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Intuition Pumps in Moral Philosophy Concerns Precisely What Leads Us to Have Certain Intuitions Rather Than Others

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Intuition Pumps in Moral Philosophy Concerns Precisely What Leads Us to Have Certain Intuitions Rather Than Others Intuition Pumps in Moral Philosophy Keith Dowding* Presented at Political Studies Association Conference April 2015 ABstract What are moral intuitions and what role do they play in moral theory? Rawls’s reflective equilibrium suggests that we test moral theories using our intuitions and then bring each into line to reach some equilibrium. Intuition pumps work by asking what are our immediate apprehensions about some story; they are then used to critique theories or principles. We can contrast them with thought experiments in science, which are often used to show our intuitions must be wrong. I critically examine the role that intuitions play in moral and political theory and suggest some principles for their systematic application. * An earlier version of this paper was first presented at the MSPT seminar at the ANU. I thank Christian Barry, William Bosworth, Dave Estlund, Ben Fraser, Anne Gelling, Seth Lazar, Nick Southwood, Kim Sterelny and Brad Taylor for their comments. 1 Thought Experiments and Intuition Pumps The use of imaginary cases to make philosophical and scientific points is widespread. As a class in both science and philosophy they are often called thought experiments (for example, Kuhn 1977; Wilkes 1998; Horowitz and Massey 1991; Sorensen 1991). Daniel Dennett (1980; 2013) coined the phrase ‘intuition pumps’ for the use of imaginary cases that he suggests are more casual than thought experiments. I will stipulate a distinction here between thought experiments and intuition pumps. A thought experiment is a deduction from a set of assumptions that leads to a contradiction or puzzle that leads us to give up some of our assumptions. It leads to us giving up some previous theory or ‘common-sense’ expectation. A good example is Galileo Galilei’s (2012/1632) Joining the Objects (see Appendix for all examples discussed in the main text), designed to demonstrate a contradiction in Aristotle’s account of velocity. Thought experiments may also be used to demonstrate an important result. Virtually all of Einstein’s positive results emanated from thought experiments. His work in both special and general relativity used thought experiments both prior to and as part of his mathematical demonstrations. In his Train thought experiment, he shows that, given that relativity says that objects can only be said to be in motion relative to each other, two events can only be said to be simultaneous in relation to some location (Einstein 1961/1916). There is no absolute sense of simultaneity. As well as demonstrating an implication from relativity, Train also knocks down a ‘common-sense’ expectation. My stipulation departs from what most previous writers have considered to be thought experiments that include a much broader class. In my account, 2 thought experiments are largely concerned with showing that our beliefs – perhaps based on previous theory – or our intuitions – based on common sense – are wrong. Intuition pumps are designed to do the opposite. They use intuitions as data to show a theory, or principle, or claim must be wrong. In that sense intuitions are used as data to disprove a theory or claim. In that sense they might be thought to be inductive. Having made the sharp distinction between thought experiments and intuition pumps, we can quickly see that there is a class of cases, indeed some of the most important and interesting ones, that share features of both. Schrödinger’s Cat does not show a contradiction in quantum theory, but demonstrates how just how bizarre the idea of superposition in the atomic world really is and forces a careful examination (over which there is still some controversy) over the interpretation of superposition. Judith Jarvis Thomson’s Violinist similarly straddles the thought experiment and intuition pump categories. It provides an analogy between two cases. If we think in the first case the right to life of the innocent foetus means abortion is wrong, then surely in the second case we think that the right to life of the innocent violinist means one has to stay hooked up to him for nine months. The second conclusion is deduced from the first, but it bumps up against our intuitions. Thomson has not produced a logically deduced contradiction that demonstrates that one argument for abortion must be wrong, but has shown that if one wants to hold to that argument, then one must also agree that a person must remain hooked up to the violinist. We are forced to look for some dis- analogies between the cases in order to reach different judgements of wrongness. 