Epistemic Intuitions: Adopting a Distinction from Moral Philosophy

Christopher Cloos — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:20:17 +0000

I’ve been thinking about two ways of understanding epistemic intuitions. The first view is the liberal view. This is the view proposed by Williamson, Ichikawa, Lewis and Van Inwagen. On this view intuitions are judgments or inclinations to judge. The motivation for this view is that it avoids psychologizing evidence. If intuitions are judgments, then they are not basic sources of evidence. They are more like acts of affirming a proposition rather than basic sources of evidence for the content of a proposition. The second view of intuitions is the restrictive view. According to this view intuitions are a special class of mental states and these mental states are capable of serving as evidence for the propositional content they represent.

In thinking about these two views it occurred to me that it is possible to adopt and adapt a distinction from moral philosophy. Consider reframing these two views in roughly the following way:

Non-cognitivism (liberal): Intuitions do not evidence the truth of propositions. Intuitions are akin to attitudes of affirmation of propositional content, but they do not count as basic sources of evidence for that content. Intuitions have no truth conditions; they are more like utterances “Yes, that P” or “I agree that P.” Intuitions are attitudes of desire, approval or disapproval.
Cognitivism (restrictive): Intuitions are states of mind (i.e., cognitive like beliefs are cognitive). Intuitions are able to evidence the truth or falsity of propositions. So, intuitions are capable of being basic sources of evidence.

Cast in this light, what can the debate over epistemic intuitions learn from the debate over the truth-value of moral propositions? Does this recasting of the debate over epistemic intuitions sharpen what is at stake?

Posted in Cognition, Evidence, Intuition, Jonathan Ichikawa

Moral Heuristics

Christopher Cloos — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 22:28:55 +0000

In my last post I claimed intuitions are often used (or should be used) like heuristic devices. As shortcuts of cognition, intuitions function as intellectual seemings that quickly move the agent from perception to judgment. This leap occurs without explicit analysis or sifting through evidence; instead, the agent references a rule of thumb. A rule of thumb is a generalization about what to do, think or feel in a certain situation. These generalizations are often highly intuitive and have the attractiveness of being common sense. The problem is that intuitions generated by and used like heuristics often reflect errors and biases.

My research is primarily in the area of reflective equilibrium. This method of moral justification is often charged with being intuition-laden, so the growing literature on experimental philosophy and intuition is of sincere interest. In the journal Behavior and Brain Sciences I came across an article about moral heuristics. It includes a primary article by Cass R. Sunstein and an extensive peer commentary on his article. Sunstein discusses heuristics and reflective equilibrium. Commentary related to this topic include: Peter Singer’s “Intuitions, Heuristics, and Utilitarianism,” Edward Stein’s “Wide Reflective Equilibrium as an Answer to an Objection to Moral Heuristics,” and Philip Tetlock’s “Gauging the Heuristic Value of Heuristics.” In discussing the link between heuristics and morality Sunstein states:

Much of everyday morality consists of simple, highly intuitive rules that generally make sense, but that fail in certain cases. It is wrong to lie or steal, but if a lie or a theft would save a human life, lying or stealing is probably obligatory. Not all promises should be kept. It is wrong to try to get out of a longstanding professional commitment at the last minute, but if your child is in the hospital, you may be morally required to do exactly that (p. 531).

I plan on posting on this article in the future, but for now I wanted to bring it to your attention. The article can be found at the following site within Cambridge journals.

Christopher Michael Cloos » Cognition

Epistemic Intuitions: Adopting a Distinction from Moral Philosophy

Moral Heuristics