Differentiate 'moral intuition' from 'moral reasoning' with suitable examples.

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Ghissu Editorial · Accepted Answer

Moral intuition is an instant, emotion-based sense of right and wrong, while moral reasoning is the slow, deliberate application of principles that can be justified and revised. Gandhi withdrawing Non-Cooperation after Chauri Chaura (1922) shows reasoning, and rescuing a stranger from a burning car shows intuition.

**Introduction**

Seeing a child about to fall into a well, Mencius noted, anyone feels alarm before thought; asked to divert a trolley to kill one and save five, the same person pauses and calculates. These are moral intuition and moral reasoning, Kahneman's two systems of the mind.

**Moral Intuition and Moral Reasoning Differentiated**

SKETCH: comparison | Intuition vs Reasoning
a: Moral Intuition
b: Moral Reasoning
- Fast, automatic :: Slow, deliberate
- Felt as emotion :: Built on principles
- Hard to explain :: Justified by argument
- Shaped by culture :: Open to revision
- Kahneman's System 1 :: Kahneman's System 2

1. **Moral intuition**: An instant sense of right and wrong; Jonathan Haidt (2001) calls it the "emotional dog" that a "rational tail" later justifies.
2. **Example of intuition**: A passer-by who pulls a stranger from a burning car acts on instant compassion, protected by Section 134A of the Motor Vehicles Act (2019).
3. **Moral reasoning**: Conscious application of principles, traced by Kohlberg up to universal ethical principles; Gandhi reasoned his way to withdrawing Non-Cooperation after Chauri Chaura (1922).

**How Each Checks the Other**

1. **Intuition can mislead**: Purity-pollution feelings once normalised untouchability, until Ambedkar's reasoned constitutional morality abolished it through Article 17.
2. **Reasoning can turn cold**: Bare arithmetic may justify pushing one person to save five, which intuition rightly rejects because dignity cannot be traded for numbers.
3. **Administrative use**: An officer's unease about an unusually low tender is a valid alarm, but the decision must rest on reasoned scrutiny under the General Financial Rules and CVC guidelines.

**Conclusion**

Intuition is the alarm and reasoning the judge. Through Rawls's reflective equilibrium, testing feelings against principles and principles against intuitions, a civil servant reaches decisions that are humane and defensible.

Differentiate 'moral intuition' from 'moral reasoning' with suitable examples.

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