Questions for Discussion

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Questions for Discussion

‘When I have an intuition it seems to me that something is the case, and so I am defeasibly justified in believing that things are as they appear to me to be. That fact [...] opens the door to the possibility of moral knowledge.’

(Kagan, 2023, p. 167)

I admire Kagan because he’s so clear. He’s been going at this for at least a couple of decades. Although I don’t do ethics, I understand that he’s a significant ethicist.

Ok, so it’s about intuitions. But which intuitions?

Kagan mentions all kinds of intutions, and on his view there are intutions about relatively abstract matters as well as about particular cases.

Kagan’s focus is mostly on case-specific intutions. So let’s consider a case.

‘Edward is the driver of a trolley, whose brakes have just failed. [...] Edward can turn the trolley, killing the one; or he can refrain from turning the trolley, killing the five’ (Thomson, 1976, p. 206).

May Edward turn the trolley?

One interesting feature of this case is that many people can answer the question with some confidence.

This case is contrasted with another one ...

Why may Edward but not David?

That is one way to use claims about specific scenarios. But that is not our focus.

What’s interesting to us is how, if at all, we know the answer to the question about a single scenario.

Our concern is whether we know Edward may turn the trolley; and, if so, how we know that.

It looks like intuition might be involved here ...

But there are philosophers who deny this (Cappelen).

If you look closely, however, there does not appear to be a substantial debate.

Cappelen has quite strong requirements on something being an intuition.

F1: special phenomenology—Thomson does not appeal to any special phenomenology

F2: Thomson does not regard intuitions as closing discussion on whether Edward may. F2: justify but do not need justification so are a point where justification gives out (‘rock’)

F3: Intuition that p provides a justification for p that is based solely on the subject of intuition’s conceptual competence.

So we have to ask what Kagan has in mind by intuition.

As far as I remember, Kagan does not say what an intuition is.

Kagan (2023, p. 164) writes ‘I can easily imagine someone wanting a fuller account of what exactly an intuition is. I find that a difficult thing to provide.’ Kagan goes on to hint that an intuition is an ‘appearance’ that is ‘produced, or at least apparently produced, by reason’.

So we have to work out what Kagan has in mind by what he says about intuitions.

One thing is clear: he thinks that intuitions allow us to know whether Edward may.

Ok, so we have a sense that Kagan is interested in case-specific intutions, that is claims which you accept independently of having any inferential justification for them.

Next question: How do intuitions enable ethical knowledge?

How do intuitions enable ethical knowledge?

You might have a model on which you’re supposed to just know the claims that are your intutions, where you know them in virtue of these claims being intutions.

But that‘s not quite Kagan’s view. Here’s what he used to think ...

previously

‘it won't suffice if all we can do is organize these intuitions into systematic patterns.

Instead, [...] we need [...] a moral theory that goes below the surface and [explains] the moral phenomena that are the subject matter of our moral intuitions.’

(Kagan, 2001, p. 10)

What Kagan now has in mind does seem quite different from explaining the phenomena that are the subject matter of intutions ...

1. ‘If I have the intuition that P, then [...] my belief that P [...] will be justified [until such time (a time which may never come) as] I find reason to reject it.’

(Kagan, 2023, p. 166)

2. ‘what it is to confirm an intuition:

checking it against other intuitions to see if they harmonize in the appropriate ways.’

(Kagan, 2023, p. 172)

Aside: compare Rawls’ on reflective equilibrium

How are ethical intuitions like observations?

‘observation and intuition involve appearances; they are ways that things can seem to me to be the case.

in both cases

[the] fact that things appear to be one way rather than another [...]

provides the tentative justification for [...] believing that things are indeed as they appear to be.’

(Kagan, 2023, p. 164)

The sceptic needs to show there is ‘something especially problematic about moral intuitions, as distinct from others.’

(Kagan, 2023, p. 170)

a thought

What kind of grounds might we have to be sceptical of observations concerning physical phenomena?

Descartes is usually treated as interested in replying to skepticisms in our first year course, but I don’t believe his main contributions had anythning to do with that ... (apologies for reaheating etc)

This means that physical intuitons are a source of knowledge in a limited range of cases only. First point: we don’t base our understanding of the physical on common-sense.

‘In putting forward an account of light, the first point I want to draw to your attention is that it is possible for there to be a difference between the sensation that we have of it, that is, the idea that we form of it in our imagination through the intermediary of our eyes, and what it is in the objects that produces the sensation in us, that is, what it is in the flame or in the Sun that we term ‘light’’

(Descartes, 1998, p. 81 (AT XI:3))

Descartes, The World (AT 3)

Note that this is Descartes’ starting point (in an early work that was never published because of fear of religious repression.)

Further illustration (not from The World). Descartes’ explanation of why the rainbow is a bow. Relevant because of the gap between sensory perception and the things which cause it. And shows Descartes examines sensory perceptions.

physical intuitions
are a source of knowledge
but only within limits

McCloskey, Caramazza, & Green (1980, p. figure 2B)

McCloskey et al. (1980, p. figure 2D)

Kozhevnikov & Hegarty (2001, figure 1)

‘Two metal balls are the same size, but one weighs twice as much as the other. Both are thrown straight up with the same initial velocity. The time it takes the balls to reach a certain height H will be:’

Fix shape and size. Also fix initial velocity. How would increasing the object’s mass affect how quickly it decelerates when launched vertically? Impetus: larger mass entails greater deceleration (so slower ascent). Newtonian: larger mass entails lower deceleration (so faster ascent) if considering air resistance; otherwise size makes no difference.

simplified from Kozhevnikov & Hegarty (2001)

But even more convincingly, the prediction generated by Kozhevnikov and Heggarty’s conjecture about the computational description of the system underpinning representational momentum has been directly confirmed.

So while not decisive, I take this to be strong evidence for a \textbf{vertical distinction} between two systems for physical cognition.

reliable

unreliable

physical intuitions

straight tubes

horizontal motion

curved tubes

vertical motion

ethical intuitions

food sharing in small bands

cooperative breeding

trolley problems

climate change

‘ultimately we would like to identify the mechanisms which can lead to mistaken intuitions, since that might sometimes help us to confirm which intuitions are erroneous.’

(Kagan, 2023, p. 175)

Bit hard to take because actually there’s a good amount of research on This already and we can see roughly what the limits of intuition are likely to be from it.

Key points include relations between purity and disgust, and a distinction between faster and slower processes.

‘there must be some evolutionary advantage in having a faculty that [...] gets at least some basic moral truths right.’

(Kagan, 2023, p. 184)

cooperative breeding (Hrdy, 2011)

food sharing (Kaplan & Gurven, 2005)

small-scale cooperation

Here I’m thinking about not free-riding when unobserved (Not sure where I have a source from this; could be about religion?)

managing shamans and other leaders (Boehm et al., 1993)

Boehm et al. (1993) is a reference to reverse hierarchial dominance: you have fine-grained control over hierarchy.

To return to the start ...

(Kagan, 2023, p. 167)

But only within limits.

What does Kagan claim about the role of intuition in gaining moral knowledge? Is it so?

What is the relation between Kagan’s position and Rawls’ notion of reflective equilibrium?

Is Kagan right about the parallel between physical and moral intuitions?

Given Kagan’s position, what are the limits of moral knowledge?

appendix

Are case-specific intuitions a source of ethical knowledge?

anti

extraneous effects on intuition

(Rini, 2013; Sinnott-Armstrong, 2008)

cultural varation

(McGrath, 2008)

speed—accuracy trade-offs

(Greene, 2014)

bad control

(Cecchini, 2024)

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