A Comparative Study of Jay Moore and Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Theory of Justifying Moral Propositions

One of the most important epistemological issues in the field of moral philosophy is the issue of justification of moral propositions. With regard to the justification of moral propositions, different theories have been presented by ethical philosophers. Apparently among these views, two theories of conscientiousness and intuitionism are most similar. Moral conscientiousness believes that moral issues do not require logical thinking, and conscience alone invites humans to moral acts. On the other hand, intuitionists make a similar claim in other words. Despite all their similarities, due to differences in semantics, these two theories differ in the epistemology of moral propositions. Using the descriptive-analytical method, this article reviews and criticizes the views of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the founder of conscientiousness, and G.E. Moore, the founder of intuitionism. The results of the study show that Rousseau's theory of conscientiousness and Moore's theory of intuitionism on the issue of justification of moral propositions differ from each other in three aspects. First, although both philosophers are known as introverts, Rousseau introduces conscience as an inner sense, but Moore regards it as a rational observation and emphasizes that intuition is not a sense. In addition, intuition and conscience are also different in being permanent or not, and in being natural or not.