Benjamin Jarvis and I have been working for some time now on a book manuscript on mental content, rationality, and the epistemology of philosophy. I posted a TOC of our first draft last summer. Since then, we've received some helpful comments from reviewers, and have revised extensively; we now have a full new draft, which we feel ready to share with the public. If you're interested, you can download the large (2.3 MB, 331 page) pdf here. Comments and suggestions are extremely welcome.
I'm including a table of contents of the new draft in this post, to better give an idea of what we're up to.
Showing posts with label rationality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rationality. Show all posts
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Friday, May 13, 2011
Rationality, Morality, and Intuition
Suppose that Katie is sitting out in the sun. Here are two propositions:
(1) It is sunny.
(2) Jonathan is wearing glasses or Jonathan is not wearing glasses.
It's pretty plausible to develop the case in such a way that each of (1) and (2) would be rational for Katie to believe, and irrational for her to disbelieve. Why is it rational for Katie to believe (1), and irrational for her to disbelieve it? Because of various experiences she is having, like the way the sky looks, and the way her skin feels. (Obviously.) Why is it rational for her to believe (2), and irrational for her to disbelieve it? Now that's a more interesting question. (Under some circumstances, Katie might be rational in accepting (2) in part because of her perceptual experience -- for instance, if she can see that I am wearing glasses. We stipulate that she doesn't know, or have any reason to believe, that I am or am not.) One answer that seems to be reasonably widely held is that, in just the same way that the rationality of (1) is explained by Katie's perceptual experience, the rationality of (2) is explained by her intuitive experience. I think that this is a very bad answer, and in this post, I'll press an analogy that I hope will make you think this answer very bad too.
If the rationality of (2) depends on Katie's intuitions, then, if she lacked the relevant intuitions, she would no longer suffer rational pressure to accept (2). But that's crazy. Imagine Katie's stupid counterpart, Dummy, who does not have any intuitions about (2). It's rational for Dummy to accept (2), and irrational for her to reject it, just like it is for Katie. The difference between Katie and Dummy is, Katie's intuitions help her to see what she has reason to accept. Dummy is blind to her rational obligations. Dummy doesn't escape rational obligations just by lacking intuitions. We can take it a step further, and imagine yet another counterpart, Crazy, who has the intuition that (2) is false, or even necessarily false. Would it be rational for Crazy to deny (2)? Definitely not. The rational thing for Crazy to do would be to reject her crazy intuition and accept (2). So the fact that (2) is rational for Katie does not depend on her intuitions.
This point is very obvious in the moral domain.
Dick has promised his shy friend to speak on his behalf to the woman he loves, but breaks the promise, deciding instead to woo the woman in question for himself. Our confident judgment that Dick acts immorally does not depend in any way on our assessment of his moral sensibilities. Dick may be a moral imbecile, who lacks sensitivity, even at the intuitive level, to his moral requirements. His failure to intuit in accordance with his duties to his friend constitute a moral shortcoming, and they do not by any means exempt him from said duties. Dick may even have had the intuition that betraying his friend was the correct action; still, that don’t make it right!
Nobody thinks that Dick escapes his moral obligations by failing to have the relevant intuitions, or even by having contrary ones. So nobody should think that of Katie, either.
(1) It is sunny.
(2) Jonathan is wearing glasses or Jonathan is not wearing glasses.
It's pretty plausible to develop the case in such a way that each of (1) and (2) would be rational for Katie to believe, and irrational for her to disbelieve. Why is it rational for Katie to believe (1), and irrational for her to disbelieve it? Because of various experiences she is having, like the way the sky looks, and the way her skin feels. (Obviously.) Why is it rational for her to believe (2), and irrational for her to disbelieve it? Now that's a more interesting question. (Under some circumstances, Katie might be rational in accepting (2) in part because of her perceptual experience -- for instance, if she can see that I am wearing glasses. We stipulate that she doesn't know, or have any reason to believe, that I am or am not.) One answer that seems to be reasonably widely held is that, in just the same way that the rationality of (1) is explained by Katie's perceptual experience, the rationality of (2) is explained by her intuitive experience. I think that this is a very bad answer, and in this post, I'll press an analogy that I hope will make you think this answer very bad too.
