What is the meaning of “moral intuitionism”?

With the growth of individualism in morals, the relaxing of the constraint of publicly accepted standards, there is, of course, a dangerous drift toward self-indulgence and moral nihilism.  It becomes all the more necessary that conscience be strong and sensitive, that inner restraints take the place of outer.  In the lack of a mature moral insight, which is one of the latest of mental developments, and indeed, where it exists, to reinforce its pale affirmations with greater impulsive power, a stern sense of duty is a veritable rock of salvation.  Many a people have perished, many a brilliant hope of civilization been lost, because of its lack.  So we cannot wonder when moralists put it forward as the foundation- stone of all morality and seek to build their systems upon it.  To a man who has been bred to obey the inner voice, it seems the very source and basis of the right; it is so inescapable, so authoritative, that it cannot be deemed derived, or evolved by a mechanical process of selection.  It figures as something ultimate and unanalyzable, if not frankly supernatural; that it is a mere instrument in the attainment of an ulterior end, to be used or rejected according to its observed usefulness is an abhorrent thought.

There has thus arisen a school of philosophers who base their justification of morality entirely upon the deliverances of conscience.  Their theories vary in detail and have received sundry names; we will group them here for convenience under the general caption “moral intuitionism.”  As a rule they steer clear of the historic point of view; they refuse to believe that conscience has a natural history.  Nor are they usually keen at psychological analysis; the numberless variations in form which conscience assumes in different individuals are, for their purposes, better ignored.  Instead of analyzing the moral sense into its components and describing the mental stuff of which it is composed, instead of tracing its genesis and studying the forces that have produced it, they wax eloquent over its importance and universality.  As preachers they are admirable.  But the foundation they provide for morality is slippery.  It amounts to saying, “We ought to do right because we know we ought!” When we ask how we can be sure, in view of the general fallibility of human conviction, that we are not mistaken in our assurance, and following a false light, they can but reiterate in altered phraseology that we know because we know.

To these intuitionists, and to the popular mind very often, the approval or disapproval of conscience is immediate, intuitive, and unerring.  Its authority is absolute and not to be questioned.  We have this faculty within us that tells us as surely what is right and what wrong as our color-sense tells us what is red and what green.  Some people may, to be sure, be color-blind, or have defective consciences; but the great mass of unsophisticated people possess