Do Intuitions Matter?
Maybe the issue isn't whose intuitions matter, or even what intuitions matter, but whether intuitions matter at all. Experimental philosophers adopt the view that philosophical intuitions play a significant role in contemporary philosophy, providing data to be explained by our philosophical theories, evidence that those theories are true, and reasons for believing them to be true.
This is true even for those experimental philosophers who think that learning more about how our minds work and how we think about philosophical issues raises concerns about the role that intuitions play in philosophical practice. In short, experimental philosophers take philosophical intuitions seriously, and this means that the philosophical significance of experimental philosophy depends, at least in part, on the significance of our philosophical intuitions. If it turned out that our intuitions weren't philosophically significant, then experimental philosophy would be left to occupy the unhappy position of taking seriously a way of thinking about philosophy not worthy of serious consideration in the first place - it would be philosophically insignificant.Along these lines, it has become increasingly popular to argue that philosophical intuitions don't play a significant role in contemporary philosophy. Max Deutsch (2010) advances this view, arguing that, while counterexamples play a significant role in contemporary philosophy, our intuitions about these counterexamples do not. According to Deutsch, whether someone has the intuition that a given counterexample is true is purely a psychological matter, and forgetting this fact is precisely what allows experimental philosophers to gain purchase in discussions of philosophical methodology. Jonathan Ichikawa (forthcoming) also resists the view that contemporary philosophy relies on our philosophical intuitions, arguing that, while philosophers rely on intuitive propositions, it is a mistake to think that this means that they are relying on intuitions as evidence or even that they are relying on intuitive propositions because they are intuitive.
According to Ichikawa, when philosophers appeal to the intuitive nature of certain propositions, they are attempting to make a dialectical move, not an evidential one.Whether philosophical intuitions do play a significant role in contemporary philosophy is a sociological matter, and a great deal depends both on how we interpret appeals to what we would say or how things seem to us to be, and on what sort of move we think is being made when philosophers appeal to such things. We will discuss the second issue in a little while, but before we do it is worth spending a moment talking about the way that philosophers talk about intuitions. Deutsch (2010), for example, argues that philosophical intuitions don't play a significant role in philosophy because most philosophical discussions simply don't include explicit appeal to our philosophical intuitions, even those discussions that are often treated as paradigmatic examples of the central role that philosophical intuitions are supposed to play in philosophical practice.12 This move seems too quick, however, for reasons that Alvin Goldman (2007) makes clear:
As a historical matter, philosophers haven't always described their methodology in the language of intuition. In fact, this seems to be a fairly recent bit of usage. Jaakko Hintikka (1999) traces the philosophical use of “intuition” to Chomsky's description of linguistics' methodology. In the history of philosophy, and even in the early years of analytic philosophy, the terminology is not to be found... This is not to say that historical philosophers and earlier 20th-century philosophers did not make similar philosophical moves. They did make such moves, they just didn't use the term “intuition” to describe them. (p. 2)
The point is this: the fact that philosophers didn't talk in terms of intuitions doesn't mean that they weren't talking about intuitions, and once we understand what is being said, it becomes clear that intuitions do play a central role in these discussions, even if the label doesn't.
Of course, the fact that philosophical intuitions do play a significant role in contemporary philosophy doesn't mean that they either ought to play this role, or even that they need to play this role.
Philosophers don't always have their own methodological best interests in mind. Timothy Williamson (2007) seems to take this view, arguing both that philosophical intuitions are methodologically inessential and that philosophy actually benefits from distancing itself from our philosophical intuitions. Williamson believes that philosophical intuitions are methodologically inessential because he believes that, at least in most cases, we have better evidence. So, for example, our best evidence that knowledge isn't simply justified true belief isn't our philosophical intuition that it is possible for someone to be justified in truly believing that p without knowing that p, but the fact that this is possible. It is the intuitive proposition, and not the fact that the proposition is intuitive, that counts as our best philosophical evidence. Williamson goes even further, arguing not only that we have better evidence than our philosophical intuitions, but also that we have good reason not to treat our philosophical intuitions as evidence, or at least not to limit our philosophical evidence to our philosophical intuitions, namely, that doing so invites philosophical skepticism. By limiting philosophical evidence to our philosophical intuitions we inherit the burden of demonstrating how the fact that it seems to us that some proposition is true provides us with good evidence that it is true; a burden that Williamson thinks it will be impossible to discharge.In short, Williamson thinks that we can get away with doing philosophy without having to appeal to our philosophical intuitions as evidence and, in fact, that we are much better off doing philosophy in this way since it avoids philosophical skepticism. As I have pointed out elsewhere (Alexander 2010), the problem is that we cannot actually do the kind of philosophical work that we want to do without, in some cases, appealing to our philosophical intuitions. To see why, let's think more about the Gettier cases.