If the rationality of (2) depends on Katie's intuitions, then, if she lacked the relevant intuitions, she would no longer suffer rational pressure to accept (2). But that's crazy. Imagine Katie's stupid counterpart, Dummy, who does not have any intuitions about (2). It's rational for Dummy to accept (2), and irrational for her to reject it, just like it is for Katie. The difference between Katie and Dummy is, Katie's intuitions help her to see what she has reason to accept. Dummy is blind to her rational obligations. Dummy doesn't escape rational obligations just by lacking intuitions. We can take it a step further, and imagine yet another counterpart, Crazy, who has the intuition that (2) is false, or even necessarily false. Would it be rational for Crazy to deny (2)? Definitely not. The rational thing for Crazy to do would be to reject her crazy intuition and accept (2). So the fact that (2) is rational for Katie does not depend on her intuitions.
This point is very obvious in the moral domain.
Dick has promised his shy friend to speak on his behalf to the woman he loves, but breaks the promise, deciding instead to woo the woman in question for himself. Our confident judgment that Dick acts immorally does not depend in any way on our assessment of his moral sensibilities. Dick may be a moral imbecile, who lacks sensitivity, even at the intuitive level, to his moral requirements. His failure to intuit in accordance with his duties to his friend constitute a moral shortcoming, and they do not by any means exempt him from said duties. Dick may even have had the intuition that betraying his friend was the correct action; still, that don’t make it right!
Nobody thinks that Dick escapes his moral obligations by failing to have the relevant intuitions, or even by having contrary ones. So nobody should think that of Katie, either.
Saturday, April 09, 2011
False Intuition and Justification
Suppose somebody has a false intuition about an a priori matter. Is she justified in believing its content? Many plausible answers, of course, will begin with "it depends...". On what does it depend?
Ernie Sosa thinks that among the things upon which it depends is whether the false intuition derives from "some avoidably defective way"; such errors constitute "faults, individual flaws, or defects." (I think Sosa means these two quoted bits to be approximately equivalent, or at any rate, to apply together in the relevant cases.) Sosa thinks this is what is going on when somebody follows her strong inclination to affirm the consequent, inferring from q and (if p, q) to p. By contrast, "the false intuitions involved in deep paradoxes are not so clearly faults, individual flaws, or defects. For example, it may be that they derive from our basic make-up, shared among humans generally, a make-up that serves us well in an environment such as ours on the surface of our planet."
So Sosa's line is that false intuitions do not justify when they derive from faults, flaws, and defects, but do justify when they derive from our basic make-up and are generally shared among humans. I'm suspicious that this distinction will hold up to scrutiny. I think there may be an equivocation on the relevant kinds of 'faults,' 'flaws,' and 'defects' going on. In one sense, of course, one is flawed by virtue of being incorrect; beliefs are supposed to be true, so if one goes wrong, that constitutes some sort of defect. This, of course, cannot be what Sosa has in mind. Instead, he seems to be imagining flaws as deviations from some sort of imperfect but generally effective strategy for getting around in the world. This is, perhaps, the more ordinary sense of a defect. My computer, even when it is working properly, will occasionally crash; a tendency to crash constitutes a defect only when it is not working properly. And maybe there is a good reason why humans ought to have tendencies to accept, for instance, naive set theory.
The problem for this line is that there is also plausibly sound reason for humans to have tendencies to commit more obvious errors, like affirming the consequent. Given the environments we face, having a tendency to affirm the consequent will help us to recognize patterns and confirm hypotheses; inductive reasoning generally looks a bit like affirming the consequent. Similarly with other standard errors; they derive from heuristics that are generally helpful.
So we face a dilemma for upholding Sosa's distinction. Do we say that these errors — these false judgments arising from generally good heuristics — constitute defects or not? If not, then they are relevantly like Sosa thinks the intuitive premises involved in deep paradoxes are. If so, what makes them so, and why should they not apply also to the cases of the paradoxes?
