Monday, May 14, 2012

[PHI 3000] Does philosophical method rest on a mistake?

[cross-posted on Experimental Philosophy]

Consider the following analogy: 

perceptual judgments : perceptual illusions :: intuitive judgments : intuition pumps
  1. Perceptual judgments elicited by perceptual illusions are unlikely to be correct because they are typically elicited by unusual situations that are ambiguous.
  2. Like perceptual judgments, intuitive judgments elicited by intuition pumps are typically elicited by unusual situations that are ambiguous.
  3. Therefore, intuitive judgments elicited by intuition pumps are unlikely to be correct.
The way I see this analogy is the following:

Square A seems darker than square B.
http://web.mit.edu/persci/people/adelson/checkershadow_illusion.html


Pushing the fat man off the bridge seems wrong.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/10/us/10foot.html

Just as perceptual judgments elicited by perceptual illusions, such as the checkerboard illusion, are unlikely to be correct, intuitive judgments elicited from thought-experiments, such as the Trolley Problem, are unlikely to be correct, since both perceptual illusions and intuition pumps are elicited by unusual situations that are ambiguous.

What do you make of this argument?

No comments:

Post a Comment

This is an academic blog about critical thinking, logic, and philosophy. So please refrain from making insulting, disparaging, and otherwise inappropriate comments. Also, if I publish your comment, that does not mean I agree with it. Thanks for reading and commenting on my blog.