render his own account immune from the very debunking he believes applies to non-consequentialist or common sense positions. We then show that Singer’s attempt to secure objectivity for utilitarian principles alone, while claiming that non-utilitarian moral positions are mere preferences, cannot succeed. Objectivity is either secured for all moral beliefs or none. Finally, we show that these points mean that utilitarianism is just one moral position amongst others, and cannot be considered the foundation of morality, as Singer claims it to be. We there by steer a course between Haidt’s radical intuitionism and Singer’s austere rationalism.