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recently, evolutionary speaking. It has been shown that hurting others
across distances of space and time, without having to face them, so to
say, does not evoke the same deeply ingrained negative feelings and
judgements. This evolutionary explanation can explain that we tend to
arrive at different moral judgements about different forms of violence. It
can explain why we tend to feel uncomfortable about violence in face-to-
face situations and are less disturbed with violence in impersonal situa-
tions. If the difference were claimed to be morally relevant, an additional
explanation would be needed. It has also been shown in experiments
that invoking disgust by, for instance, presenting a case in a disgusting
room affects people's moral judgement on a presented case. The feeling
of disgust seems to play a role in negative moral judgements.
7
The fact that certain judgements are persistent and widespread does
not necessarily show that these judgements are morally right. If indeed
evolutionary contingencies or the cleanliness of a room can influ-
ence intuitive moral judgements, it needs at least a further argument
to conclude that these intuitive judgements are morally relevant and
even morally right. The above-mentioned findings have evoked debates
about the trustworthiness of spontaneous judgements as indicators of
what is morally right or wrong. Those who do not wish to bother very
much about a moral theory's fit with common sense judgements have
used these findings about possible explanations for moral intuitions in
order to support their cause. Their idea is that if intuitive judgements are
influenced by such contingent factors, it can be doubted that they are
reliable guides to what one morally ought to do.
8
Let me only note here
that an assessment of that criticism, and indeed of any claim about what
the role of intuitive judgements in moral theorising should be, depends
on what one considers the purpose of moral theorising. It depends
on one's understanding of morality: 'Whether intuitions are evidence
depends, of course, on what they are supposed to be evidence
for
.'
9
As an alternative to denying the importance of a fit between moral
theories and widespread moral intuitions, another possible position is
that intuitions should be taken very seriously. It seems that the more
common sense judgements are taken to be indisputable and the more a
moral theory is modelled in order to fit with them, the less critical poten-
tial the resulting theory has. Those who take moral intuitions in the
sense of spontaneous moral judgements about particular cases seriously
are not to be confused with moral intuitionists who accept moral intui-
tionism as a meta-ethical position about the justification of moral claims.
Moral intuitionists hold that certain moral judgements cannot be based
on more fundamental judgements. Those moral judgements are called
'intuitions'. However, the intuitions that the meta-ethical intuitionists
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