Well, people are trumpeting Peter Kreeft’s argument on the “Lying for Jesus” issue, in which he comes down on the side of lying-if-we-really-want-to, because we have a “moral common sense” that, in some cases, to do so is right.

This is what I would call the “Just Say Know” argument – the anti-intellectual argument from intuition, which ignores the fact that almost everything Jesus taught us is counter to our intuition (see, for instance, the Sermon on the Mount; and especially magisterial teaching on sex).

Joe Grabowski makes it easy. He points out that if you recognize the weakness of the pro-torture arguments from the internet Torture Wars, then just read Kreeft’s post and substitute the word “torture” for the word “lying”. It’s the same argument the pro-torts were making. In both cases, our intuition tells us that it’s OK to torture in a ticking time bomb scenario and it’s OK to lie if the situation calls for it. In both cases, that is what our “moral common sense” tells us.

In both cases, our “moral common sense” is wrong.

In both cases, we must conclude (as Kreeft, to do him credit, does conclude) that “our moral common sense is not infallible”.

That’s very true. Our moral common sense is not infallible. Magisterial teaching on faith and morals, however, is.