3 Victoria McGeer (2003) constructs an argument that two intuition pumps, Mary and Zombie, cannot be run together because they have inconsistent assumptions. So, according to McGeer, anti-physicalists cannot appeal to both Mary and Zombie, since the possibility of zombies undercuts the knowledge account of Mary. This can be seen as providing a contradiction; but it is actually an argument that uses two intuition pumps, rather than being an intuition pump or thought experiment itself. We can see therefore that there is a class of arguments that has features of both thought experiments and intuition pumps, and it might include some of the best and most interesting uses of intuition pumps in (moral) philosophy. However, the subject of this paper is how intuitions are used within intuition pumps. It is relevant to that broader class only to the extent that they use intuitions in the manner described here. I am interested (1) in the evidential nature of those intuitions, and (2) the manner in which that evidence is subsequently used in inferences from the intuition pump. The main claim is that we need to be suspicious of intuitions used as data. And secondly we need to be very careful in the inferences we can draw from such intuition pumps. Often the only inferences we can draw are ones pertinent to the example itself, and to any wider class of similar problems. I do not claim that intuition pumps should not be used in moral philosophy. We can hardly imagine engaging in that subject without them. But I do claim that they often cannot bear the argumentative weight placed upon them. 4 What Are Intuitions? Despite the ubiquitous use of intuitions in philosophy, philosophers themselves struggle to define them. David Lewis (1983, p. x) suggests they are ‘simple opinions’. Peter van Inwagen (1997, p. 309) agrees, saying they are ‘simply our beliefs’; whilst George Bealer (1998, p. 207) defines them as ‘intellectual seemings’. To the extent that intuitions are supposed to act as tests of theories or other beliefs, the fact that they are just beliefs or opinions might not seem to bode well. However, if it appears obvious that something must be the case, but this contradicts some other belief we hold, then at the least we should be led to re-examine that other belief. And that might be the role of intuitions: to lead us to re-examine our beliefs. The term ‘intuition’, however, seems to imply more than mere belief or opinion. It seems to carry some authority. This implication may derive from the term’s original scholastic employment to mean a spiritual perception or immediate knowledge.1 An intuition is evidential in the sense that it is something that strikes one as ‘evident’, rather than being a (mere) expression of belief or opinion. In that regard intuitions might be thought to resemble visual perceptions. This is indeed how social psychologists view intuitions. In standard psychological accounts, intuitions are recognitions of patterns in the data (for example, Simon 1992, pp. 155-6). Simon gives many examples of expert intuitions, including those of chess players. Grand masters see chess problems very differently from other chess players, even highly competent ones. In part, what they see are patterns in play recognized from previous matches, which enable them to concentrate upon specific lines of play beyond the rule- 1 In some accounts, revelations come from God, intuitions from angels. 5 based consideration of lesser players. Gary Klein’s (1999) recognition-primed decision (RPD) model experts see a pattern through an automatic function of associative memory and then consciously deliberate to check the evidence against the view that has come to mind. They see these patterns through experience. As something non-conscious as a perception, intuitions seem non- rational or unreasoned. They are a function of what Kahnemann (2011) calls fast thinking that experts can sometimes struggle to cognitively justify. Simply, they are everyday unconscious inductions. Such inductions are often considered to be non-rational or unreasoned – which we might simply take to mean they are not deductions. Indeed, in much of the psychological literature, a strong contrast is drawn between intuitions and reasoned justification. This literature uses the idea of dual-track reasoning, for which there is a great of evidence. Fast thinking unconsciously produces our intuition, slow thinking is a conscious reasoned cognitive process. Neural imaging techniques provide evidence of how different parts of the brain are utilized for intuitive (fast) thinking and reasoned (slow) thinking. This is often presented in Humean terms to contrast emotional fast thinking and reasoned slow thinking. People with damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC) clearly have impaired emotional responses, but are still able to perform straightforward cognitive tasks (Damasio 1994; 2003). However, they also make bad decisions in their lives and make choices that seem to demonstrate the radical intransitivity of preference that in formal theory is considered an important aspect of rationality. The contrast is thus not best made in terms of emotion versus reason. As Jonathan Haidt (2012, p. 55) has remarked: 6 Emotions are not dumb, Damasio’s patients made terrible decisions because they were deprived of emotional input into their decision making.
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