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The Representation of Judgment Heuristics and the Generality Problem The Representation of Judgment Heuristics and the Generality Problem Carole J. Lee ([email protected]) Department of Philosophy, 50 College Street South Hadley, MA 01033 USA Abstract that are inappropriately characterized and should not be used in the epistemic evaluation of belief. Second, In his debates with Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, Gerd Gigerenzer puts forward a stricter standard for the Gigerenzer’s critiques of Daniel Kahneman and Amos proper representation of judgment heuristics. I argue that Tversky’s judgment heuristics help to recast the generality Gigerenzer’s stricter standard contributes to naturalized problem in naturalized epistemology in constructive ways. epistemology in two ways. First, Gigerenzer’s standard can be In the first part of this paper, I will argue that naturalized used to winnow away cognitive processes that are epistemologists and cognitive psychologists like Gigerenzer inappropriately characterized and should not be used in the have explanatory goals and conundrums in common: in epistemic evaluation of belief. Second, Gigerenzer’s critique helps to recast the generality problem in naturalized particular, both seek to explain the production and epistemic epistemology and cognitive psychology as the methodological status of beliefs by referring to the reliable cognitive problem of identifying criteria for the appropriate processes from which they arise; and both face the specification and characterization of cognitive processes in generality problem in trying to do so. Gigerenzer helps to psychological explanations. I conclude that naturalized address the generality problem by proposing a stricter epistemologists seeking to address the generality problem standard for the characterization of cognitive processes. should turn their focus to methodological questions about the This stricter standard disqualifies some judgment heuristics proper characterization of cognitive processes for the purposes of psychological explanation. as candidates for the epistemic evaluation of belief. In what follows, I will defend Gigerenzer’s criteria for the Keywords: Naturalized epistemology; relativism; generality explanatory utility of cognitive process types by contrasting problem; heuristics and biases; cognitive algorithms; his methodology with that of Kahneman and Tversky, and evolutionary psychology; ecological rationality. by comparing the utility of the processes to which Introduction Gigerenzer adverts, with the judgment heuristics posited by Kahneman and Tversky. I will argue and defend the claim Pocket calculators are reliable tools for multiplying numbers that Gigerenzer constructively recasts the generality represented as Arabic numerals. However, they are problem in cognitive psychology and naturalized unreliable at multiplication when you type in binary epistemology as the methodological problem of how numerals expressed as sequences of zeros and ones. There is cognitive psychologists should characterize cognitive no important mathematical difference between Arabic and processes for the explanation and epistemic evaluation of binary numerals: they are mathematically equivalent insofar beliefs. as they can be mapped onto each other one to one. But, the calculator is good at using Arabic rather than binary Naturalized Epistemology and Cognitive numerals because the calculator’s multiplication algorithm Psychology is designed to work on Arabic numerals: the calculator’s algorithm is tuned to a particular representation of the Gigerenzer’s points about the descriptive and epistemic information. The way in which the numerical information is evaluation of judgment heuristics and beliefs go hand in represented – that is, the information format – can have a hand. But, in order to appreciate this, it is important to huge effect on how reliable the calculator’s computations understand the explanatory goals and problems that are. naturalized epistemologists and cognitive psychologists Cognitive psychologists Gerd Gigerenzer and Ulrich have in common. Hoffrage argue that, like a pocket calculator, the mind is programmed with algorithms designed to work on some Shared Explanatory Goals representations of information and not others (1995). They The central insight reliabilism brings to naturalized propose a stricter standard for the representation of epistemology is that the distinguishing feature justified judgment heuristics to capture the connection between beliefs share is that they are causally initiated or sustained in algorithms and information formats: in order to be ways that reliably produce true beliefs. Reliabilism links descriptively and explanatorily adequate, judgment facts about the causal, functional processes underlying heuristics should be characterized in a way that accounts for beliefs with the epistemic status of beliefs. This allows the how they are functionally related to information formats. deliverances of a reliabilist theory of justification to be Gigerenzer and Hoffrage’s stricter standard contributes to explanatory in two senses. First of all, a belief-warranting naturalized epistemology in two important ways. First, the cognitive process explains how someone has arrived at a standard can be used to winnow away cognitive processes belief by describing the functional procedure responsible for 1211 transforming the inputs into the output belief. Second, a epistemic status of the beliefs to which it gives rise when belief-warranting cognitive belief-forming process explains characterized at an inappropriate level of generality. the epistemic status of an output-belief by referring to “the Cognitive psychologists also face the generality problem. underlying source of justificational status:” namely, the For any pattern of judgment, there may be multiple reliability of the type of belief-forming process. cognitive processes one might invoke to explain that pattern Some cognitive psychologists interested in the rationality of judgment. For cognitive psychologists like Gigerenzer, of judgment adopt a similar explanatory program. Cognitive the determination of a belief-token’s epistemic status psychologists explain judgments by characterizing cognitive depends on the reliability or validity of the underlying functions as the processes responsible for transforming cognitive process. However, cognitive psychologists inputs to output-beliefs. Gigerenzer’s stricter standard for disagree over which cognitive process we should prefer in the characterization of judgment heuristics requires that explaining a pattern of judgment. These competing heuristics be specified to account for how the information cognitive processes have different degrees of reliability. format of an input is functionally and causally implicated in Thus, the epistemic status of a belief or pattern of beliefs producing the output belief. The explanatory advantages of depends on the explanatory story one adopts: the epistemic his stricter descriptive standard are twofold. On the one status of a pattern of beliefs depends entirely on how the hand, cognitive processes so specified can explain why underlying cognitive process gets characterized. judgment improves and worsens with changes in If we can rule out a cognitive process because it fails to information format. On the other hand, cognitive processes meet a crucial standard of descriptive and explanatory so specified can provide concrete predictions that can be adequacy, then we can rule out using it in determining the falsified, thus allowing for the possibility of improving or epistemic status of a token-belief. So, cognitive disproving a psychological explanation. psychologists can approach the generality problem by For cognitive psychologists like Gigerenzer, the epistemic identifying criteria that give preference to some status of a belief is explained by the reliability of the characterizations of cognitive processes over others. If a cognitive process involved. In his fast and frugal heuristics cognitive process is not descriptively or explanatorily research program, Gigerenzer seeks to discover adequate, then the supposed reliability or unreliability of “ecologically rational” heuristics that exploit the that process will not be relevant to the epistemic evaluation information occurring in natural environments to support a of the beliefs in question. disproportionately high frequency of true beliefs (in relation to the total frequency of true and false beliefs) for a given The Representation of Judgment Heuristics reference class (Goldstein & Gigerenzer, 2002). Gigerenzer Gigerenzer’s account of how judgment heuristics ought to aims to vindicate the rationality of human judgment by be represented provides a significant criterion that both discovering and promoting ecologically rational heuristics cognitive psychologists and naturalized epistemologists can that reliably produce true beliefs. Gigerenzer is a reliabilist use to prefer some cognitive process descriptions to others. in the sense that he invokes reliable cognitive processes to Gigerenzer’s stricter standard for the proper specification explain both the production and epistemic status of beliefs and representation of judgment heuristics is motivated by (Gigerenzer, 2001). his frustrations with the judgment heuristics and explanations put forward by Kahneman and Tversky’s The Generality Problem heuristics and biases research program. Both reliabilists and cognitive psychologists must grapple with the generality problem. For reliabilists, the challenge is The Representativeness Heuristic to figure
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