The metaethical commitments of intuition use in analytic political theory

Analytic political theory often relies on intuitions. However, studies that use and critique intuitions are often silent on the underlying metaethical assumptions about intuitions. Metaethical theories from various strands of philosophy offer some insight into the assumptions that characterise our beliefs and intuitions. Some of the most prominent of these theories include moral realism, anti-realism, cultural relativism, and subjectivism. In this paper, I demonstrate how various approaches to the use of intuition rely on these assumptions in different ways. I also demonstrate how a lack of engagement with the relevant set of assumptions can be detrimental to analytic political theory and suggest that theorists should pay them greater attention. I conclude by suggesting that an understanding of the relevant metaethical commitments gives insight into the potential for critiques of intuition-use being either compatible or incompatible with one another.