According to Williamson, the best evidence we have that knowledge isn't simply justified true belief is the fact that it is possible for someone to have a justified true belief that p without knowing that p. So, for Williamson, something like the following argument is both valid and sound:(1) Gettier cases are possible (that is, there is nothing inconsistent about the cases).
(2) If a Gettier case were to occur, then the subject would have a justified true belief that p without knowing that p.13
(3) Therefore, it is possible for someone to have a justified true belief that p without knowing that p.
(4) Therefore, it is not the case that, necessarily, a person knows that p just in case she has a justified true belief that p.
Since the argument doesn't anywhere mention psychological facts about us, namely, our philosophical intuition that it is possible for someone to have a justified true belief that p without knowing that p, it seems to Williamson that the Gettier cases can work without having to rely on our philosophical intuitions as evidence whatsoever.
But, while it seems to be true that the argument for (4) doesn't require a premise reporting psychological facts about us, namely, our philosophical intuition that it is possible for someone to have a justified true belief that p without knowing that p, that doesn't mean that our philosophical intuitions play no evidentiary role at all in philosophy. Philosophy is, after all, an argumentative practice, concerned not only with establishing valid arguments, but also convincing people (sometimes ourselves, sometimes others) that those arguments are sound.
And, so not only does the question arise “why should we accept (4)?” - a question whose answer is “because of (1), (2), and (3)”; the question also arises “why should we accept (1), (2), and (3)?” And, here is where our philosophical intuitions seem to play an evidentiary role.Let's look at premise (2). Why should we accept (2)? Gettier is relying on our philosophical intuitions as evidence that (2) is true.
That is, Gettier expects the reader to accept (2) and the basis for this acceptance is its supposed intuitive appeal (to the reader, not just to Gettier).14 Therefore, intuitions do seem to play a role in the argument for (4) - albeit in an indirect way. They don't provide evidence for the truth of (4), itself. But, they do provide evidence for the truth of (at least one) key premise involved in the argument for (4). So, while we may be able to see that the argument is valid without appealing to our philosophical intuitions as evidence, those intuitions do seem to play a role in showing us that the argument is sound. That is, without appealing to our philosophical intuitions, we might be able to see that if (1), (2), and (3) are true, then so is (4) without being able to see that (4) is true.15
At this point it might seem like we've missed Williamson's point that our best philosophical evidence consists of known facts about the world. What is our basis for accepting (2)? It would seem that, according to Williamson, our basis for accepting (2) is simply the fact that if a Gettier case were to occur, then the subject would have a justified true belief that p without knowing that p.16 But, can this be right? The argument from the fact that if a Gettier case were to occur, then the subject would have a justified true belief that p without knowing that p to (2) would certainly be valid.
After all, the content of (2) just is the claim that if a Gettier case were to occur, then the subject would have a justified true belief that p without knowing that p. And, any proposition validly entails itself. The problem is that such an argument wouldn't have any persuasive force. If a person were not already convinced that a proposition is true, it would hardly help matters to simply assert that, in fact, it is. So, if a person is not already convinced that (2) is true, it hardly helps matters to simply assert that, in fact, if a Gettier case were to occur, then the subject would have a justified true belief that p without knowing that p. As such, the fact that if a Gettier case were to occur, then the subject would have a justified true belief that p without knowing that p simply can't be our basis for believing that (2).If what has been said is right, then it seems as if we must either admit that our best philosophical evidence consists of more than merely known facts about the world or we must abandon the dialectical view of philosophy according to which philosophy is an argumentative practice aimed at rational persuasion and according to which evidence must be capable of helping achieve this aim. Presented with these two options, Williamson seems willing to choose the second and abandon what he calls the “dialectical standard of evidence.” According to Williamson, the dialectical standard of evidence opens the door to skepticism.17 By adopting the view that evidence must be capable of persuading the unpersuaded, and since the skeptic is unpersuaded, we adopt the view that evidence must be capable of persuading the skeptic. But, since the skeptic is not only unpersuaded but unpersuadable, this view leads only to frustration - since the skeptic cannot be persuaded, the dialectical standard of evidence sets a standard that cannot be met. Our only option, according to Williamson, is to reject the goal of persuading the skeptic and, with it, the dialectical standard of evidence. As Williamson writes,
