Intuitively Rational: How We Think and How We Should, a new book written by Andrew McGee and Charles Foster, has been published this month.
This book is about the respective roles of intuition and reasoning in ethics. It responds to a number of well-known philosophers and psychologists and proposes a new perspective – radical in its moderation. It examines in depth the work of the philosopher Joshua Greene and the psychologist Jonathan Haidt. With the so-called empirical turn in ethics, much work has been done to try to isolate the role of reason and intuition in forming our moral judgements, with Haidt and Greene leading the research programs and attracting much of the professional and public attention, and many others following. The current view – shared by both camps – is that intuition is largely the driver of our moral judgements – a view summed up in Haidt’s slogan ‘intuition first, strategic reasoning second’. Haidt believes we have to live with this and accept it. Greene does not: he contends that our intuitions, while suitable for the environments in which we evolved, are worthless in the modern, global, technological age, and to avoid ethical disaster we must learn to adopt reason as the arbiter of moral truth.
Intuitively Rational: How We Think and How We Should steers a middle course between these two positions and is therefore of great interest to philosophers and psychologists alike.
‘I wanted to cheer all the way through this beautifully written book – one that is both incisive and profoundly humane. So much moral philosophy is ensnared in simple rationalism or simple intuitionism: this book argues that intuition and reason are not just at times compatible, in a sort of uneasy compromise, but that each is always essential to the proper functioning of the other. Its takedown of so much utilitarianism is long overdue. It embraces what can be learnt from neuroscience and at the same time appeals to morality in the practice of life, not just in the seminar room.
A book that should be on every intelligent reader’s shelves.’
Dr Iain McGilchrist, author of The Master and His Emissary and The Matter with Things
Intuitively Rational: How We Think and How We Should is available in Hardcover and eBook formats from Springer Nature.
About the authors
Andrew McGee is an Associate Professor in Law at Queensland University of Technology and a Program Leader with the Australian Centre for Health Law Research (ACHLR). He holds a PhD in philosophy from the University of Essex. Before joining QUT, he completed a post-doctoral research fellowship in philosophy at University College Dublin. His main research interests are in the realm of bioethics.
Andrew has published widely on ethical issues in leading peer reviewed philosophy and ethics journals including Metaphilosophy, Philosophy, Psychiatry & Psychology, Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, and the Journal of Medical Ethics.
Charles Foster is a Fellow of Exeter College, University of Oxford, a Senior Research Associate at the Uehiro Institute of Practical Ethics within the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Oxford, and a Visiting Professor at the Oxford University Law Faculty.
Charles has published widely in leading philosophy and law journals.
