Can Science Debunk Rational Intuition? Steven D. Hales Department of Philosophy Bloomsburg University Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania 17815 USA According to traditional epistemology, we discover normative principles about how we ought to form and revise our beliefs through a process of consulting our preanalytic intuitions about various epistemic cases and formulating (or refuting) principles on the basis of these intuitions. We commonly think that looking at a stopped clock never justifies a belief that it is 2:00, no matter when we look at it. To make the normative element clear, we ought not form beliefs about the time on the basis of stopped clocks; we should find a better method.1 Any account of epistemic justification that entailed that one would have a justified belief about the time in the stopped clock case is thereby refuted. In a recent important paper2, Jonathan M. Weinberg, Shaun Nichols, and Stephen Stich argue that preanalytic intuitions are neither universally held nor somehow "pure" and uncontaminated by folk theory. The value of their work is that it is done empirically, utilizing the techniques of modern social science. At first blush, this empirical approach might not seem like anything new; many have argued that science can undermine specific claims based on intuition. The innovation of Weinberg et al. is that they are pushing for something quite a bit stronger. They want to show that science can debunk rational intuition. So not only is rational intuition fallible and open to possible refutation by empirical experience, but even more it is positively useless. Intuition has all the value for epistemology that psychic surgery has for medicine or voodoo has for warfare. Once we jettison magical methods like rational intuition, we can see clearly that naturalism is the only legitimate approach in epistemology. This is a bold program. Can it be made to work? I will argue no-even if science can defeat the intuitive justification of specific propositions, it is powerless to debunk rational intuition as a general method. The strategy of Weinberg et al. is to show that epistemic intuitions about familiar cases-Gettier's examples, Lehrer's Mr. Truetemp, Dretske's zebras vs. cleverly disguised mules in a zoo- systematically vary across cultural background and socioeconomic status. Weinberg et al. conducted surveys of Rutgers University undergraduates as to whether the subjects in Gettier, Truetemp, and Zebra cases "really know" or "only believe" the relevant proposition. The well-nigh universal view among professional philosophers is that one does not really know in a Gettier case, even though justified true belief is present. Weinberg et al. show that a statistically significant majority of students of East Asian descent do not share this intuition; they think that one really knows in a Gettier case. Over 70% of students of Western descent think one only believes in a Gettier case. Weinberg et al. found similar differences between the epistemic intuitions of those with an East Asian cultural background and those of a Western background in the Truetemp and Zebra cases as well. Weinberg et al. expanded their study off-campus to random adults on the street, this time controlling for socio-economic status (SES). Subjects were counted as low SES if they had never attended college, high SES otherwise. Again the researchers found that the epistemic intuitions of these groups were significantly different from each other. Weinberg et al. conclude from these studies that the rationalist project of deriving normative epistemic principles from intuitions about hypothetical cases-the very bread and butter of the epistemological literature-is bankrupt. There are no neutral, pre-analytic intuitions that everyone can consult to arrive at a common epistemology and continuing to pursue the rationalist approach would lead to an absurd Balkanization of norms: "epistemic norms appropriate for the rich [would be] quite different from the epistemic norms appropriate for the poor, and... the epistemic norms for white people [would be] different from the norms appropriate for people of color." At this point the traditional epistemologist is well advised to give up the understanding of philosophical intuition as involving preanalytic, pure concepts that are as universally held as innate Chomskian syntax. Rather, we should acknowledge that not all intuitions are created equal. Intuitions are and should be sensitive to education and training in the relevant domain. For example, the physical intuitions of professional scientists are much more trustworthy than those of undergraduates or random persons in a bus station. Richard Feynman, in The Character of Physical Law, argues for this very thing. "The inexperienced, and crackpots, and people like that, make guesses that are simple, but you can immediately see that they are wrong, so that does not count. Others, the inexperienced students, make guesses that are very complicated, and it sort of looks as if it is all right, but I know it is not true because the truth always turns out to be simpler than you thought."3 Professional physicists are able to see when they are right, even in advance of rigorous theoretical proof or experimental confirmation, Feynman claims, because "you can recognize truth by its beauty and simplicity." Whether Feynman is correct that these aesthetic criteria are the hallmarks of truth doesn't matter for my purposes here;4 the salient point is that scientists have and rely upon physical intuition, intuitions that are trained, educated, and informed and yet are good indicators of truth for those very reasons. In the same way, the modal intuitions of professional philosophers are much more reliable than either those of inexperienced students or the "folk." In other words, philosophical intuitions are more like the physical intuitions of professional scientists than they are like Chomskian grammatical intuitions. It frankly doesn't matter what the surveys of non-philosophers show about whether one "really knows" or "only believes" in a Gettier case. These