When one is warranted in refusing to play the skeptic's dialectical game, the dialectical standard of evidence becomes irrelevant. In refusing, one does not abandon one's claims to knowledge and reason, for the appropriate standard of evidence is non-dialectical. By that standard, the skeptic's peremptory challenge fails to disqualify the challenged fact as evidence. To neglect such evidence would be to violate the requirement of total evidence. One continues to assert propositions of the disputed kind on the basis of evidence, without expecting to find arguments for them that use only premises and forms of inference acceptable to the skeptic. Since escape from the radical skeptical predicament is impossible, one must take good care not to get into it in the first place. (2004, p. 123; 2007, p. 239)
It is not clear, however, why we can't adopt a theory of evidence that requires that evidence be capable of persuading the unpersuaded without requiring that evidence be capable of persuading the unpersuadable. Let's distinguish between the following two questions: “what is your reason for believing that p is true?” and “is that a good (enough) reason for believing that p is true?” The goal of the skeptic is to challenge, regardless of what our answer is to the first question, our ability to answer the second question in the affirmative. The skeptic about perception is happy to allow that our reason for believing that p is our perception that p, but casts doubt on the relationship between having the perception that p and p’s being true. The skeptic about memory is happy to allow that our reason for believing that p is our memory that p, but casts doubt on the relationship between remembering that p and p’s being true. And, the skeptic about judgment is happy to allow that our reason for believing that p is our intuition that p, but casts doubt on the relationship between having the intuition that p and p’s being true. The difference, then, between being unpersuaded and being unpersuadable (that is, being skeptical) rests on whether or not a person is willing to accept certain kinds of reasons as good enough reasons for believing that p. A person who is merely unpersuaded about the truth of p is willing to accept that there are reasons that would be good enough for believing that p and is waiting to hear those reasons; a person who is unpersuadable about the truth of p is unwilling to accept that any such reasons exist.18 But, provided this difference between being unpersuaded and being unpersuadable, there seems to be no good reason for thinking that in order for evidence to be capable of persuading the unpersuaded it must also be capable of persuading the unpersuadable. As such, the fact that nothing will persuade the unpersuadable shouldn't count against a theory of evidence that requires that evidence be capable of persuading the unpersuaded. And, there seems to be no reason why we can't adopt a dialectical theory of evidence that isn't hostage to skeptical worries.
There is also reason to think that we should adopt the dialectical theory of evidence. Consider why we value evidence at all. We value evidence because we value justification - that is, we prefer having beliefs that are justified to having beliefs that aren't. Why do we value justification? A natural thought is that we value justification because we value being in a position to be able to defend our beliefs when the truth of those beliefs is called into question. We frequently engage in practices that call upon us to defend our beliefs (either to ourselves or others) - that is, to provide reasons for believing as we do that are capable of persuading the unpersuaded - and we value being able to successfully do so. So, although there is a difference between a person's being justified in believing that p and being able to justify her belief that p, it seems that we value the former, at least in part, because we value the latter. Now, if we value evidence because we value justification, and we value justification at least in part because we value being able to justify our beliefs, what kind of evidence should we value? The obvious answer, it seems, is that we should value evidence that is capable of persuading the unpersuaded - only this kind of evidence will help us to justify our beliefs. As such, it seems that a simple reflection on why we value evidence reveals why we should adopt the dialectical theory of evidence.
Bringing these points together, it seems that we have independent reason to accept a dialectical theory of evidence, namely, the dialectical theory of evidence makes sense of why we value evidence in the first place, and that we can adopt the dialectical theory of evidence without inviting the threat of radical skepticism. If this is right, then given the choice between admitting that evidence in philosophy consists of more than merely known facts about the world or abandoning the dialectical theory of evidence, it seems like we should allow that evidence consists of more than merely known facts about the world. So, where does this leave us? We began by worrying that philosophical intuitions might be philosophically insignificant. Provided the close connection between experimental philosophy and the view that philosophical intuitions are significant, a threat to the significance of our philosophical intuitions is a threat to the significance of experimental philosophy. It turns out, however, that we actually can't do the kind of philosophical work that we want to do without, in some cases, appealing to our philosophical intuitions as evidence that certain philosophical claims are true and as reasons for believing as much, and that appealing to this kind of psychological evidence needn't invite philosophical skepticism.
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