In the example you gave, the plant killing wasn’t “pointless” (meaning unjustified). If a person is pulling up weeds because they like how things look without the weeds, that’s potentially justifiable.
A reason is a fact that counts in favor of some belief or course of action. The reason that you like something could be such a fact. But the reason that it might cause suffering or end an innocent life would be a countervailing fact. Human beings are capable of rational judgement. We do this all the time in science, and we have to assume that our judgements aren’t arbitrary, or we descend into nihilism, which would undermine your capacity even for logic (whose axiomatic structure is also based on intuitions).
This is why nihilism is not a position any serious philosopher defends. It’s self undermining. You would need to reason your way to the conclusion that nihilism is true in order to conclude that reasoning is impossible.
You understand an intuitive belief can exist for all of those things right? (Nationality, race, speciation.)
The meaning of the word “intuition” in philosophy is a bit different. It’s an intellectual given, part of a web of belief that would ideally be free of contradictions. Your belief that 1+1=2 is an intuition.
We don’t think of people as having an “intellectual given” that being a different nationality is morally relevant. We think of them as having a bias (or a prejudice), because the whole concept of a nationality is made up, and any intellectual examination of nationalism will reveal it’s not an intellectually coherent category.
Even if it were, it would be a very weak intuition, because the whole concept of nationality is made up. Race and speciation are like that. We made up these categories out of convenience and they have no real meaning.
Suffering is not made up. The goodness of life is not made up. How do I know that? Because I have suffered and I have lived. I am in direct contact with these phenomena.
In the example you gave, the plant killing wasn’t “pointless” (meaning unjustified). If a person is pulling up weeds because they like how things look without the weeds, that’s potentially justifiable.
A reason is a fact that counts in favor of some belief or course of action. The reason that you like something could be such a fact. But the reason that it might cause suffering or end an innocent life would be a countervailing fact. Human beings are capable of rational judgement. We do this all the time in science, and we have to assume that our judgements aren’t arbitrary, or we descend into nihilism, which would undermine your capacity even for logic (whose axiomatic structure is also based on intuitions).
This is why nihilism is not a position any serious philosopher defends. It’s self undermining. You would need to reason your way to the conclusion that nihilism is true in order to conclude that reasoning is impossible.
The meaning of the word “intuition” in philosophy is a bit different. It’s an intellectual given, part of a web of belief that would ideally be free of contradictions. Your belief that 1+1=2 is an intuition.
We don’t think of people as having an “intellectual given” that being a different nationality is morally relevant. We think of them as having a bias (or a prejudice), because the whole concept of a nationality is made up, and any intellectual examination of nationalism will reveal it’s not an intellectually coherent category.
Even if it were, it would be a very weak intuition, because the whole concept of nationality is made up. Race and speciation are like that. We made up these categories out of convenience and they have no real meaning.
Suffering is not made up. The goodness of life is not made up. How do I know that? Because I have suffered and I have lived. I am in direct contact with these phenomena.