surveys shouldn't lead us to dismiss the intuitions of philosophers any more than Feynman would dismiss his own intuitions about quantum electrodynamics on the basis of polling his Introduction to Physics students. Thus Weinberg et al. aren't really showing too much of interest. At best they are showing that there is a naïve conception of rational intuition that epistemologists should avoid. But this is far from proving their debunking hypothesis. At this point Weinberg et al. might rejoin that the the analogy above is a poor one. The rational intuitions of professional philosophers are not analogous to the physical intuitions of scientists. They are more like theologians' experiences of the divine-not testable empirically and seemingly irresolvable by argument. The physical intuitions of scientists can in principle be proven wrong by experiment, and there are plenty of examples of intuitively elegant theories that were junked in the light of experience. There is nothing to refute the intuitions of philosophers besides more appeals to intuition. It's just all intuitions dancing on the head of a pin. There are several replies that can be made to this approach. First, contemporary defenders of rational intuition are almost universally fallibilists. They all agree that in the case of philosophical propositions about, say, the nature of knowledge or justification, we might be mistaken. While there may be some difficulty in seeing how empirical evidence could refute specifically normative propositions, there is widespread agreement that empirical evidence can refute other purported philosophical truths apprehended by intuition, particularly in metaphysics. Second, "not testable empirically" is too big a gun anyway. So much for most mathematics if that is the criterion. Besides which, as in math and pure logic, philosophy has made genuine advances; lots of arguments thought persuasive by earlier generations have been shown to be inconsistent, dependent on shaky presuppositions, or otherwise flawed. Slow advance is still advance. The intuitionsof philosophers have in many ways converged in the same ways that the physical intuitions of scientists have become more uniform. Third, there is a burden of proof problem here. Weinberg et al. want to argue that 2500 years of rationalist epistemology has been a waste of time. To effectively make this case they need to show that the trained intuitions of professional philosophers are no better than the untrained intuitions of random citizens at a bus stop. An quick analogy with theologians is hardly an example of the hard scientific proof they think will kill off rationalist epistemology. In fact, it smacks strongly of an appeal to intuition. But in any case it seems that the burden of proof is on Weinberg & Co. to show that no one's epistemic intuitions are any better than anyone else's. Now, Weinberg et al. might deny that they have this burden of proof on the grounds that there is no neutral way to say that some epistemic intuitions are "better" than others anyway. Suppose we unpack "better" in consequentialist terms: A's intuitions are better than B's iff normative principles of reasoning extracted from A's intuitions (e.g. by a process of reflective equilibrium) lead to more true beliefs than normative principles extracted from B's. If this is the line taken, then traditional epistemologists need to show that intuitions trained by Western philosophy do in fact lead to more truth. Though the data on this is inconclusive, there is some reason to think that sophisticated thinkers in other (e.g. Asian) traditions would have importantly different intuitions. If it is indeed the case that philosophers and sophisticated thinkers in other traditions have different intuitions, surely it requires some heavy duty argument to show that normative principles extracted from the intuitions of Western philosophers do a better job at leading to truth. If the traditional epistemologist does not adopt a consequentialist interpretation of "better" then he is duty-bound to explain what he does mean when he suggests his intuitions are better than those of Asians or less well educated Westerners. My response is that it doesn't matter how we unpack "better." Pick a theory of justification, any theory. The Weinbergian argument is 1. The naïve intuitions of the person-on-the-street are different from the trained intuitions of professional philosophers. 2. The naïve intuitions of the person-on-the-street are no worse than (along any epistemic dimension) the trained intuitions of professional philosophers. 3. Therefore professional philosophers are wasting their time by appeals to intuition. They provide credible empirical data in support of premise (1), and the logic of the argument seems persuasive. But no argument for the second premise has been offered. While I agree that showing the instrumental value of intuition-based normative epistemic principles needs defense, I figure that since Weinberg et al. are the ones trying to show that most of Western epistemology has been a big mistake, again they are ones who have the burden of proof here. Otherwise their argument is just a fallacious appeal to ignorance-i.e. you traditional epistemologists can't show that your methods are epistemically superior, therefore they aren't. I conclude that Weinberg, Nichols, and Stich have given no compelling argument for their debunking hypothesis. References Feynman, Richard. 1965. The Character of Physical Law. Cambridge: MIT Press. Kim, Jaegwon. 1988 "What is 'Naturalized Epistemology'?" In Philosophical Perspectives 2: Epistemology, edited by J. E. Tomberlin. Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview Publishing Co. Weinberg, Jonathan M., Shaun Nichols, and Stephen Stich. 2002. "Normativity and Epistemic Intuitions," Philosophical Topics. Weinberg, Steven. 1992. Dreams of a Final Theory. New York: Pantheon Books. 1 (Kim 1988) compellingly argues that epistemology is essentially normative. 2 (Weinberg, Nichols, and Stich 2002) 3 (Feynman 1965) p. 171. 4 Although it is clearly an influential view, one endorsed by (Weinberg 1992).