3/ Criticism of Intuitionism

In general, the fragility of intuition as a mode of knowledge is often highlighted. Intuitionists claim to have a feeling that something holds value. However, as Bouglé notes, what lies behind this feeling may, in fact, be mere fantasy ¹.

Sentiment can degrade into fancy or even caprice, as Bentham argued when he grouped all so-called sources of value (intuition, God, right reason, moral sense) under the labels of 'principle of sympathy or antipathy' or 'principle of caprice'. According to these sources, something is considered right simply because its advocate claims it is right. This is what he calls ipse-dixitism: merely asserting that something is right is enough to make it so. Unfortunately, since everyone’s whims conflict, ipse-dixitism inevitably leads to cacophony ².
One particularly persuasive argument against intuitionism is that linguistic analysis shows that 'intuitively knowing' something exists is no different from 'believing' it exists ³.

In fact, I believe intuitionism cannot solve the problem of values, as it only suggests a method for finding an answer without providing the answer itself.

This somewhat obscure idea may be clarified by the following explanation. Suppose we are asked an empirical question, such as: 'Does a dropped object fall to the ground?' and we respond, 'We will determine this through visual observation'. Here, we have not yet answered the question; we have only indicated a means, technique, or method for doing so. The answer remains unknown until the observation is carried out.

Now suppose we ask ourselves: does morality have value? An intuitionist might claim to intuit that it has great value. In fact, what the intuitionist has shown us is the method they used to discern what in morality makes it valuable: intuition, or immediate contact with the thing. However, we still need to understand the mysterious element that this supposed intuition has discovered in morality, which would endow it with value. In other words, almost everything remains unexplained. Someone who stops at this point is like a person who, when asked, 'How tall is your son?' merely replies, 'You need to measure him with a tape measure'. They have identified the method for answering the question but have not provided the answer itself. What we seek is a concrete answer, such as, 'He is five feet four inches'.

While we may thank the intuitionist for identifying intuition as the method through which they discovered that thing X has value, we must still ask: 'What exactly has your intuition revealed in thing X that makes it valuable?'

The intuitionist would likely respond: 'It is quality Y, found in X, that gives it value'.
This leads to two conclusions:

- Such an answer is equivalent to 'X has value because of Y', showing that intuitionism, which claims to rely on immediate insight, actually operates through argumentative discourse and mediation. In other words, if intuitionism is to offer a genuine solution to the problem of values, rather than merely suggesting a method, it must be transformed into a rational discourse, mediated by reasoning.

- This answer relies on the qualitative method (attempting to establish a thing's value by identifying a quality within it), which we have already shown to be flawed, as it leads to an infinite regression of needing to prove the value of each quality.

Thus, we conclude that intuitionism provides only a method for addressing the problem of values, not an answer, and that this method is inadequate, as it merely restates the qualitative method.
This demonstrates that the epistemological question of axiology's method as a science is distinct from the axiological question of what has value; even if the latter is resolved, the former remains entirely open.

Intuitionism is merely one of many forms that axiological objectivism has adopted. It is now perhaps time to turn our attention to another form of value objectivism: formal axiology.

1. The Evolution of Values: Studies in Sociology with Special Applications to Teaching, ch. 1
2. Dictionnaire d'éthique et de philosophie morale, "Bentham" article
3. Ibid., "Hare" article