ABSTRACT
Rational intuitionism posits a realm of irreducible, observer-independent, and not-natural ethical properties and facts that can be known through a purely intellectual perception. The ideal judgment theory agrees with Hume's insight that ethical properties cannot be identified with any features of an object of ethical judgment. The ideal judgment theory turns the intuitionist picture on its head. They hold that an ideal of ethical judgment is actually the independent variable, and that ethical truth is constituted by whatever deliverances would emerge from that. The versions of the ideal judgment theory are sometimes called ideal observer or impartial spectator theories. They consider the perspective of ethical thought and reflection to be that of a spectator who is disinterestedly contemplating the moral scene, as one might in reading a novel, or that of a judge assessing the merits of a case in which she is not involved.
