A. C. Ewing
modernBritish Intuitionism / Analytic Philosophy1899 – 1973
Alfred Cyril Ewing (1899–1973) was a British philosopher at Cambridge University who worked primarily in ethics and metaphysics. He defended a non-naturalist intuitionism in ethics, arguing that moral properties are irreducible and known through a distinctive form of rational insight. He is particularly noted for his fitting-attitude analysis of value, holding that goodness and wrongness are best understood in terms of appropriate emotional and conative responses.
Notable Achievements
1
Developed a fitting-attitude (or 'fittingness') analysis of moral concepts, linking wrongness to fitting resentment
2
Defended non-naturalist moral realism against both naturalism and emotivism
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Authored influential works including The Definition of Good (1947) and Ethics (1953)
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Contributed to the debate on the nature of the a priori and synthetic a priori judgments
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Engaged critically with logical positivism, defending the intelligibility of metaphysics