Consider three people. First, the possible über-rational being who looks at me the way the fallacious gambler now looks to me. She describes us both as defective; as failing to live up to the standards of rationality. She can see that I am not tempted by one particular error (the gambler's fallacy) — but also that I regularly commit another (fallacy X), and have some attraction to a third (naive set theory). Second, myself: I think of the fallacious gambler as defective, but of myself and my peers, I think our attraction to naive set theory as nondefective; my more ignorant peers who have not studied philosophy, I even consider justified. (We will suppose I have Ernie's views.) Third, the gambler himself, who accepts his characteristic fallacy and naive set theory alike, and sees no defect in any of us. He considers himself justified in both cases.
All parties agree that the gambler is wrong; he proceeds in a defective way inconsistent with intuitive justification. But Ernie thinks I'm importantly different from him. Ernie thinks that I am not defective, but merely have some tendencies to affirm falsehoods that derive from my general human nature. Our rational superior, presumably, thinks of me as defective in just the same way as the gambler, but to a lesser degree. Does Ernie give any reason we should think her wrong about this?
Ernie Sosa thinks that among the things upon which it depends is whether the false intuition derives from "some avoidably defective way"; such errors constitute "faults, individual flaws, or defects." (I think Sosa means these two quoted bits to be approximately equivalent, or at any rate, to apply together in the relevant cases.) Sosa thinks this is what is going on when somebody follows her strong inclination to affirm the consequent, inferring from q and (if p, q) to p. By contrast, "the false intuitions involved in deep paradoxes are not so clearly faults, individual flaws, or defects. For example, it may be that they derive from our basic make-up, shared among humans generally, a make-up that serves us well in an environment such as ours on the surface of our planet."
So Sosa's line is that false intuitions do not justify when they derive from faults, flaws, and defects, but do justify when they derive from our basic make-up and are generally shared among humans. I'm suspicious that this distinction will hold up to scrutiny. I think there may be an equivocation on the relevant kinds of 'faults,' 'flaws,' and 'defects' going on. In one sense, of course, one is flawed by virtue of being incorrect; beliefs are supposed to be true, so if one goes wrong, that constitutes some sort of defect. This, of course, cannot be what Sosa has in mind. Instead, he seems to be imagining flaws as deviations from some sort of imperfect but generally effective strategy for getting around in the world. This is, perhaps, the more ordinary sense of a defect. My computer, even when it is working properly, will occasionally crash; a tendency to crash constitutes a defect only when it is not working properly. And maybe there is a good reason why humans ought to have tendencies to accept, for instance, naive set theory.
The problem for this line is that there is also plausibly sound reason for humans to have tendencies to commit more obvious errors, like affirming the consequent. Given the environments we face, having a tendency to affirm the consequent will help us to recognize patterns and confirm hypotheses; inductive reasoning generally looks a bit like affirming the consequent. Similarly with other standard errors; they derive from heuristics that are generally helpful.
So we face a dilemma for upholding Sosa's distinction. Do we say that these errors — these false judgments arising from generally good heuristics — constitute defects or not? If not, then they are relevantly like Sosa thinks the intuitive premises involved in deep paradoxes are. If so, what makes them so, and why should they not apply also to the cases of the paradoxes?
Consider three people. First, the possible über-rational being who looks at me the way the fallacious gambler now looks to me. She describes us both as defective; as failing to live up to the standards of rationality. She can see that I am not tempted by one particular error (the gambler's fallacy) — but also that I regularly commit another (fallacy X), and have some attraction to a third (naive set theory). Second, myself: I think of the fallacious gambler as defective, but of myself and my peers, I think our attraction to naive set theory as nondefective; my more ignorant peers who have not studied philosophy, I even consider justified. (We will suppose I have Ernie's views.) Third, the gambler himself, who accepts his characteristic fallacy and naive set theory alike, and sees no defect in any of us. He considers himself justified in both cases.
All parties agree that the gambler is wrong; he proceeds in a defective way inconsistent with intuitive justification. But Ernie thinks I'm importantly different from him. Ernie thinks that I am not defective, but merely have some tendencies to affirm falsehoods that derive from my general human nature. Our rational superior, presumably, thinks of me as defective in just the same way as the gambler, but to a lesser degree. Does Ernie give any reason we should think her wrong about this?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)