Additional reflections on Inspiring Philosophy's discussion of intuition

I had dashed this response to Inspiring Philosophy off earlier, but have fixed it up a bit (typos, lack of clarity). I'll update it again if I notice any major problems or errors. See here.

Today, I want to focus on one of the claims Inspiring Philosophy makes in the video. Specifically, Pritchett says the following at 11:05:

Sometimes we get in trouble for telling people what they might intuit so I just want to say, is it possible that having formed that conclusion is it possible that he now intuitions determinism because he’s more convinced of it?

Inspiring Philosophy’s response is a bit hard to transcribe in a clear way. At 11:20, it sounds like he says:

I don’t think that is…I don’t think that…well let me just use the analogy of A-theory and B-theory of time.

IP goes on to argue that he finds A-theory intuitive, but believes for various reasons that B-theory of time is the correct position. Yet his intuition that A-theory of time does not change. It seems intuitive, he just rejects the conclusion that it is true in spite of it seeming, intuitively, to be true.

Fair enough; I agree this seems quite plausible in the case of A-theory and B-theory of time. I’m not fond of speaking of myself as having “intuitions,” but this is one case where I’m inclined to agree that (a) I have the intuition that A-theory is true, (b) I think B-theory is true, but (c) this has not caused me to change my intuitions; A-theory still “seems” true. In this respect, it would appear both my intuitions and philosophical stance on time are similar to Inspiring Philosophy’s.

Given IP’s response, he also never clearly states that it’s not possible for someone’s intuitions to change. However, he does point to the examples of theories of time and moral realism/antirealism, and states that we can’t live as though antirealism is true. This gives some indication that IP may think that we cannot have the intuition that we don’t have free will, but again, it’s not clear. IP’s views on the matter seem to indicate that our behavior reveals something about our intuitions, and with respect to free will, we can’t help but act as though we have free will. For IP to be correct about that, something about our behavior would have to necessarily entail a commitment or belief about some philosophical position. That is, if we made choices, or whatever, this would mean we must believe in free will.

This isn’t true, since, as I argued in the blog post, you can endorse determinism and reject free will without believing that people are unable to make choices. Nothing about my behavior, which involves making choices and doing what I want and deliberating about things and so on, in any way indicates that I think we have free will.

But we can set that issue aside, because I want to focus on a more general point:

Our intuitions can change.

And there is no reason in principle why studying philosophy couldn’t cause us to change our intuitions.

Here’s one way to think about why this is the case. Think of your intuitions at any given point in time. Are all of our intuitions static throughout our lives, never changing at all? No. They change over time. At any given point in time, whether you’re an undergraduate in philosophy, or someone in their thirties who never studied philosophy, or a retired philosophy professor with 50 years of experience, our intuitions are shaped by differences in our personalities, experiences, emotions, attitudes, cultures, education, and so on. And all of these features can and typically do change over the course of our lives. Most of those changes may have little or no influence on our intuitions. But some can, and do, shape our intuitions.

One of the stranger elements of Inspiring Philosophy’s response is that he seems to imply this isn’t really plausible in the case of free will (though again, it’s not clear, so I’m not entirely sure). Rather, it seems like IP presumes that for a given philosophical issue, there is some shared intuition people generally have, and that, regardless of what philosophical positions they endorse based on studying and reflecting, these intuitions themselves don’t change much. We could, in principle, create a list of what’s intuition: free will, moral realism, the external world, and so on.

And perhaps these are intuitions that most people have, that are stable most of the time, and that don’t change much in response to philosophical reflection.

But we must also keep in mind that intuitions exist against a backdrop of enculturation, history, education, and a variety of other influences that shape the way we think. And while it’s plausible most people around the world agree that there is an external world, it may be that some intuitions that seem just as natural and familiar to us, such as free will or moral realism, are simply not part of the way everyone, everywhere, all through history is disposed to think.

Some intuitions, no matter how obvious or natural they seem to us, intuitions that never go away despite our education, may entrench themselves, and maintain a psychological grip on us, not because they are “intrinsically intuitive,” or because they are likely to be true, or represent some shared feature of human psychology, but because some of our intuitions may be more embedded in our culture, ingrained in our languages, and embedded in the way we think.

Whether or not people under different circumstances would share our intuitions is an empirical question, and not one anyone can know from the armchair.

Once again, I must point out that philosophers frequently make what amount to empirical claims about the way other people are disposed to think and speak, even when those philosophers have little to no evidence to support such claims, and even when there is empirical evidence that conflicts with what those philosophers. We simply cannot know, merely by engaging in philosophical reflection, what other people’s intuitions or phenomenology is like. To find out, we’d have to ask them.

I’d be happy to discuss these and other issues with Inspiring Philosophy. So let this serve as an open invitation to IP to get in touch and have a conversation with me. I apologize if this post or my previous post are harsh and critical. I hope I was not disrespectful or rude in characterizing IP’s positions as mistakes or beginning by saying that I rarely think almost everything someone says is mistaken, but I do think that, and I see no reason to pretend otherwise. I am sure, given my views, many moral realists, proponents of free will, and so on would think I am mistaken about virtually everything. That’s the nature of these discussions. And, speaking for myself, I enjoy the fact that others disagree with me and think I’m mistaken about things. It gives us something to discuss.